Rainman has good information about lethargy of freshly stocked fish. Those fish are disoriented and almost always very stressed and vulnerable to predation when released into a unfamiliar pond. If they survive they can quickly adjust to surroundings and then have a much better chance of surviving. This was verified in a study summarized by ewest in his article about walleye stocking in the Jan-Feb PondBoss magazine pg 58. The study found that when walleye fingerlings are stocked, predation on them by largemout bass was greatest in the first 24 hrs and no predation of the fingerlings was observed after 14 days.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/25/13 10:47 AM.
