Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Calling Bill Cody & others - perch/SMB stocking ?

LR64 - The intruder sunfish will be a complicating problem especially if they are green sunfish. Almost every stream in the eastern midwest has GS in it. GS, bgill and yellow bullheads from a creek overflow evenutally ruined my perch-SMB pond. Pond has been drained and now converted to a minnow-shiner raising pond.

Are you sure that some of those little "everywhere" fatheads are not gshiners and or small 1/2" sunfish? Stream run GS will spawn at 3" long.

You will definately also have a sunfish spawn this spring-summer (2006).

It is definately not too early to stock perch or fingerling SMB since you WILL have young-of year (YOY) sunfish this fall. If you did not have YOY sunfish, I would wait till yperch have spawned once before adding SMB. I think you should stock fingerlings or subadults as soon as you can get them. SMB fingerlings or juveniles will probably be available from Hicklings - NY in fall AND spring 07. Otherwise young SMB are hard to locate in spring. Since you want to catch your own stock, then start catching. I am not sure how well stocking a few (10-30) juvenile to subadult (5"-8") SMB will work compared to a full compliment (100) of fingerlings or juveniles (2"-6") in your situation since you now have sunfish. ADDITIONAL SPECIES ALWAYS COMPICATES MANAGING A FISHERY!. Adding adult or larger SMB (12-14") will, I think, result in their selectively eating primarily your newly introduced perch (4"-6") and larger 2007 breeder minnows/shiners instead of sunfish. I have found that wild run SMB tend to eat larger food items than pond raised SMB.

PERCH In your case 100-150 adult perch are not too many to stock for one acre. Depending on the growth rate of perch in your supply lake, perch at 3"-4" maybe 5" this time of year (July) will probably be mostly males from 2005 year class. Some of the 4"-5" perch could be females from 2005 year class. Perch larger than 5" caught now will be about a 50% mixture of males and females from the pre-2005 year classes. Fifty to 100 adult perch (4"-10") stocked before winter 06 will be in good spawning condition to give you ample YOY perch next year, IF the 2007 spring weather is normal in upstate NY.

The main thing you will always have to watch is the numbers of YOY sunfish or bgill. Do not let them get out of control. Y.perch and SMB will not always have a successful spawn each year whereas sunfish and BG will always produce and abundant crop of YOY fish. BG and GS overall will aalways suppress perch and SMB fry survival.

Rooted weed growth will also favor sunfish survival which you do not want. Try to keep weeds to a minimum so SMB and larger perch can find small sunfish. Whenever you have a poor SMB or perch hatch make sure the YOY sunfish are heavily reduced that same year by whatever method.

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