Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Walley?

Where can one find some walleye to stock with in Ontario area. I did ask my perch supplier who supplied me with my perch and he suggested large mouth bass. I know he suggested this because this is another fish he raises.

I am 100% sure I do not want to add any bass to my pond ever unless I can not manage the perch. Bass in my pond large or small are going to be my last resort.

My main goal is to take out 100-200 10-13" perch a year from my 7/8th of an acre pond will adding new pellet trained perch every year. I am looking for a alpha predator that will be easy to maintain and will effectively maintain my young perch born in the pond.

What about wild walleye? The problem is getting the small ones 8-10". These will not make the river spawn from the lake. Everything is 20" or bigger that make the river spawn.

Anyone with any thoughts?

Cheers Don.

I have heard that YP only fisheries can manage themselves, but I am not speaking from experience. IIRC Condello has fished some YP only fisheries and their conditions were outstanding, according to his experience. I think Cody would say a lot depends on the vegetation present in the BOW - more vegetation means YP population is harder to manage - meaning the need for higher qty predators to control.

I think Cody has historically supported WE as a good YP management predator, and might even manage a YP/WE fishery on his place. The WE will serve as a bonus fish which also happens to be great table fare, which is another benefit. You can play with WE population density until your desired results for both species are achieved.

I have experience with SMB - love their presence in my fisheries, and feel they could also provide YP management if you can control their population. SMB will spawn, and likely recruit up there, which adds another element to manage [SMB population]. That may or may not be something you want to mess with.

WE are probably the easiest solution since you will likely have full control on their population with supplmental stocking annually.

Sounds like a super cool project - and I'll be watching with extreme interest as this is also something I would like to do someday.

Donno, a client has a SMB/YP/RES/FHM/GSH pond. He aerates but does not feed. So far the fish are doing well.

Ontario is a rather large place, what part?

There is a Walleye farm in the UP of MI that supplies to Canada farms: http://michiganwholesalewalleye.com/

That's the only place I've found (so far) that I can get ~2" Walleye in Michigan. The minimum order is kinda staggering, so a major upscale from original intent is in the works.

Your pond plan is not a 'normal' predator-prey YP fishery because of your plan is to add new pellet trained perch each year in addition to the annual natural recruitment of perch to achieve a high harvest rate of 100-200 perch per year, especially if you strive for the harvest of 200 perch per instead of 60-80, maybe 100/yr. I am not sure the pond will "handle" this high 200 production rate plan for very long before you see significant problems. I have seen pictures of your pond and I assume that you would like for the pond to maintain it's current attractive condition. The high rate plan creates a large carrying capacity for the pond and will likely result in eventual plant weed - algae problems and reduced water quality due to the continual high nutrient inputs.
As background and using standard weights, 100 10" YP weigh 53 lbs and 200 weigh 106 weigh 106 lbs.
The 100 13" YP weigh around 124 lbs and 200 weigh 248 lbs.


The basic plan makes some sense to me because this is the way that I manage my perch pond. I add pellet trained YP each year to the pond, but my annual harvest is a lot lower (28-35/yr) than the 100-200 per year goal of Dono. With just my productivity I have weed-algae problems due to fertility issues. I think the amount of pellet food added each year to produce 100 fish harvest I think will need to be around three to four times the harvest poundage. I don't think a 2 lb pellet to 1 lb weight gain will be realistic in a pond setting. Maybe I am wrong. The plan becomes more complicated because it becomes difficult to determine how many YP to add each year because one does not really know how many young perch are recruited annually.

I said all that to say this. I like your plan, but think your goal is too high at least initially. For the first couple years lower your harvest goal until you see how the pond 'handles' the carrying capacity. Then if 'things' appear acceptable gradually increase the annual stocking, feeding, and harvest rates.

As far as predators first try the plan without predators. Walleye will add to the total pond carrying capacity. Walleye will normally grow (20"-26") and eat larger YP that could include your annual stockers. Since this is a relatively new pond and you have limited experience at this, for starters and to learn how the fishery performs try the management plan without additional predators. Reduce perch numbers by manually thinning with seining, trapping and angling. Selectively remove only the thin bodied YP that are apparently not eating pellets. Watch. learn, and adjust your management based on what you are seeing happen each year.

In addition to what JKB said,,, contact the michiganwholesalewalleye people and ask who near you is getting walleye. Then contact that buyer in Ontario to get some of their ordered-delivered fish. They may buy a few extra for your needs. Or maybe meet the delivery truck in Ontario for filling your small order.

