Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait What's up with the scuds?

Thanks Bill. I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether or not sago pondweed would be a good addition to my small BG pond? As a tuber, could this become a future problem?

Contained in the link I provided above, bz wrote the following; Big news here in MN lately is that ponds stocked with FH minnows by bait dealers are ruined for waterfowl. The fatheads eat all the copepods and amphipods that ducks really like.

If you plan on stocking a minnow only pond with scuds, are you concerned about predation by the minnows or will this species of scud be large enough to avoid predation?

bz take a look at the blocking net article in the current PB issue for ideas. I just drive them out.

Russ - I don't think I would plant Sago pondweed in my recreational fish pond. This plant seems to become to dense and thus problematic to be easily managed. I am not sure how well grass carp eat it. If grass carp control it then it would be more acceptable as a pond plant.

bz - I called PLM from the information that you posted on January 26th.

Bruce, I'd have to pump my whole ponds down 3 feet to lower the water enough to make sure I had all the fish out of that bay. If I had a smaller area I could section off that might be better. Maybe I could just do a small corner of that bay and drive the fish out as I put the netting in. But still, this should have been done last fall in order to stock scuds this winter. I'm bummed.

Russ, the deal with fatheads right now in Minnesota is that the Waterfowl folks are claiming that all the bait dealers stocking natural wetlands with fatheads is ruining the habitat for waterfowl They find that if they kill off all the minnows they get something more suitable for waterfowl. So the state is now controlling very tightly who is allowed to stock fatheads. Some counties are out right banning any minnow stocking in any ponds. There is one county that is banning all fish stocking even in private ponds for the same reason. This could be over reaction but I'm just telling you what they're saying. PLM told me the same thing. If you stock fatheads in a pond say goodbye to waterfowl.

I forgot I had this. One winter I went out on the ice and drew an 8 by 8 foot grid pattern on the ice. I measured the coordinates of the pond edge at every grid intersection and I drilled holes and measured depth. Then I put all the data points into a CAD program and connected the dots. This picture is the result. Each contour line is 1 foot depth starting with the first one being 1 foot. My max depth in the section on the right is 6 feet, middle section 8 feet, section on left 4 feet. As you can see I've got a lot of structure and perhaps some areas I could section off. The total area of this pond is 1/2 acre.

Thanks BZ,

In my case, the stocking of scuds would be for BG forage. I do have minnows in the pond so I'm curious what affect that would have on scud survival.

Are you affected by the minnow ban in your area?

Russ,

Wonder if scuds would survive in the Gulf States?

I intend to stock "glass", "ghost" or "grass" shrimp in my pond. I'm looking for a cheap source right now. They are great forage and very reliable bait. They need a few weeds to survive predation, and I suspect scuds do as well.

Russ, I would sure think that a healthy population of minnows would clean up scuds pretty fast. As I understand that is the main objection to minnows in Minnesota wetlands. They eat all the living critters down to nothing. I don't know if I am affected by the minnow stocking issue. I don't think my county has banned stocking and I think that as long as I'm stocking in my own dug pond I can get a permit. But I have not applied for one yet since since I'm thinking of trying to maximize the scud population in my new pond by not stocking any minnnows.

BTW, I just ordered some sago pond weed to plant in my new pond and scuds to put into the BG pond. I decided I'm going to invest the $85 in scuds and take my chances that some will survive and reproduce in my BG pond. I avoided the large shipping costs that Bill referred to since I'm going to pick my order up directly from PLM. I'm not going to try to section off an area of pond before this stocking since I can't do this with ice around. I will observe what happens this coming summer and see if I can see scuds growing and reproducing in my pond. If they do well I'll just leave well enough alone. If they don't, I'll section off some area late next summer and get ready to restock scuds into the pond next winter. This will be interesting.

i can confirm the lack of callback from these guys.

85$ a gallon for pond water. those guys are geniuses. who needs to call back silly iowa farmers when you got the chance to make the big money

speaking of which, bought two bushels of cracked corn yesterday at teh elevator to put in my critter feeder. are you sitting down? 16.41 for two bushels and when 16.26 wasnt enough to settle i had to get out the 20$ bill.

Cliffbrook, I just talked to PLM today. I called Kyle on his cell phone in the morning and got a return call back in about 2 hours. I did order scuds from them and I told them I'd pick them up. I was confused as to where and when I needed to go to pick them up. Kyle called me right back and explained the whole process. We'll see if he delivers as promised. He claims that I'll get an email informing me when my order will be ready for pickup. They seem to be a little disorganized so I'm sure wondering. I think Bill Cody might have ordered some stuff from him too. Wondering if he's had any deliveries yet. I think if the guy can deliver he'd get some business from more than several of us.

bz or Bill,

Anything new to add to the scud discussion. Have either of you taken delivery yet??

