Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Walleye still small

So I caught one of my walleye yesterday, and the perch are larger. After 2 years, I would assume they should be larger than 7-8 inches and a little thicker. (Sorry no pics). It is obvious they are not doing very well though my sample is the one I caught, and the dead one from earlier this year.

I seem to have plenty of forage in the pond, many FHM, baby YP, and BCP. Tons of bullfrog tadpoles. I feed the perch daily, so it is expected they will be a little more robust than the WE, but still, puny WE is bothering me.

My guess is while the pond is deep and cool (15 feet in places) it is just too darned bright for WE, and not ideal habitat for them. The water clarity is better than 8 feet.

Any suggestions what I can do?

One other thought; I did not have many of the smaller size classes last year left at the end of the year. If the WE starved then, will they ever catch up and thrive, or will they forever be stunted?

I may switch my top predator to SMB instead if the WE cannot thrive.

Thanks.

The glass is half full thought is that they spawned and your catching one year old walleye.

Would the size you dropped in be mature enough to populate?

Cheers Don.

Highly unlikely they bred in the pond, last year I had very little water flow through the pond. Nowhere appealing for a WE to breed, plus too large to be last year's fry.

If they were actually a breedable size, this year they would have thought they were in a river and gotten all confused and bred. It rained crazy amounts for us yesterday (and earlier this spring) and caused me a pond flush yet again. The whole pond whirl-pooled like a large toilet and dropped 8 degrees in temperature. It washed my bridges out and eroded a fair chunk of inlet and moved 18" plus diameter rocks downstream. Luckily the outlet had very little damage due to the stone treatment I gave it after this spring's floods. Looking for ideas in another thread to control the inlet.

The idea of using walleye is I like to fish, but not often enough to keep the herds of top predators trimmed if I were to have LMB. I figured a non-breeding fish would be perfect to let me keep things in balance. Replace them as I harvest them. The problem is these WE are not growing enough to keep the herds of BCP trimmed, as those little buggers grow far too fast for a small WE to eat them for very long. The window of opportunity is too short. Now I am looking at having to trap/fish out the BCP.

Not to mention those *!@#~! BCP wont jump on the hook for me to keep their numbers down. They seem to like to forage just fine, more than my lures, and are getting large. We catch the perch like crazy, we cannot keep them off of the hook, and those I want to keep in the pond.

Any ideas to help keep the BCP down and help the WE would be appreciated. I am not set on a WE top predator pond, but I wanted something different than a bass pond. Water is too warm for trout most years, though this year I think I could have pulled it off.

Maybe I should see if I can get my hands on a coupe of same-sex bass or larger WE.

It is common in my experience for walleye to grow slow sometimes very slowly in ponds. This could be due to several reasons. 1. lack of proper forage, 2. BCP are compressed shape with spines and this is not preferred food of WE. Consumable but not preferred, not easily located, nor easily encountered - caught, thus the WE do not eat much. 3. it is possible the fish were graded (sorted for size) before you bought them and you got the smaller group comprised of mostly male WE. Males grow a lot slower than the females. My experience is WE do not grow well nor eat a lot of pelagic pond fish such as young BG, BCP or other fish that will inhabit more open water. WE like/prefer YP or minnows that inhabit areas of bottom habitat. IMO you will have to think of WE in your pond as a bonus fish and not a major predator force at least to the BCP. Your WE are likely eating more young YP than young BCP.

IMO the walleye are not growing slow due to brightness and clear water because the walleye could easily feed as dusk, dawn, and during moonlight nights which are normal feeding times for WE esp in clear water habitats.

To better control your young blk crappie (BCP) for your goals, I would use hybrid striped bass (HSB) assuming they are legal in NY. ewest has a very good article in May-June 2014 Pond Boss magazine: "Crappie - The Enigma". In the article he discusses how some have discovered that HSB can be effective at successfully controlling crappie populations. HSB and young crappie are open water fish so when they are together the predation can easily occur.

I thought about it, but on this page it lists the states in which they are prohibited:
http://www.jonesfish.com/content/hybrid-striped-bass

Oh yes, going to have some words with Finger Lakes Aquaculture soon about my little BCP population explosion. Thought a local fisheries expert would know what he was talking about, so I weighed his opinion higher than here. Too late now!

liquidsquid, double check with your state rulebooks or those who 'interpret' the rule books. Jones page says HSB are not allowed in Michigan, but that is not correct. Jones may not have passed the necessary hoops to be authorized to ship to Michigan but that is different than saying that it is not legal to have HSB in your pond in Michigan. There are several posts in the archives that indicate that HSB are legal in Michigan.

Search, double check, ask on the forum, and see if there may still be a possibility.

Here is a link to the approved fish sellers in NY.
http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/52348.html
None sell HSB. Okay my mistake, Suny College is listed as selling HSB. SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology. Morrisville, N.Y. 13408

To get good control of your BCP you will likely have to resort to a dense population of LMB in the 6"-12" range. even then you may have to manually thin some sizes of BCP when recruitment is 'high'.

On the positive side the best thing about walleye not growing very fast is they are only able to eat small forage fish. This is good for a couple reasons. 1. Small fish of each species are always the most abundant ones that need the most thinning or numbers reduction. 2. Larger predators often eat larger fish and in the instance of large predators, often they eat fish that could be harvested for table use. For an example, large walleye of 24+" can eat 8"+ yellow perch that are a good cleanable size. I would rather have my walleye stay small to eat primarily the small 2"-4" YP to thin the herd so remaining perch grow better.

When choosing fish to stock it is important to select compatible prey and predator to optimize the chances of fishery balance.

I almost went to Morrisville to pursue engineering. Instead I went to Alfred, NY which was a heck of a party school. At least back in the late 80's it was... I will try and give them a call, though it is late in the season now. The good thing is all of this rain dropped the pond temp down to 73 degrees, and made it murky (thus dark) so not too bad for introducing fish.