Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Hello and Pond Info

Hello all, and what a wonderful site you have here. I have read the bountiful information everyday for the last 3 years and man you guys are awesome..

I have a 3\4 acre ground water\ minimal runoff pond. In 2012 as the pond was slowly filling I stocked Fatheads and GSH. The forage reproduced until June of 2014 when I obtained HSB, SM, WE, RES, from Jeff Blankeship in southern IL. I then obtained YP from Nate Herman and installed a Vertex system.

The SM and YP are pellet trained and get aquamax every day.
With the massive amount of forage that I had at stocking time I have had amazing growth in the first 2 years.

Under the recommendations of Nate and Jeff I stocked 50 HSB, SM, 250 YP, 25 WE, and 500RES.

Last year I had a small YP spawn and decent SM spawn as I caught several in traps. The GSH spawn each spring and I have plenty of brood stock that were able to grow beyond the mouth gape of my predators.

Last spring I built a 1\10 acre forage pond to supplement in the future when needed and to hopefully grow out some of my
smallie and perch fingerlings.

Hopefully I can pull of a spawn this spring as I have not seen any perch ribbons or young swimming around yet, but saying that I did not last year either.


Sorry for the long post and thanks to everyone of you that have enable me to do this right "hopefully".

Welcome to PBF!

Sounds like you are off to a great start!

Looking forward to hearing more about your project.

Bill D.

Great start! It is obvious that you've done your research and you will soon be reaping the benefits. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to updates.