Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Virgiina Farm Pond, Bluegill?

Hi all,

New member here, great forum. I've read MANY of the posts and tried to learn what I can.

I have a farm in south central Virginia, about an hour south of Roanoke. We're just now building a one acre pond that's fed by a stream, which is fed by multiple streams. Not the Mississippi, but a constantly flowing stream.

The pond will start shallow at the mouth and stay only 2-3 feet deep for the first 40-50 yards, then going down to 11' deep near the dam.

We're sort of modern day homesteaders so I'm not really interested in trophy stuff. Rather, interested in, A) a good, dependable source of food, and B) recreation, particularly since I have a 4 year old.

While I love to catch bass and catfish, I'm thinking I'd really like to optimize the pond for bluegill, and I'd like them to get sizeable over the next few years. Having said that, I'm not exactly sure on what mixture of species I should include, and how many to start with.

I'm assuming fat head minnows, bluegills and, perhaps, some large mouth bass, but is that the right mix? Should I add all those, or anything else? And, if so, how many?

I'll feed for the first year to get everything started, but after that I really want a natural pond.

Thanks for any guidance and input.

Welcome VA, I am trying to open the same can o' worms. I want more of a BG pond too for my small newly renovated pond. It would appear that there is ALOT to this decision and there are many experts here to help us that are new to the hobby of pond management.

The following summary is what I think I have learned here on Pond Boss...

A more natural, lower maintenance, roll of the dice direction is to use BG that are suited for your area, RES for snail/parasite control (if they are suited for your area), a predator like LMB and/or CC, and, of course the FHM to get the pond started. It is a roll of the dice to some degree because you never really know which way mother nature will take your initial efforts. You will want to initially stock the appropriate numbers of fish that lend themselves to an overpopulated amount of stunted bass within the first few years. This keeps the number of predators high in the pond so that the BG do not get overpopulated and stunt too. Removing all the LMB over about 14 inches keeps the bass from getting so big that they eat your larger BG. It seems like good advise to add the FHM a year before any other fish are added so that they can reproduce and create a lot of forage for the BG and LMB. FHM fry for the BG and the adults for the LMB. These FHM will soon be gone once the other fish are big enough to enjoy them as snacks. The downside to this approach could be that if left unmanaged, you could end up with a pond full of puny starving fish after several years.

The other approach would be to stock hybrids that do not reproduce or do not reproduce as much as the naturals and feed them. This approach allows you to pick one type or even a variety and be their caretaker by feeding them regularly. The down side is that you will need to restock as you harvest and feeding them may be best on a somewhat continued basis due to the lack of fry as forage.

As far as stocking numbers go, I have extended my limited abilities and will read what others have to post for you.

Here are a couple favorite reads of mine for BG management...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189988

http://bigbluegill.com/forum/topics/why-everything-you-know-about-bluegill-management-is-wrong

Enjoy and Welcome to the community!

Noel,

Thanks so much for such a helpful reply. Man, you can get lost in these forums, huh? I read your links, then got lost in articles about how to sex BG's. Fascinating.

I like your recommendations and will lean toward option 1. I'm just not interested in stocking hybrids on an ongoing basis.

I'll start with FHM next month, but I'll also add some BG this year...I'll go heavy on the FHM.

Thanks again!

From what I have read about BG ponds is that you probably want to stock the LMB at the same time. The thought is that the BG will spawn a few times during the first year creating lots and lots of BG fry and the bass will keep the fry in check. If you don't have the LMB (or predators) you will end up with potentially thousands of BG that will spawn the next season making even more. This may allow of the BG populations to get out ahead of what the LMB can handle. Stunting of the BG and the LMB may occur. I am using words like "may' and "probably" because this is new to me and there is the everlasting fickleness of mother nature.

Here is a link to my initial thread requesting stocking advice and keep enjoying the reading here as I do...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=35044&Number=457608#Post457608

Great advice...thanks!

VAFARMDOG,

First, a BIG WELCOME to Pond Boss.

My ponds are up in the Winchester area north of you, just over the border in WV.

I have two fishing ponds that are both primarily managed for big bluegill. The 0.7 acre pond has pure strain northern bluegill, redear sunfish, catfish, largemouth bass and hybrid striped bass.

The 0.3 acre pond has hybrid sunfish, redear sunfish, channel catfish, and hybrid striped bass. It is truly a "put-and-take" pond.

Adding minnows and sunfish now would be good. They will thrive and grow. The next question is what kind of sunfish?

We are too cool for a southern strain of bluegill known as copper nose bluegill. If you are buying from the fish trucks out of Arkansas, don't let them talk you into them.

Go with either pure strain bluegill or hybrid bluegill.

