Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Stocking forage species...a timeline

Hi Ronald

Sorry, I thought this was for a GA fishery, I obviously neglected to read the first sentence of your post carefully. I was excited you were flying in the face conventional wisdom in LMB country! I'm still excited, though - I love the ground floor of new projects.

What size pond are you working with here?

Strongly consider replacing GSH with SFS at least initially - I think you'll appreciate the results. You can always add GSH later if SFS don't establish self sustaining population.

Allow LCS at least one season to reproduce before adding SMB or YP. Maybe two - Travis is our expert LCS guy he can hopefully chime in. He's got a nice population going in at least one pond now, but I think it did take a couple years with no predation.

I would stock all forage at once allowing them all the opportunity to spawn multiple times prior to predator stocking.

NY is out of range for RES, but bear in mind PS will likely stunt and you'll have a dense population of 4-6" PS. Your SMB will benefit, but you're also filling significant carrying capacity with PS too large for SMB to eat, and not large enough to interest anglers and might be too small to harvest/fillet. That means less room and resources for SMB to grow. Just something you should be aware of.

Consider HBG as a companion panfish species - they will grow larger providing better angler return and allows for harvest/fillets, and since 97% of offspring are Male, you should have an easier time managing their population. Their gape allows them to be pisciverous, so they will impact forage base more than a PS would - just so you're aware.

Bill Cody will likely have some good feedback on YP angle, but I think they'd be a good addition to this fishery. YP will be vulnerable to average sized SMB even up to 6-7" - which could be an age 2 or 3 fish depending on growth rates up there, so my hunch is their population won't serve as a management issue. They will also primarily forage on your minnow/shiner population however - just be aware.

SMB/YP/HBG will grow up to 300% faster on some supplemental feeding program and it helps feed your forage base, too - which results in more robust spawns. It's entirely your call, just wanted you to be aware that a high quality feed can help increase carrying capacity of a fishery and also help relieve pressure off your natural forage base.

SMB/YP/PS fishery can certainly be done if your heart is set on it - just be aware you'll likely either have a stunted PS population, or will need to manage it intensely through angling, trapping, seining, etc. Sounds like a cool project.