Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Supplemental Stocking Fatalities?

With FHM in the pond I think the SMB will focus on eating FHM; PS should be pretty safe until FHM are few numbers. Predators often tend to feed on a certain food type (usually what is most abundant) until it becomes in short supply & harder to locate then they switch to alternative foods. FHM are cheaper than PS which is why I suggested adding more FHM.

If Keystone has them I will bump up the FHM to 10 lbs when I pick up the fish on Wednesday. If they have enough YP to bump my order to 50 from 25, I will bump the FHM to 15 lbs. Sound right?

Hand sort the FHM. Take your time, small batches, have aeration, take breaks, invite friends and teach them how to id FHM from BG, BH or other invasives to help relieve pressure. This is your one chance to make a fatal mistake, take your time, sort deliberately.

Or...

Dump all 15 G and have a beer while you watch them disperse throughout the pond and pray.

So yelling into the bag "Anybody not a FHM raise your fin" is not an approved sorting technique?

Why didn't I think of that?

Hey at least our techniques of sorting are similar....both involve beer!

Serious though, don't reputable hatcheries have quality control measures in place to insure their customers get what they order and no "extras?"

First, define reputable.

Good point.

I guess the best we can do is rely on forums like this. Unfortunately, human nature is to complain about the bad. I suspect members report most often those times when they got "extras" and do not report near as often the many more times when they got all great healthy fish.

Is there room in a forum like this for a topic on rating hatcheries based on personal experiences?

Thinking about it a little more, reviewing a hatchery is not like reviewing a coffee pot you buy at Amazon. With a coffee pot you can take it home and instantly know whether you get good coffee. With a hatchery, a year or two down the road when that GSF of BH shows up is when you know things did not go that well. To establish a meaningful database, you would need committment from members to follow up on their reviews over a period of time. Not an easy task.

Also, with the varying nature of some ponds, how to tell for sure? If you happen to have a high water event that brings water over the ground into your pond, (or even out of your pond to another BOW or stream), how can you tell for 100% certainty that the GSF, Bullheads, Common Carp, etc. didn't get washed or swim into your pond when you notice them 2 years later? (Yes, that is a LONG question. )

Bill - FHM orders are most sensitive on cool water species ponds - where apex predators have a limited gape. YP, SMB, WE, HSB fisheries are vulnerable to invasives like BG, BH, CC, etc. because their gape limits their ability to prey on advanced sizes of these fish. I would not worry nearly as much in a BG/LMB fishery hand sorting FHM - but a cool water fishery purposely omitting BG can be ruined by just a couple mistakes.

I have stocked FHM from Arkansas Pond Stockers - fish truck when I was a wee pondmeister 8 years ago - and now have a permanent BH population in my main pond fishery.

I stocked FHM from a very reputable hatchery from MN who supplies 90% of all FHM and Shiners in NE and IA. I was assured their cells contained nothing invasive, but even these had at least a few BG and BH. I ordered 10,000+ for my trophy YP/BG pond, and had to drain, seine, and nuke with lime a few weeks ago due to BG infiltration and reproduction. It's sad to see thousands of grass shrimp, fathead minnows, and crayfish obliterated - the result of two years worth of forage base management down the tubes only to start all over again from scratch. TWO female BG caused this...and they came from the minnow stocking.

For cool water species fisheries, the risk outweighs the effort of hand sorting FHM or any high qty fish stocking. I've blown it twice, and even I'm not that obstinate to risk it again.

TJ, sorry about the infestation. IIRC, you have access to water. Did you let rains refill the pond, or did you refill it from your well? Also, how long did you let the lime set before you refilled?

Hey TJ,

Thanks for the good advice. I will sort the FHM.

Question on your post. I am missing something I know. You said 2 female BG infested your YP/BG pond. What was different about the 2 from the BG you already have in the pond that caused the problem?

Several years ago I found way too many shiners mixed with other fish from a supposedly reputable hatchery that raises their own.

No watershed/runoff, top ponds all irrigated through well water only.

Lime sat for 2 weeks before refilling. Got PH up to 12.4 and the shrimp/crays/fhm were hopping onto the bank to escape the water. It was unbelievably brutal to witness 2 years of effort destroyed in 15 minutes.

I could have probably refilled immediately since I got water level down to a few inches, and the PH would have dropped naturally getting mixed with all the new well water. But I wanted to let it sit for a few days and so I could record some of the carnage. The coons and birds made quick work of nearly everything in 24 hrs, so I wasn't able to record how many, if any, YOY BG were in the mix.

This .35 AC pond is female YP and male BG fishery - designed to grow trophies only with heavy supplemental feeding program and several layers of forage base [crayfish, grass shrimp, fhm]. If a single male YP or female BG are introduced my goals are toast - due to reproduction. I had no clue what was going on initially - just that I trapped a YOY BG in a minnow trap about 8 weeks ago. The land is still scorched where I found that 1" BG. I suspected the worst, hoped for the best, but running a net around the margins yielded a few more yoy BG. Sigh.

