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#514945 12/15/19 06:51 PM
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I share a 1 acre pond outside of St. Charles IL. Prior owner grew some decent LMB but stunted BGs. Prior fish kill 9-10 years ago. He also threw in crappie and perch which have not grown. I have been on a mission the past year. Upgraded aeration, added TH feeder and working on the muck with enzymes. Going in the right direction. Shocked it May verified the LMB and too many BGs. Added 29 2lb LMB to clean up the BGs. Added 25 lbs of FHM and shiners. Added 20 hybrid stripers for fun and 10 rainbows to catch out before May as well as 25 cc and 25 8-10” LMB to get new genetics and for the future. Feeding optimal, pleased with summer results.

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Welcome Bob


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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Welcome to the club Bob.


The people who say I can't do it can just sit the @^#% down and watch me. Friends call me Rusto I also subscribe to pond boss mag. http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504716#Post504716
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Please post the results as you see them. Thanks for the info.
















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To try and channel Bob Lusk, what are your goals?


"Live like you'll die tomorrow, but manage your grass like you'll live forever."
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Hello Theo! My goals are:
1) My 2 boys to have a blast catching fish in the backyard, make memories
2) to maintain size to LMB, we have a 6lb’r and few 5’s then goes to 3’s. Keep the next generation going. Bass have peaked.
3) get respectable gills, need to clean up the stunted and feed the 4-6” I put in this fall.
4) grow some hybrid stripers for me :), my favorite fish
5) clean up the muck
6) feed feed feed optimal May - October is probably the limit in Northern IL
7) get some size to the cats
8) reduce the cat tails and put some structure
9) aerate 24/7/365

I am willing to put the time, effort and funds into the pond to provide for family fun

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I think with TH feeders, and the size of your pond, the HSB will be a quick answer to meeting most of your goals. Particularly #1. Read the Common Q&A section of this forum and learn all you can about them. An incredible fish in situations like yours. JMO.


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NEDOC, totally agree. HSBs are a blast whether on a rod/reel or with tip ups. As a bonus, they are tasty to eat!!

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If you're willing to put the finances into feed and aeration, you can grow a lot of HSB in that amount of water. Somewhere in the Q&A is a story about Bruce Condello's pond that had the DO fall out. It was an incredible place.


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Here's the link and I'll copy and paste the story....

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=11180&page=3

I’ve accomplished something that’s rarely been done, or even attempted for that matter. I stocked and managed a pond that had 2,500 pounds of HSB per acre!!! My pond was the envy of every pondmeister in the Midwest. Maybe one of the best fishing ponds ever. A one-acre pond with an average depth of 7 ft. and a maximum depth of 16 feet. Clear water, teeming with wipers. Everything you threw in the water was viciously attacked! We’d throw topwaters without hooks just to watch the frenzy. I’d invite friends for evenings of flyrodding, beer and constant action. On a good day I could feed an entire 50-lb. bag of Silver Cup steelhead chow in 15 minutes. I pushed the envelope as far as it would go. I ignored recommendations just to see what I could do. And it worked…for almost two years………….and then the crash………

I was at my pond to refill the feeders. When I came over the hill it was a windy, warm late June afternoon. I noticed that the waves were leaving white foam on the windward side. Odd, I thought, that so much foam was accumulating. Hmmm, I’ll just go grab a bag of feed, but wait a minute, that’s not foam, its dead fish! Hundreds of them, 450 of them to be exact. Deader than dead. From four pounds all the way up to 16 pounds. Enough to bring tears to a grown man’s eyes. The clean up took an entire week with rubbers gloves, a John Deere Gator, and a shovel to dig holes for the gruesome remains of my beloved fish. Is there a lesson here? Not really. I knew it could happen. I actually expected it to happen. It was fun while it lasted.

I’ve since stocked the same pond with 50 fish instead of 500. The growth rates are excellent and they’re still a blast to watch feed. I also have several hundred big bluegills that like the feed too. I’m having just as much fun and I don’t have to keep as much beer on hand. I think I’ll ultimately need fewer therapy sessions.

Back to your question. 100 pounds of HSB per acre is a manageable number. That's 75 pounds for you. You can easily start with 150 smaller fish but you have to be prepared to harvest as the total biomass starts to exceed 75 pounds. If you stock this many HSB your bluegill will be intimidated and won’t utilize the feed as much. You may have to get creative and find ways to get the pellets to your panfish as well. A summertime water profile analysis would be helpful. Aeration IS NOT an absolute necessity if your water quality is good and you have some oxygen present in the deeper cooler layers. A thermocline allows HSB to hang out a little deeper on a hot summer day in a low stress environment. I wouldn’t feed them at all when the mean daily air temperature exceeds 82 degrees F. Some people will buy a device which runs the aerator only at night to prevent mixing hot surface water with cooler, deeper water. Ideally you would find a way to evaluate dissolved oxygen throughout the water column on hot days so you could determine how to make best use of an aerator.

Since you don’t currently have predators in your pond you should stock based on water temperature. Don’t buy, handle, or stock HSB when water temperatures are below 50. Your fish will get a nasty green fungus on their fins and may die. Really 60-65 is optimal stocking temp. HSB can be purchased at a pretty reasonable cost for 4-inchers. Maybe 75 cents to 1.25/each. HSB are often collected by growers by size, meaning that the faster growing, more aggressive, better converting fish are collected first. The primary reason for this is that the growers want to sell these fish first. They have a name for these bigger, faster growers. It’s “cannibal”. See if you can get these. A four-inch HSB will not eat another HSB of similar size but it will attempt to eat a two-incher. The two-inchers have a name. It’s “lunch”.

If your pond is bowl shaped and if you don’t have a lot of macrophytes (rooted vegetation), your HSB may do a fair job of controlling bluegill, but don’t depend on it. HSB will always retain a little of their piscivorous nature, but they will always take the pellets first and foremost. This is called optimal foraging theory. Least energy expended for energy gain. Bluegills are a nice morsel, but they represent a little too much work for your HSB.

Remember, you can have as many HSB as you want, but the percent chance of sudden, cataclysmic failure starts to nudge upwards with the number of fish present.


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NEDOC, thank you for the thread. What a great read and sharing of so many experiences. I have 22 HSB in the pond from Nate Herman, 2 were 4-6" stocked in spring which are now in the 10" range then 20 stocked in late fall in the 10-12" range around 1 lb. Doing baby steps with HSB. I haven't seen any floaters from fall stocking and I haven't fished for them either. I am hoping for success but realize it could be failure. If so I shall try again. Planning on harvesting some next year for a few meals.


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