Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Help Stocking a Large Quarry

Hello everyone, first time poster and glad to be here! I was recommended to this site by a member of another forum because of a project I'm working on.

I'm in a local scuba club for the Pittsburgh, PA area. Our regular dive spot is a private, 20 acre quarry about an hour north of us. This quarry has a very healthy population of the fish it currently houses, but we've all come to the conclusion, including the owner, that the biodiversity is not very high, so we're looking to stock some more species.

Some more details about the quarry first though. Depth ranges from 1' at the shallowest area to 33' at the deepest point. Surface water temp fluctuates from 32-74 seasonally and bottom temp ranges from 38-56. The substrate varies from a dirty gravel and coarse sand mix close to shore to a thick carpet of silt as you get closer to the center of the quarry. This place is very heavily vegetated, giving smaller fish and fry plenty of places to hide. Visibility on average is 5-20 feet with the lowest it's ever been being 1-2' and the highest being 50', though neither of those is common. Our club has also sunk various structures in here for he amusement of the divers and fish alike. We've done several small boats, a jet ski, some small wooden boats, a moving truck, a fish condo, a cinder block pyramid, and various dive training platforms.

Every species of fish we've confirmed so far includes Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, Black Crappie, Largemouth Bass, Northern Pike, Yellow Hullheads, Brown Bullheads, and Channel Catfish. Though on the average dive you will only see bluegills, LMBs, and the occasional black crappie. We've only ever seen 1 pumpkinseed, 3 pike, 3 yellow bullheads, 1 brown bullhead, and 3 channel catfish.

We're looking to increase the population numbers of the rarer fish (pumpkinseeds, channel cats, etc) while also adding new fish. And we're not just interested in your run of the mill type of fish like walleye and perch, we also want various species of shiners, dace, darters, etc in here to make it a unique and interesting dive spot. We still want some smallmouth bass and perch, just not them exclusively.

The decision to stock this place was just made last meeting and we did not have a chance to discuss funding for the fish. If next meeting it turns out we can't get any funding from other members then the way I'll have to get the fish will be to go out and catch and net them myself the day before and drive them up to stock in stock tanks. If it turns out we can get money then we'll look into some hatcheries.

But, I'm looking for some advice on stocking because I'm not sure how many pounds of each of these species to stock in a 20 acre lake to begin to establish a healthy population of them. But, these are the fish we're looking at.

-more Pumpkinseeds
-Rock Bass
-Smallmouth Bass
-Rainbow, Brown, or Brook Trout (Brooks would be my first choice)
-Yellow Perch
-Walleye
-Logperch
-Johnny Darters
-Rainbow Darters
-Bluntnose Minnows
-Golden Shiners
-Spotfin Shiners
-Blacknose Shiners (possibly)
-Creek Chubs (possibly)
-more Yellow Bullheads
-more Channel Catfish
-1 or 2 Flathead Catfish
-Longnose Gar
-Paddlefish

And, that's the list. I know it's a ton of fish to stock and try to get established since there's already a healthy predator population but it is a very large and expansive quarry, 20 acres like I said. So how much of each of these would I be looking to stock? The most important thing to remember though is that this is a dive quarry meaning that any fish that will cloud or stir up the water can't be stocked here!

The one thing I can't get an answer to though would be whether or not I can stock Paddlefish. In PA they're listed as endangered, but they're not on the list of endangered species and any fish on the list can't be possessed or imported, but like I said they're not on the list for some reason. If anybody knows the answer to this please let me know.

Thanks for the help everyone!

-Sean

Sounds like fun!

The tough part will be introducing new fish that wont become a snack for existing fish and therfore a waste of money. I am no expert, but I think if you make some fish cages to keep the big guys out while acclimating new fish and growing them out will increase their odds of establishing a viable population.
The other problem is without a ton of cover, the smaller fish like fat head minnows, will get eaten faster than they can reproduce. Large schools will be unlikely to see. It is worth a shot though.

I would love to swim there! How do you seal with 15 plus feet of water and sinuses? I get water up mine and it is unpleasant.

Thanks for the response. Don't worry about cover, when I say this place is heavily vegetated, I mean it's VERY vegetated. There's no where you can go in the quarry where half of your view isn't plants. Many of the plants grow thick, tall, and close together as well so that creates plenty of spaces for forage fish to hide. Depending on the amount of funding I get from the club, I might also stock fatheads as a target fish to distract the game fish so they don't go after the other more evasive minnows I'm trying to establish. 15 feet of water isn't bad on your sinuses, just remember to equalize your head every 3 feet and you're fine. I've been to 85 feet in a lake in WV with no problems as long as you equalize, if you don't then your sinuses could pop under that pressure.

I guess I need to figure out how to equalize then.
It sounds like you have great minnow cover then, so really it seems you can fire away with just about anywhere as long as your goals are not trophy fishing. Having a lot of different types of fish means a lot of competition for food sources. Just acclimate your new additions so they are not easy targets, and grow out smaller additions or stock larger fish Which is more expensive.
The PS and BG are fun fish when swimming since they will come up to you and nip at body parts.

Fish are good but have you considered bivalves, fresh water sponges and bryozoans? Maybe a population of crayfish if you have cover for them. Filter feeders are good for the viz! (I'm a diver too.)

Stay away from zebra mussels, they will take over and blanket the bottom with shells and eliminate the food chain and make the populations crash. Plus you will likely get busted if caught putting them in there.