Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Building new pond YP/SMB/RES HBG??

Yeah!!! Congrats and good luck.

Cmm

Hey, looking great and congratulations. There's nothing like the initial stocking, thank you for sharing with us. Good news is that is definitely a RES and definitely a YP!

Are these YP big enough to pull off a spawn this coming spring?

ozarkfisher, how are your grass shrimp doing? Surviving the predation?

Some of my larger perch when stocked this early spring had eggs ready to go and did do a very limited release of ribbons right after stocking. However I expect since many perch were 3-4" when stocked and now have grown nicely to adult size that I'll have more baby making than I really want next spring come ice out.

Bill Cody will know better about any egg laying events versus size of stockers. Also your weather patterns are different.

The perch in the picture is definitely big enough to spawn spring 2016. Start watching for eggs as soon as the water temps reach 48F. Eggs, which in the water look like toilet paper, are much easier to see on or among the tree branches if water visibility is 3'-4'. Some egg ribbons will also occur lying directly on the bottom in shallow water. Hatching occurs 6-10days later.

Canyon, I am not sure about the shrimp as soon as I get some time off from work to get home I will definitely be doing some checking on them and I will post what I find.

Bill, Thanks for the info I usually have time off from work around the holidays I will be on the pond looking for eggs. If I miss the eggs due to work would it be possible to sample perch with a minnow trap?

It is pretty easy to catch YOY in a minnow trap when the hatch of young perch has been good with survival of around several hundred fingerling YP per acre. Often trapping the fingerling perch (3"-5") is very good in the fall if they are common. Microfishing in late summer fall will also indicate how well the young of year recruitment has been.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/late...st-fish-you-can
http://microfishing.com/tackle/
http://www.tenkarabum.com/micro-fishing.html

See these prize catches by microfishing
http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php/topic/14646-2014-nanfa-convention-microfishing-reports/

I never realized there was such as thing as micro fishing this looks like something that would be fun and informative to do with the kids. Thanks for the links and info Bill

I've found you learn a LOT from microfishing. So much specific feel and paying close attention to detail.

It feels like a long time watching and waiting for fish to grow. I just added 300 HBG this spring. This brings my totals up to 300 HBG, 300 YP, and 150 RES. I have decided to go straight HSB for a predator since I am gone from home a lot. What would be a good number for ladder stocking them into the pond. the pond is roughly an acre in size. thanks

I'm not even close to being an expert but I can tell you I am pondering something similar in a pond that is about an acre and a half. I like your numbers except that I might go with 30 HSB to start since you are not there to fish and harvest them often. These should handle keeping the number of panfish in check pretty well.

ozarkfisher, with your chosen panfish and YP numbers, I would stock no less than 50 HSB and think 75 would still do very well. You may need to add supplemental feed till the YP have a solid spawn, or add 10# of golden shiners and 20# of FHM.

Stocking 20 4-6", 20 6-8" and 20 8-13" HSB would be great! Replacement/supplemental stockings would need to be 8" minimum

Thanks for the advice guys I am currently feeding Optimal 4 seconds a day out of my TH feeder. Also I have hundreds of GSH and FHM coming when the feeder goes off. I believe I can source 4"-6" and 6"-8" fish locally this fall I may go with 25 of each to start.

Have a small update after a nice break and vacation at home. something I did find very interesting was the fact that I accidently left a minnow trap in the pond all winter. When I brought it on shore it was completely covered in FA and on the inside was dozens of tiny 1" long grass shrimp along with many 1" paper shells. I was very excited to see both of them thriving and reproducing in the pond. The trap was set close to a very large pile of underwater rip rap so hopefully it is working as a nice home for both species. I did have pictures to share of them but shortly after I lost my phone to the pond while working on the dock.

Wow, good news on the grass shrimp and papershells. I put in grass shrimp a year ago, and haven't seen one since. The shipment got lost on the way from Nebraska to Missouri (thank you USP) but they seemed ok when released. I had put in 50 crayfish earlier last spring. Haven't seen one of those since either.
Might be time for me to put the minnow trap back out. All earlier efforts with all kinds of traps and nets, all resulted in nothing but thousands and thousands of tadpoles. Ha

Great news ozark on the grass shrimp. I have spotted some of mine at night with a strong light but during the day I'm sure they hang out in the FA or leaves. I've seined my shallows lately trying to capture the fast moving goldfish and have been surprised when a large shrimp, or some other critter shows up when I didn't know they were there.

Setter, I'm sure you have shrimp they are pretty resilient. Crayfish, not sure... They like rock piles to hide in.

Your accidental experiment of leaving the minnow trap in over the winter and it turning into a refuge for the small PK shrimp and crays gives me some ideas of purposeful created habitat for them.

A person could use 12-18" long sections of 6" plastic sewer septic drain field pipe (the kind with holes in it for water flow) and cover the ends with 3/4" or 1" hardware wire or plastic screen. Toss a few small rocks inside for additional surface area within and to make sure it stayed in place on the bottom. Then put these refuge habitats in a foot or two of water near other structure.

A rope could be attached if a person wanted to be able to monitor to see if they were being used.

You may have come up with a new structure idea!

Snrub,

I have concrete blocks stacked in long lines in about 2 feet of water and large rip rap piles that run from shore out to about 3-4 feet. But I was also rolling around the idea of maybe making some small metal frames this winter and covering them with screen or small expanded metal since the trap worked so well.

Setter,

Don't worry I am sure your shrimp and crays are fine I rarely see mine and when I do its usually random chance encounters like with the trap.

Thanks guys. I'm going to figure they are there. Will try the fish/minnow traps, and see what shows up. I'm hoping to see young YP and RES also..

Got the final stocking of fish last week 25 SMB 5-6" and 25 HSB 6-11" very happy the initial stocking is done. thanks all for the helpful advice and direction.

Have a Redear question the two pictures below were took nearly 15 months apart. The picture with the orange bucket is the original stocker Redears, and the other picture is some I caught in a minnow trap last weekend. There is basically no size difference which means these would almost have to be offspring? right or wrong? Thanks

Yes those would be offspring of the original stockers. Likely the 2 are classmates from last year.

Was able to get around to doing some RW checks on my HBG about a month ago. Temps were still hovering around 55 or so in the pond just coming out of winter. All the HBG I caught were around 8.5" and fell in the 93% to 98% range. Is this acceptable ranges for HBG or should they be more toward the 120% range?

Managed to cut a deal with the local high school science lab for a dozen of their tilapia at the end of the school year. My dad picked them up today and took them to the pond. I had some FA growth late last summer and I plan on feeding more aggressively this year so I figured they would come in handy as the cleanup crew. I have SMB and HSB in the pond. Will the tilapia act as extra forage for them like they do LMB?

Everything in the pond generally gets eaten by something bigger. yep, the babies will be forage but a couple will make it to adulthood.