Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose On Mutt Pond

Thanks for the interest Charlie!

Primary predators in our pond are SMB, WE, YP and a couple 3 or 4 LMB (I will remove them if I catch them). I don’t really count the CC as significant predators as they get pellet fed and removed at 3 pounds or less. And, of course, as this is Mutt Pond, there are 1 of a few other fish in there as novelty catches but no major predators.

Forage before today was mostly BG, PS, FHM, and surprisingly GSH. Hopefully, I can add SFS and BNM to the list. I will also be stocking Papershell Crawfish (PSC) in June now that the broken concrete and rip rap are in place. If I’m successful at getting more vegetation going, I hope to add local scuds and grass shrimp in the future.

My pond is very fertile so I’m trying to take advantage of that by building as strong and as diverse a forage base as I can. I try to research each species I’m going to stock and put habitat in place to try to assure their best chance of thriving before I stock them. I have not seen any threads taking the approach of trying to maximize the diversity of forage species (probably missed it) so I’m guessing it’s not a great strategy but it’s the one I’m going with. In my defense, Mutt Pond is all about diversity and never knowing what's going to be on the end of that line. If nothing else, I can report back so others can learn from the effort.