Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Ice on Pond

Here in Arkansas we have had a week of single digit temps and pond is completely iced over. May not be anything I can do about it but curious if anyone on here has any input on this. I have 4500 Copper nose bluegill and a few bass and some native mud cats on 3 -1/2 acres 15ft deep at the dam and around 7' deep for 2 acres and the rest 5' to 2'. There is some water flowing thru so hoping that is keeping it aeriated. I've read where CNBG are not as tolerant to cold as BG but when stocking I was told they would be fine in this zone. What is everyone's thoughts on this, do you see me having a fish kill? Do I need to rethink what I stock? I was planning on adding LMB this spring along with aeration and spawning areas with erosion mats and gravel. Don't think I got a real good spawn this spring, saw some beds with males actively guarding but never saw the fry.
Thanks Wayne

IMO coppernose(CNBG) will not like the cold temps of ice cover at least for not very long. Probably a lot of their ice cover survival rate will highly depend on where and what fish farm you bought those CNBG. There was a discussion here about a fishery that had /sells cold tolerant CNBG. Some flowing stream water could be a positive or negative for the CNBG cold survival. My testing shows moving stream water in very cold conditions will actually be colder than 39F pond water. I've measured moving water in winter to be 32F-33F in streams .I will contact one of the members for comment where he bought some of these cold tolerant CNBG for a test survival study in northern Indiana. This type of cold winter in IN should be a good test for these "cold tolerant" CNBG.

That'd be me. I got them from Harbin Fish Farm in Wetumka, OK, they brought them down from their facility in Kansas. I put them in a small 1/20th acre pond the Fall of 2022. They survived that winter and they are still in there. I will seine the pond this Spring and report back. I had a fish kill this summer - my fault. I put too much dye in the pond and a bunch of vegetation died. Not sure how many of the CNBG died, I did a cursory seine last Fall and still had some in there, but it was too dang cold to run the seine again.

I put some in my personal pond, but I never really fished it for bluegills in the last 2 years.

ArkieJig, you are South and West of most of the fish farms. They typically have some dead loss when they get iced over but their ponds are only 1/2 the depth yours are. I'll call them tomorrow and see how they are faring (in the Lonoke area). I need to talk to them anyway.

On the subject of cold-hardy CNBG... We stocked 600 3-5" from the same supplier 4-1/2 years ago that esshup obtained his fish from.
They have done extremely well 30 miles east of me. Impoundment is a community pond I assisted with the build and seal, with a max depth of 12' and very little flow-through, has a low acreage water shed and the fall of 22 we stocked 70 SAE to help control the numbers as we have SMB as a main predator and we all know they won't control BG reproduction.
All year classes were/are well represented with numerous fish from 4-9" and scads of 1-3".
It's been in a very harsh region and I have to say I am surprised at the survival.

Snipe,

The pond you describe should have had a tough time with the recent drought.

How low did that pond get?

Have you done enough recent sampling to determine how well the fish survived/thrived in a CNBG, SMB, SAE pond?

That sounds like an awesome fish population if they can handle the cold of your area AND the summer heat and low water conditions!

Level at lowest point was only 13.5" low during last summer. There is a small drainage into the pond on one side that collects some street run-off so it's never been more than maybe 16" low from full.
We electrofish early summer and fyke net every fall, being a KS CFAP impoundment, it gets regular sampling.

Thanks esshup, I got my CNBG from a farm in Lonake. What did you think about my spawning question, the pond bottom is sandy loom and most of the spawning I observed was around the large rocks on the inlet spillway. Never saw any fry and don't have enough shoreline structure to hide them. Should I be able to see the fry on the bed when being guarded by the male? During the drought this year my pond dropped close to 3ft. Even at that I probably still had 80% of the pond under water. The banks are sloped pretty steep and I tried to hold the upper end between 4 and 5ft. I was still seeing a few small fish in the upper end but all the larger CNBG left out. I did not have any fish kills during that time other than one shiner I found floating and figured it had been hit by a bass or something else.