Hybrid bluegill are a lot of fun, but you need to add them every year. They have very little reproduction (recruitment), and what they do reproduce is not always desirable. They grow very fast when fed. They are very aggressive and easy to catch. They need a predator fish to keep whatever they reproduce from becoming problems. Therein lies a problem. When you annually add new hybrid bluegill they will generally be 2-3 inches, and quickly become snacks for your predators.

Pure strain bluegill won't grow as fast nor be as aggressive as the hybrid bluegill. But after about five years the pure strain bluegill will usually be approximately the same size as the hybrids. They both will need good predator control.

Lastly, regarding sunfish, many of us like to add redear sunfish. They are generally not for catching -- at least not in my ponds, or in my experience. They are there to eat snails that produce white grubs, yellow grubs, and black spot grubs. Black spot looks like pepper. Most these are not a health concern when eating the cooked fish. They are just unsightly. The snails producing these are introduced through the poop of waterbirds, like herons and kingfishers that eat infected fish. The redear help control the cycle.

I need to be out for a while and will continue this later regarding predators and other fish.

But now is a perfect time to put in the minnows and sunfish. The other fish go in later.

To be continued.

Ken

Part II
to VAFARMDOG

Something I didn't say in the post above, is that there are many different areas in North America that are all very different from each other. We'll have more about that here on Pond Boss in the not-too-distant-future.

I don't know exactly where you are, but from your description, I assume your location and mine share many of the same characteristics.

I'm just up I-81 from you, and just over the WV/VA border. Things don't change a whole lot 25 miles on either side of the I-81 corridor through all of Virginia/West Virginia. The amount of sun (growing days for fish) that we get each day throughout the year is basically the same. We have very similar soil and air temperatures throughout the year. We have very similar soils, water and soil pH, about the same rainfall, etc.

So, with some confidence, I can discuss what might work for you.

With that said, and with your desire for a sustainable fisherie with minimal human interdiction, I can say this:

Think of your pond as a garden. You must keep fertile soil. After you use up the nutrients in that soil, you must add plant food of some kind, whether chemicals or organic. Same with ponds. The water must be fertile to grow fish. If not, you need to feed them or you need to add nutrients to the water.

You need to thin and control a pond much like you do with a garden or orchard. If not, it gets out of control. If you don't thin your carrots, they will become stunted.

Same thing with fish. The bottom of the feed chain in a pond like you desire has bluegills at the eventual bottom of the main food chain. The minnows will get thinned pretty quickly when you start to add the predators needed to keep the bluegill under control. But, those minnows, and letting the bluegill spawn successfully a few times, are like growing a crop of peas or clover before growing a field of corn.

You need predators to keep your bluegill from over populating and becoming stunted. I have lots of small hungry largemouth bass (LMB) in my 0.7 acre pond just for that job. I also have channel catfish (CC) and hybrid striped bass (HSB) in that pond. The LMB and HSB control "recruitment" (reaching a certain size or reproductive stage) of the bluegill and the channel catfish. The channel catfish, as they grow to between 14 to 18 inches become top line predators that compete with the LMB and HSB.

It is important to keep all in balance.

I feed my ponds with floating fish food pellets when the water temperatures are above the mid-60 F degree range. Where I live, my water never gets warm enough to quit feeding. I realize I don't even know what that temperature is, because I know I probably won't reach it. You probably wouldn't either. I believe it is in the mid-80s and above.

I also don't need aeration in my ponds to keep my fish healthy because we almost always have wind that churns the water and adds oxygen through the small waves that are produced by the near constant winds. You may very well be in a similar area. In addition, in our area, we can have plenty of phytoplankton in our waters to produce oxygen from the sun. But, that goes back to feeding the pond.

So, hopefully I haven't frightened you from moving forward. The most successful pond managers are probably those who have killed and mismanaged the most fish.

Good luck,
Ken

Ken (catmandoo) is a wealth of knowledge. I followed his, and a few others advice, and my pond has been a very gratifying experience. I can't thank him enough. Good Luck and enjoy.

Ken,

Thanks so much for all the wisdom! I've read your words carefully.

Well, the pond is all done and here are some pics.









The pond is exactly 1.0 acres according to the iPhone app I use when I walk around it. At the pipe, it is 11' 3" deep and still has about 2' to go until it's filled.

At the low end (where the pile of trees is) are two streams that pump 25-40 gallons per minute into the pond, depending on whether there has been rain or not.

I figure the pond is about 6 acre feet. So, next week, I'm planning on stocking five pounds of FHM. Then, 1-2 months from now I'll stock bluegills. I'll stock some LMB next year, but I'm happy to think of this as a "trophy" Bluegill pond, since I'll be fishing for those for many years with my little girl. Plus I think BG are way tastier than LMB.

So, how many BG do you think I should stock?

Also, I have some hay and cow manure from the small barn you see in the pic. Is it okay to put that in the pond to put some organic matter for the FHM?

Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom!