Eric and others, It's cold outside so I'm inside and thinking things over and wanted an opinion. Look see what u think. My pond will be 3.5 yrs old this coming April. A little over 3 acres. And I was just wondering what u thought about adding a good number of GSH along with Tp to the pond this spring (April 1st)? As of right now, I see the pond like this. Good numbers of 5" to 8" cnbg along with some res( I see 5" size on occasion but never any larger ones). HSB in the 10" to 17" range guessing somewhere between 30 to 40 maybe. The HSB count is based on 2 and a half yrs of stocking around 20 each spring and fall along with counting the dead ones I find floating over the last couple of yrs. The LMB, I am pretty sure I am at or around 30 to 40 lmb per acre at a 2.5 pound average. I am pretty sure I have around 3 or 5 lmb in the 5 to 6 pound range. Pond has a lot of small TFS and not many breeders, and after this cold spell I may not have any. One thing I have noticed with the TFS is they seem to run pretty small and that tells me the larger ones are getting hit pretty hard. Larger size, I'm talking 3 to 4" range. I would like to see some 4 to 6" sized TFS or GSH in the pond. So, looking at this I might be predator heavy but HSB and LMB look really healthy. So, I was thinking of getting some larger sized GSH along with some 2" sized and adding them to the pond. If I can find some larger sized GSH. I also plan to reduce lmb numbers through fishing and removing males, starting late February.