Augie, I've never seen fry on a bed, once they hatch they get out of the area. The steep sloped banks will reduce the amount of area that is available for spawning beds. I have observed all types of panfish using pea gravel bedding areas, even SMB when there was no suitable spawning habitat for the SMB in the pond.

I'd try to make pea gravel spawning areas in your pond go from 6' water depth to 1' water depth at full pool to cover all pond water levels during spawning season.

See this from the archives - pics of BG beds

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92463#Post92463

Also a recent thread on the topic

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=544846&page=1

We had Ponds iced over at Overton Fisheries and the OTS Coppernose are fine. Coppernose are more cold tolerant than folks give them credit for IMO

It's not just - did the CNBG survive the ice over. It is that over the longer term southern genetic fish (Fla LMB and CNBG) do not meet their potential when subjected to a cold (northern) environment. Long term stressors (environment either too hot or too cold for the genetics) result in less than optimum results.

ewest, I agree with this because my 5" NBG are now at 11+, but my 5" CNBG are around the 9" mark, maybe had 1 close to 10" max.. they have not grown at the same rate.
I purposely stocked 25 male BG the same week I stocked the CNBG.

Snipe,

Would you consider your results a decent comparative study?

If so, would you think the latitude of a pond in the U.S. would be a good first order predictor of whether NBG or CNBG would thrive better in a given pond?

I believe you are north of that line.

Any Pond Boss members that have raised both types of BG at their pond want to estimate the line of latitude for selecting the optimal BG subspecies?

It is on the Forum in many threads. My estimation is I-40 +- subject to changes in altitude (App Mts and Rky Mts for example)

Thanks ewest!

I thought the previous discussions had placed it at roughly that level, but had read more threads recently with CNBG north of that line.

Wasn't sure if the cold tolerance of some CNBG stock had recently improved, or if my memory was faulty! (The latter case is my usual default setting.)

Northern States with an 8 month winter sure, Agreed. In regards to the post above though, week or two cold snaps aren't going to reduce growth potential in Coppernose Bluegill or Florida Bass. These past posts are also coming from the same folks that were saying we were going to lose the vast majority of Florida Bass and Coppernose Bluegill during the 2021 Freeze. We got to -3 but the half a million or so coppernose we stocked that spring disagree, I can show you hundreds of examples of those fish over 1.2-1.5lb right now. As far as those "Cold Tolerant Coppernose" They sure look like the offspring of Overton OTS CNBG Brood-stock.

Thanks for the further clarification, emactxag!

I tend to clutter up some threads with tangentially related questions to the original post.

I wanted more info on Snipe's experiment since he is clear up by I-70.

I believe February 2021 was the coldest temperatures in Texas for quite some time. I do NOT recall any reports of large fish kills from our southern members due to that cold air intrusion onto their ponds with warm-adapted fish.

It appears to me (non-expert) that a cold 3" rain event is a much bigger thermal shock to a pond, than a mid-winter cold snap.

We are 15-20 miles north of I-40. CNBG do fine for us. Altitude is roughly 1250 feet.

I don't know that I've raised enough in my own pond Rod, but have stocked many of Harbin's (Mark) from the Wichita location and they survive but don't prosper as well as the northern strain here. Mark told me they had moved these from their OK region up into his location over a 19yr period as of 2019 when I stocked my own.
As for a "line" where they do or don't do well, I think it's best explained similar to our plant growth zones, some do best 9-10, others do best 2-3, everything else is a factor somewhere in between based on growing season length and average water temps. I believe it's highly probable that the forage items follow the same lines in a similar fashion.

Lots of prior discussion on adaptation vs genetics. Consensus on CNBG is that some 30 +- years ago CNBG were brought from Fla to the Arkansas hatcheries. Over many generations adaptation has occurred and those CNBG have a higher degree of cold tolerance. IIRC George had both Ark CNBG and some from Overton. We tried to id and separate them.

