Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Raising fat head minow

Looking to build several small ponds specifically for minnows and shad . Will be used for feedi stock for other ponds.

1 . Size/depth etc?
2. Supplemental feed? Brands?
3 advice?

Well first off and welcome to the site!! You are in the right place.

I can't really help you on any of those questions except study your builder VERY carefully. Been there done that and still have leaks. If I would have found this site a year earlier my pond would be SOOOO different today. You have one of the best builders in Texas. He is a member here and maybe will chime in also. There are many here that do what you are proposing so the info will be coming. You might try searching out growing forage and such.

Don't know if they are practical or available in your area but Spotfin and Bluntnose are much better forage than Fatheads.

Welcome to PB. Leon County generally gets pretty decent rains so it will probably work. First, what are you growing in the other ponds and how large are they? What size fish are you trying to feed in the larger ponds? Shad are very delicate and don't handle well when seining. Fathead minnows are prolific and fairly hardy but are only good for feeding small fish. Every fish needs forage that is 1/4 to 1/3 their body size so minnows of any type only feed very small fish. 95 to 99% of all fish get eaten in their first year anyway. I would probably select bluegills for forage and seine them at about 4 inches. Or, when Mama Nature gets contrary, rains slow down, and you need to get the fish out due to O2 depletion.

Size of pond is dependent on runoff area and, for seining, I wouldn't dig it over about 4 ft. deep. About any good feed like Purina, Optimal, etc will work OK.

Thanks for response so far. We've got plenty of watershed, and our own equipment so building whatever needed isn't a problem. The idea of the minnows us to feed the bluegill, to feed the bigger fish. Have one pond approximately 2 acres dedicated to catfish. Two bigger ponds 5ish acres for bass. They're all tied together, when one outflows, it goes to the next. Have just started the stocking process, so nothing bigger than 8in in any of them. My boys will bring fish they catch home from other places and dump them in at their earliest convenient time, I'm sure. They think this has taken to long already......a

Welcome to the forum. Make the ponds in the shape of a paint roller tray, it will make seining them easier to get the fish out. You will need a seine that is a few feet deeper than the deepest part of the pond, and about 10-15 feet longer than the pond is wide.

Fatheads spawn on the underside of things in shallow water, in a pond with no predators I've seen them spawning on the underside of lily pads.

You probably want some sort of spawning habitat that will be easily removable from the ponds to make seining easier.

Or, if you can draw down the ponds to seine, have the spawning habitat in 1'-3' of water, draw the pond down 4' and seine without any obstructions in your way.

Welcome to the forum
I'm in southern Freestone co just north of you, between Buffalo and Oakwood, good to have a neighbor close by

"...bringing fish they catch home from other places and dump them in at their earliest convenient time, I'm sure." is a good way to ruin a well planned fishery balance. It is best to really know what you are doing in doing this type of fish stocking. Parasites, hidden, latent diseases, and plant - algae problems and various microscopic, planktonic, and less intrusive hardly visible invasive species can be introduced from well meaning helping, naive introductions. It is damn easier to put fish in and have them breeding causing problems than get them all out. Make sure stockers know and recognize the differences of bluegill, hybrid bluegill, all the sunfishes plus identifications of other small fishes and who local invsive species are. Many fish outwardly appear healthy but harbor hidden problems waiting to thrive when the fishery becomes stressed.

Here is a thread with information and a lot more links to specialty ponds which include several "forage" ponds specific to raising bait and forage fish.

specialty pond thread

I have a dedicated FHM pond. It's just above my other two ponds of 0.25 and 0.3 acres. The minnow pond is four feet deep, 2000 square feet and holds about 18,000 gallons. There is a lot of grass in the shallows. I stocked the first FHM in early spring of 2016. They reproduced very well. This spring, I trapped out about 700 to 800 or so to stock a new pond.

im going to feed my catfish in my pond they are about four to six inches they are feeding of the fathead minows and the small BG I stalked it with but what should I put in my small pond to feed them and make them grow fast. I

And fat

A decent quality commercial catfish feed will grow catfish faster than feeding them minnows. As for pond shape, exactly as ewest stated. Minnows are good forage for small fish only. Once fish get bigger, the fish burn far too many calories chasing tiny meals, so weight gain slows until it stops completely. It would be like you trying to gain weight, by eating one raisin at a time, and walking 50 feet between each raisin......you will burn more calories than you can consume each meal...

What commercial feed would be recommended if that better option?

And yes I'm aware that there's risk involved with bring outside fish in, but this whole thing is pretty much for my youngest boy. There's two thing that exist in his world, fishing, and getting ready to go fishing.....

To the guy in between oak wood and buffalo, not sure where you are exactly, but probably less that 15 min from us.

What baitfish should I feed my catfish and the bait fish will be in a small seine pond that Is easy to get them out

Call Todd Overton real near Centerville, he carries cargill feed and sells good fish. He I can fix you up with anything you need. Overtons Fishery, great guy .they on I-45 8 miles out of Buffalo- Centerville

Pat

Feel free to pm me and I can hook y'all up