I have not taken delivery yet. Last I talked to PLM they promised to email be a few days before I had to pick them up. They said it would be during Feb. so I'm getting a little worried as the month rolls on. They did say that they were not having a good harvest this year. I was surprised when they told me there was a direct correlation between whether the pond they're harvesting had corn or soy beans grown in the watershed this past year. Turns out that here in MN some farmers spray soy beans for aphids but there is no spraying done on corn. This runnoff can be enough to kill the scuds in a pond. Guess this gives us a hint as to how sensitive they are going to be to water quality. I'm just hoping they can find enough to fill our orders. I'll make sure to let you all know as soon as I take delivery and stock them. I have visions of harvesting 3/4 inch long shrimp from my forage pond by the thousands and getting my BG really fat on them. Then there's the thousands of wild ducks that will be dropping by this fall during duck season. I'm hopin' and dreamin'.

Oh, in the mean time I'm looking for some thoughts on where is best to stock these. Does anyone have suggestions as to whether I should stock them in the middle or edge of the pond, near the aerator or far from the aerator, etc.?
I'm going to stock some directly into my BG pond since it has well established food sources for them. I would like to take someone's advice and section off an area of pond to make sure they don't all get eaten but I can't possibly do that until the ice melts. I'm currently torn between putting them through the ice near the pond edge where there is lots of vegetation to hide in or putting them right into the aerator hole so they quickly get dispersed. Any ideas?

I would put them in the pond vegetation so they have a place to hide while they adjust to their new home, other wise they could get cleaned up fairly quickly.

bz, I agree with Shorty, any time that I have found them in numbers it has been in among vegetation. I read that they get stressed out if they cannot cling to something..... much like humans, oddly enough.

bz - I also suggest as much as possible stock in or near vegetation. I have not heard a word from PLM. They may not be able to find enough scuds until ice out. I still cannot figure out how they harvest under the ice.

Bill, I don't know how they harvest either but Kyle told me that they developed their own way of harvesting and they can only do it through the ice. I talked to him about a week ago and they were harvesting somewhere up in Northern MN where they have what he called "pristine" ponds that don't get any insecticide runnoff. They were harvesting there because of low populations in the farming regions of the state. He also said they need to certify with the DNR that their sources are free from unwanted plants or organisms so they have to go through some certification process. He did not elaborate. I asked him whether they had ponds that they stocked for harvest or if they simply looked for wild sources. He said they did some of each but it sounded like mostly wild stock. He really didn't seem to want to tell me a lot. I think you all are correct that I will try to stock in areas of heavy vegetation. One question I also have though is whether cooler water would kill the scuds. I'm thinking perhaps I'll stock them in the section of my pond that is aerated. If you've seen my "Temperature Survey" post you see that my water temps in that part of the pond are somewhat low and thus no fish hang out there. Might be a good place to stock the scuds if they can survive cooler temps.

ok, this minnesota source aint producing, or his cell phone got dropped in the water. where else we going to find these before the ice is out? anybody know where else to get scuds?

anybody ever been drenched by the asian beetles, that look like ladybugs, coming off the soybean aphid fields?

they probly wouldnt make it in my farm ponds anyway...

Our fish don't like eating regular ladybugs or the greenish asian ones - they must taste as bad as they smell.

I just got a message on Kyle's cell phone that he's on vacation until next Thursday. So I'm still wondering if I'm going to get my order. I noticed that my credit card has already been billed. Hmm.

bz, I don't think you will need to worry about cooler water temps.

Wow, is that out of your pond Wood? I hope I can get them to grow like that. Thanks very much for the pic. This has got me really fired up to get them in. Do you have fish in that pond and still get a crop like that?

Looking at the size of those scuds, it makes me wonder if a FH minnow could have any effect on them.

bz, these were from a fishless dugout used to water buffalo. Most farm dugouts here are full of them. I harvested quite a few and transplanted to my pond when I still had trout. I did not see many after that. My pond then went two years fishless and they have come back real strong. I will be harvesting more through the ice this weekend from a local perch lake. I will take some underwater video of them and their habitat and post it if you like. This particular lake has very large perch in small numbers and pike also. It is abundant weed growth also.