See this re OTS CNBG -

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=428462&page=3

One Nice Coppernose -

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=286755&page=1


CNBG variation Fla vs Ark -
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=177215&page=1

ots club
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=330400&page=1

helment dev � great pics including Richmond Mill

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=209961&page=1


pics
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=209964#Post209964

Not that I've handled a few, but here's a couple of CNBG from my big pond. Neither CNBG pictures were taken after a soak in a tank. Colors shown are immediately after being caught.

This one is Floridaish, and was taken years ago


This one is OTS

Al, I thought that Todd was trying to select for the reddish tipped fins?

He already had them, I just wanted to make them the dominant colors here by selecting a single male with the most vivid red colors. I had the water to raise thousands of them. But as usual, everything but a meteor hitting the hatchery pond ruined my plans.

Al,

Your BG are so broad that they appear to have tiny heads!

It would take a pretty big bass to eat them when they are shaped like that.

Any chance that predator selection is eliminating the more slender BG, or are all of the size ranges of similar shape (correcting for age)?

Rod, to be honest, I'm not sure. One thing that I think skews CNBG size numbers is the amount of vegetative cover in my pond. I watch the banks and feedings closely in the spring, and the mid-range 5-7" CNBG are rare. Those that don't get eaten, and grow past that size, survive. The height of the CNBG can outweigh the gape of the LMB, and I've seen dozens swim around with the CNBG sideways in their mouth. Eventually they release them after trying to swallow them head first. Having said all of that, there's a lot of fun with fishing for the larger CNBG with ultralight rods.

Here at least, the smaller CNBG are certainly more fusiform and eatable than the adults.

Al, yeah managing the water in the hatchery pond has been problematic. Too bad it wasn't closer to the boat ramp.

Very true. Last year, I dropped over 4K to turn it into a fingerling/fry wonderland. Unfortunately, I could control everything but mother nature. I stocked 40 juvenile HSB, hoping that this batch won't have any issues.

Hopefully the rain lets up. Once it gets light out you see it and hopefully that it didn't rise too much.

Many threads here on fish coloration. It changes fast so it is not a real good indicator to shoot for. Best to try and look at color in the pond via camara and not in fish that have just been caught. The threads referenced above have some good pics and discussion on traits. I have no idea how you try to produce fish with just the genetic traits one might want as there are thousands of interrelated traits some dominate and some recessive. George and I tried (along with others) in the Ark CNBG thread to describe what we thought we knew.

Biggest influence on color I have noticed is water clarity.

Here is a bit from a prior thread.

Many things can affect fish coloration including water clarity and chemical composition, bottom color , mating , light penetration and intensity . Color is often affected by the current situation such as the fishes status as predator or prey, aggressive or passive, agitated or calm, angered or under attack etc. Their coloration scheme is often divided in categories such as warning coloration , cryptic coloration , disruptive coloration , or countershading . Much of coloration is controlled by cells called chromatophores and iridophores which react to the various stimuli.

Eric, neither do I. Years ago, I made a road trip to Todd's to hand pick juvenile red tailed CNBG out of one of his vats. There were different levels of red, and a white pail was used as background to determine the density of the color. The goal was to cage the fish until maturity then select the CNBG with the reddest tail, and use that one fish as "the" male CNBG when adult female CNBG were added. It wasn't unusual for me to drain, kill, and refill the hatchery pond several times a year, so doing that wasn't a big deal. It turned out to be a failure, and I can't remember why. Not sure weather it was otters, mud from water shed runoff, or something else. I do have red tailed CNBG in the big pond, but not in the volume I wanted.

I agree with the difficulty of managing traits, but if Bruce, TJ, and Cecil, all have their strains, I saw no reason for me to at least try to enhance an already existing color trait. I've learned a lot with failure.

I have one pond 1.1 acre here in Tennessee that has frozen over the last two years. My CNBG were not affected. I got them out of Kentucky. That pond has no aerator. My other pond which is at my house is only .5 acre but it has a 2 diffuser aerator and this last week been awful but that Aerator prevented the pond from freezing over best money I ever spent. Here I cannot tell cold affects CNBG but they will not take pellets when it is cold.

Absolutely worth the effort to try and produce what you want. Best CNBG I got were direct offspring from George's.