Cecil, Bill,
I right now have a YP only pond (maybe a few other trivial fish and some unwanted fish) but no predators. I had a few egg strands this spring and most appeared to be coated with fungus after the crazy weather we had (very hot, then a week of cold, snow, and now hot again) I may not have so much recruitment this year but if by this time next year I have millions of stunted perch then I'll know if it is possible for perch to overpopulate...

I would second the notion that the advice I got from the MI DNR was textbook knowledge based on teaching from the 50s and 60s and had I followed it would have been a disaster (starting with the advise to stock channel cats in quantity to control my bluegills which likely would stunt without adequate CC)

Recently in the news a local lake had a parasite vector spread by snails that was killing swans. I emailed the DNR and advise they stock RES in that BOW to help control snails. The DNR folks emailed back and really didn't know if RES would control snails or not and said they would look into it. They thought maybe RES might not make it in our area although there are good studies done by their very own MI biologists that proved RES did do well in SW MI lakes.

Dr. Luke,
I'm sorry I can't help you with how to switch a current BOW over from BCP to something else. However if you are allowed to stock HSB, i would consider doing that first. It would start the process of balancing the BCP by adding one apex predator that you can control the numbers on. You can feed pellets to the HSB and you can learn over time if they are putting a dent in your BCP populations or not. Certainly it is easier to manage your pond with HSB as the apex predator than LMB due to issue with LMB finding it easier to reproduce in your pond.


Last edited by canyoncreek; 04/20/16 02:50 PM.