Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Stocking a new pond with RES, YP and SMB

I concur with Scott and I encourage my few cool water clients to follow this same stocking plan, especially since you will lack an aggressive panfish species for kiddos to tangle with. RES can be caught, but less frequently than BG or PS - and it only takes one drag screaming run of a HSB to get a kid addicted for life.

You could ladder stock 10-20 HSB annually as your harvest plans and fishery dynamics dictate. HSB and SMB will help manage the YP population but pellet feeding will help ease pressure off your forage base, too.

Have you considered ladder stocking some bonus WE also? I do this, and it's a blast.

On the topic of panfish species: Have you considered HBG? If you selected Male only you could have a nice companion panfish species that's aggressive, grows fast and large, can be easily pellet trained, and won't reproduce except with RES creating an interesting BRESGSF hybrid. Just a thought - Tony would be the expert to consult on his thoughts RE HBG.

Have you considered RBS? Travis, who has a lot of firsthand experience with, thinks they could be a good cool water, limited gape companion panfish species as they are more fusiform and not as fecund as PS or BG. They are pretty fish, run smaller than BG but IIRC larger than PS. I also think they spawn in Fall, which would leave their YOY very vulnerable to predation with lack of vegetation all Winter long, so population management might not be an issue. I have never seen a RSB/RES hybrid, and if you managed a late RES spawn and could produce one, it would be spectacular scientific news!

Just some ideas...love your fishery regardless, it's shaping up to be very interesting and will help add to the volumes of knowledge on the forum.