Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Advice for a new(ish) northern pond

Hi,
This site was one of the first places that I discovered when I began planning my pond. The forum, magazine and books have been invaluable.
The pond is dug and now I’m hoping for some advice from the community on how to create and maintain a harvestable fish population.
We have a half acre pond in eastern Ontario. Below is a description. We hope to have a pond that will provide fish to eat either good size panfish or sport fish. This property is remote without electricity and we really only get there a couple times a month, so we’re looking for something that has minimal maintenance (no feeders ect.) and hope to harvest a few (8 to 10) fish throughout the year.
Pond description:
Our property is mostly bush with a creek running through the middle. On either side of the creek there is a marsh. Surrounding the marsh is a cedar forest that gains elevation becoming a hard wood forest. Four acres of the cedar forest were cleared and a half acre pond was dug. The depth is about 8’ with a few deeper holes ( 12-14’). There is some structure, rocks at the inlet and outlet as well as piles of rock in the deep holes with logs propped up against them. The sides are quite steep but there are some weed beds. The water comes from a spring (30 to 60 gallons per minute depending on the season) and empties into the marsh and indirectly to the creek. This will be the third summer since it was excavated. Since that time it has developed a nice ecosystem with some weed areas, bugs, frogs, crayfish, snakes, etc. as well as minnows (various kinds including some larger 2-3” that I think are brassy minnows) and 2-4” pumpkinseed sunfish, all of which have arrived by themselves. The water level remains pretty constant all year long. When I measured the temperature on August 1st, one of our hottest days during a very hot and dry year, the water was 80 at the surface and 70 at about 8’. I’ve not measured the oxygen level but there are some opportunities for the supply water to be oxygenated. Although straight out of the ground the water travels down 300’ of corrugated non perforated BigO, falls down a little water fall and then 200’ down a rock lined stream before entering the pond. The pond freezes over in the winter with sections of open water at the inlet and outlet where the water is flowing more quickly.
What would you recommend?
Thanks
Steve
Attached are pictures of the waterfall and pond:

Based on your limited description I would start by adding some (8-12) smallmouth bass (6"-12" long) that you could catch from another pond or lake. Learn the specific difference between largemouth and smallmouth bass. You do not have to add them all at once; maybe half this year and half next year. Yellow perch are an optional panfish and survive better with smallmouth than largemouth. If the smallmouth are not successful then later you can add several largemouth. My main concern is the amount of and length of snow cover that could cause oxygen(DO) shortages during years with deep snow cover. The depth of 12-14 feet could allow enough DO for the early years. As the amount of dead organics and decomposition accumulate, after 10-15yrs the the chance of winter kill increases.

Welcome Gawley! What a beautiful pond! I'm also in Ontario and just getting into the pond life. Ours came stocked with largemouth bass. They seem to do really well with the pumpkinseed that are also in there. We feed them, but not regularly. We also have a couple of resident snapping turtles. Can't wait to see what fish you decide on!

A reminder - if you add largemouth with the yellow perch do not plan on long term survival of small perch unless the pond is relatively weedy to protect small perch. Largemouth reproduce too abundantly and the LMB mouth is big so they eat too many small, medium size perch. A group of 12"-13" LMB will eat many 4"-5" perch and keep almost all of them from becoming much larger. Smallmouth(SMB) have smaller mouths and importantly are not as prolific as LMB. Thus having SMB it is easier to manage their numbers and they are more compatible with perch.

Bill, Sorry for taking so long to thank you. This is terrific advice and I sure appreciate it.

Unfortunately I got busy and never did follow up on this project. But am hoping to this spring. As you suggest my plan is to add 5, 6-12" SMB this year and then another 5 next year. My question is could the YP also be added this year and if so how many and how big?

Thanks
Steve

I will assume you are not going to feed the fish pellets nor buy pellet trained fish??? This does make a big difference in how many to stock and how many the pond can grow. How do you plan to get the perch? Hook and line or fish farm?

If you catch them yourself fewer numbers can be stocked due to the angling time, availability, and live transport difficulty of moving and oxygenating large numbers of larger perch. Timing of stocking also plays a role in how many you stock. Using pre-spawn YP as opposed to post-spawn will make a difference.

I would not add any smallmouth until the perch produce at least one spawn. You don't want the SMB to be eating most of the minnows taking them away from the perch for growth. Ideally you want the SMB to eat small perch and sunfish not mostly minnows. However the SMB do not read the "book" of want they are supposed to eat. I would be picky as to the size SMB you stock and initially only put in those in the 4"-8" sizes that you catch with small baits. Also until there are numerous small perch available I would only put in 3-5 smaller sized SMB. If possible you could 'sight fish' these small bass by searching for them visually along shore and then present a baited hook near them. These few small bass can eat a lot of small fish very likely each can eat 200-300 small fish per year. Bass are much easier to add than remove.