Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New Lake

We've built a 50 acre lake, some of which was a catfish pond, we built a dam with a spillway and flooded an old 15 foot creek bed, which is about 1000 feet long and dug some ends of the lake so it is 20 feet in places, we've put quite a few down trees in the lake for cover the creek bed also has standing timber, which we know will die. The lake has somewhere around 6000 lbs of catfish, has alot of shad and minnows and a small amount of grass carp, which was in the catfish pond. The lake is and average depth of 6 feet. I know this is limited information but what kind of fish and how many should we stock it with.

We're making several assumptions. One, the fish which currently reside were stocked. Second, your primary goal is catfish. Third, we must assume with a dammed creek, you will have undesirable fish. Fourth, we assume you want a variety of fish.
I would stock at least 500 coppernose bluegill per surface acre, with at least 100 redear sunfish per surface acre. Minnows won't help you. Then, next spring, stock 50-75 largemouth bass fingerlings per surface acre. Then, fall 2005, stock 50-100 fingerling black crappie per acre.
Stir, wait another year, and go fishing. (There's more to it than that..read on, throughout this site for more news.)

Thanks for the info. Catfish is not the primary goal, bream, crappie and bass are. The catfish where stocked. The creek was a dry bed before we flooded it. The lake was completed the end of
August, 2004. It will be a private lake to about 10 people. Any other info we need please let us know.