Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Help For A New Guy?

6"-8" CC should not be a problem to your initial BG/RES stockers.

I'd say the biggest downside to CC is the size they can attain and the resulting amount of fish biomass in your pond they can take up. Stocked in extremely high numbers, they can muddy the water looking for food. In the lower number range I will be talking about this shouldn't be a problem.

IIRC you are not planning on feeding the fish. Given this, most of the 6"-8" CC you stock should be able to reach 1.5 lbs (not a bad eating size; I consider 1.5 to 4 lbs to be the best size range for filleting) within 2-3 years. Non-feeding CC owners, if they chime in, would have a better estimate on the time frame than I do.

I strongly suggest you stock no more CC than you plan to catch and eat during this 2-3 year period (If this number is more than 200/acre, I would not advise exceeding that limit in a mixed species pond). That way you'll have most of the CC out before their size can become a problem. I suspect a small number of CC will remain to grow to a larger size; I do not personally have a problem with a few huge CC as they can provide an occasional eye-opener when fishing for something smaller.