However as noted above I do not like adding WE to your YP pond because you do not know how many fish and what sizes the WE are eating per year. You loose some management information by adding WE to your YP production pond. Stick with manual removal of YP and you will have better control of the fishery.

What a great site and vast information that is available.

The fish in our pond this year consumed 150#s of feed this past summer. So going off your numbers 50#'s of perch removal should be the most realistic goal here as well. I do like the thought of letting the pond do its thing for a few years and see what transpires.

Here is a small story. I have a good friend that has a 6-7 acre perch pond. The pond was stocked with perch only back in 1996 with 10,000 perch from 2"-8". The pond is full of coontail. So much in the summer you can't fish the pond. It is a gravel pond feed by a spring. The water can come up three feet in a week if we were to put a few planks in the dam. Problem fish are 6" suckers. Never see any bigger then that or catch any bigger then that. We trap them out in the spring with minnow traps with the holes cut bigger. We then dispose of them for tree fertilizer. This pond has been on its own for years there is so many fish and feed it is very hard to catch the larger fish. Being a fisherman all my life I have never fished a stocked pond that is so hard to catch the bigger fish. We can only catch the perch in this pond with worms. They will not take anything other than worms. We do not have a source for leaches or I would give them a go.

We were ice fishing this pond yesterday and we could not catch anything at all. It could have been the weather change or the fish are just not there. When we do catch fish they are small 5-6" and many many many of them. They are thin but good and healthy well coloured. In the spring in this pond we can trap hundreds of 2-3" perch easy in an hour. About 25 in 15 minutes per trap.

I can't figure this pond out and my fishing (know it all) in-stink is that this pond would be loaded with large 13" perch easy and should fill a bucket. The more and more I spend time on this pond it terrifies me that my pond will end up like this. I find my self second guessing my work and over thinking that I need to have walleye in my pond or I am doing something wrong.

In our pond currently the fish have no place to hide. We have some hardy lilly pads and a sick bed for spawning. The bed consists off one apple tree sunk in the pond and some blue spruce. Other than the few rocks that were rolled into the bottom when digging the pond that is it, well and the dock.

I can and do have a constant flow of 3000 gallons of water coming into the pond and out of the pond all winter so far. It is just a mater of shutting the pumps off if I want. I can turn on both pumps for 6000 gallons per hour if I want into our pond. This water comes into the pond over our waterfall. I have a waterfall pump that pumps 9,000 gallons per hour as well from the pond over the falls. I think this is the key or dumb luck of having the shiners spawn in our pond this year. If it happens again this year I will confirm that the falls is the key to the shiners populating.

Cheers Don.

Post was enhanced with extra info on the 2nd day. The features that are causing small limited size perch in the "story pond" are several fold.
1. Too many perch per acre were originally stocked.
2. There were no other predators and the YP were not pellet trained thus both contributed to too many hatchlings initially surviving and all overabundant older and new YP had to survive on natural foods that were in limited supply. Too many mouths to feed on limited natural production results in slow growing perch that "hit the growth wall" at small sizes of less than 7". This also happens with numerous other species of fish when there are too many for the food supply.
3. Too many weeds for small fish to hide so larger perch cannot adequately feed on perch fry and smallest fingerlings. Too many YP survive each year thus the population gets out of control quickly.
4. Too many YP/acre result in severe food shortages. Pellet feeding can have a big impact to make up for and reduce food shortages providing the YP will eat the pellets which can be a problem with wild perch populations. Adding new pellet trained YP each year or two maintains a pellet eating population with fast growing adults. The smaller a YP pond is, the easier it is to remove enough small hatchling or YOY perch each year to keep the population balanced (reduced) and growing well. In a weedy 6-7 acre pond it is very, very difficult to remove enough fish to achieve a proper balance or density. Thus predators are often needed to consume the smallest fish. Count on EACH predator to eat 200-300 forage fish per year in 'normal' situations. Youngest predators generally eat the smallest fish in the new annual crop.

To correct the 'problem' in the 'story pond' stock lots of predators and when the YP start growing and reach 8"-9" start removing numerous predators. Note the new predators need to be big enough to right away start eating the most common size of overabundant species. Then to maintain a balance,,,, the numbers and sizes of the both species need to be annually assessed-monitored and adjusted. Weed control, at least partial, would also be helpful to fix the problem of predators locating forage fish.