I knew I had no choice but to drain, seine, and nuke. During seining, sure enough, we found two female BG - about 4-5", and one 8" BH. Will never know full qty of YOY BG as everything was cleaned up after lime treatment - though not sure I would have sifted through thousands of decomposing FHM to count BG anyhow. My guess is the young female BG were stocked Fall 2013 or Spring 2014 and had a very light spawn, and most recruitment was limited by heavy YP predation. Next year, however, imagine those female BG getting up to 7-8" and dropping 80,000 eggs 3 times over the Summer! Stunted BG and fishery exceeding carrying capacity. Figured it was far easier to reset now than wait for the inevitable.

I caged the BG and YP [the ones that escaped the GBH carnage during low water levels] I could salvage and have refilled the pond and started stocking grass shrimp last night. Several BG had major GBH wounds - I'm sure I lost several nice fish during the drawdown period. Still not sure if I'll wait until Spring to reintroduce BG and YP or not. I think I'll hand sort a few light orders of FHM yet this fall and wait until March to stock BG, and YP will go in June/July to allow FHM a few spawns.

Important to note - all YP appeared sub 100 WR, while BG averaged around 110-120 WR. Cody hypothesized the YP were bullied out of the feeding zone by the bull gills, and never entirely took to FHM feeding due to their feed trained nature. My goals of a trophy YP/BG fishery may not be possible in light of this...but I'm giving it another try but will stock 50% non feed trained YP this time around and see if it make a difference.

Another note - the original 75 crayfish stocked had a significant and unsuspected impact on the fishery. We removed at least 2500 - 3000 adult crayfish - so they did very well with lack of apex predator which could prey upon adults. Also, my american pondweed and chara was 100% denuded in the pond, which I never thought I'd see happen. Lastly, the high population of crayfish rendered a somewhat turbid cast which always mystified me - clarity was around 24-30" most of the year which was puzzling as it's 100% well fed and normally clarity of 50"+. Now I know, the crays were stirring up the bottom foraging - maybe for uneaten pellets. Still debating on whether to stock crayfish again or not. If I do, I might add 5 female SMB to graze on the crays, maybe 5-10 WE, too.

Sorry for the hijack, I've been meaning to post this for some time, just now had a few minutes.

TJ, I think you are on the right track with the BG/YP, but if you want the FHM to survive the SMB onslaught you problbly should stock 12+ fish.

Flip side of the coin. If they are feed trained, they'll be the bullies until satiation.

I want to stock some of these red shiners in the trophy pond...max 3-4" and prolific spawners - will help relieve some pressure off the FHM population. Now I have to source these suckers...closest supplier is NC or TX, and can't get a hold of TX.

Hey TJ,

Well I sorted the fish I got yesterday per your advice. The YP were all in good shape and no stowaways in the bag. The PS were ok with 5 tadpoles as stowaways. The FHM took quite a while to go thru. Did not find any GSF, BH etc but did find approximately 5 to 10% were stickleback, not FHM. Right or wrong, I went ahead and stocked the stickleback. Hope that wasn't a rookie mistake!

I would have left the stickleback out, they are very good at hiding in places that predators can't get to. I don't think the will be a problem but they will take up some biomass that could be better used elsewhere.

Stickles won't impact fishery IMO - I stock them too. Look like YOY WE, don't they? 5-10% stickles is way too high, you should mention it to your supplier and request a partial refund. I know I'd refund a customer of mine.

Well done, you can sleep well at night, provided you in fact did ID every minnow...it can get tiring, and urge to get lazy near the end of the process with frozen fingers can become quite strong, at least in my experience. Good job on the stocking, and thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Frozen fingers is right! I used a two step process. After I dumped the bag into a tub I used a small bait bucket size net to fish some out and then spread these into a large skimmer net in a single layer to view better.

I also yelled into the bag "Anybody here not a FHM raise a fin." Apparently, stickleback do not speak English cause they did not come forward.

I remember seining the creek for minnows when I was a kid. Stickleback were so cool. They looked prehistoric to me. Always thought they would be great as the sea monster in one of those old horror movies where they used closeups of lizards, etc as the monsters.

I did send an e-mail to the hatchery letting them know how high a percentage I found. I will let you know if they reply.

Hey Shorty,

You bring up an interesting point. The stickleback are more elusive than the FHM. I am wondering whether that is a bad thing or a good thing. Once the FHM have been ravaged by hungry predators, is it good too have some minnows a little harder to catch left in reserve? Also, do stickleback reproduce in a pond? I always thought of them as a shallow stream fish.

With smallies and YP, I think it'll be no big deal.