75 LMB fingerlings were added this past Friday to the pond. I did 50% water changes every five minutes with pond water to get the fish acclimated, and then tried to add them all to a shallow area of flooded mesquite on the south end of the pond. I counted the fish as I released them (partly because it did NOT look like there were 75 fish in the bucket) and got to 37 when I noticed some of the fish looked like they were trying to jump out of the water.
I didn't think about any toxins leaching from the mesquite trees because there were young bluegill and tilapia all around my feet in the water. Regardless, I did not want to risk anything, so I released the other fish near a brick pile in shallow water 60 yards away.
What kind of losses to predation should I expect? I know larger fish would have been better to stock, but I will not have time until later this year to pick up any fish from Overton's. I do intend to make a trip down there this fall and make a field trip if nothing else, but I really wanted at least some bass to be able to take advantage of the tilapia die-off.
In the near future, are there any drawbacks to adding bucket stocked lmb besides possible predation on the lmb I just stocked? Obviously the fish would need to be well under the cull length when stocked, but for a trophy panfish pond could it hurt to add more bass at this stage?
