Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Need help stocking 3 year old pond

Numbers of yellow perch to stock will depend on your goals and how soon you would like to be catching some eating size YP. First thing I would do is add some fathead minnows to get your YP stockers going strong. Several variables apply here. Numbers of FHM to stock also depends on what size and how many YP you add, when you add them,, and if you plan to feed the fish pellets?. If you stock pellet eating YP you will not need as many minnows to feed them because the YP will eat mostly pellets and just supplement their diet with occasional minnows. This plan allows the minnows to spawn and lots of young minnows to survive the first year. These minnows will be brood stock for later years if you have some habitat for minnow survival.

Initially stocking minnow eating perch requires lots of minnows to feed the YP. So the more YP you add,,, the more minnows you need to stock along with the YP. Plan on each YP to eat at least 0.3 lb of minnows (1"-1.5") per growing season when both are stocked together. Other option is in SPRING stock FHM 1-3 lbs in 0.25ac,,, allow them to spawn all spring and summer,,,, and in fall add the YP of mixed sizes. When you stock 4"-6" YP in fall some of them will likely spawn the next spring.

Actually at least three ways to get started with YP in your 3 yr old pond.
1. Low Stocking Number. Add a few adult YP (1-2 egg laden females and 3-6 males). Do this before the water temp is 50F. Allow them to spawn and you will have lots of young perch - maybe too many. Then in fall add a FEW predators. Plan on each predator to eat 250-350 small YP each year. Young perch will live primarily on the natural foods produced by the pond. The few YP adults will eat bugs, leeches and little YP.

2. Add 40-50 4"-6" YP + 12-15lb minnows after the wild perch in your area have spawned when water temp is 60+F. If you use pellet trained YP and feed them then use only 2-4 lbs minnows. With ample food a few YP should be 7"-8.5" by fall; most will be 6"-7".

3. My choice for quickly getting some eating size YP the first fall. Add two sizes of YP 4"-6" and 6"-8" for a total of 40-60 fish in 0.25ac with some FHM to get some small FHM produced. Ratio of small : large YP sizes can vary. Use higher ratio of larger ones if you want to harvest some (10-20) the 1st fall-winter. The larger stocker 6"-8" YP should grow to be 8"-10" by fall. Adding more YP than 60 and up to 100/0.2ac could get more predation of the leech problem but growth of YP would overall be IMO less.

For a spring YP stocking, I prefer to stay away from the 2"-3" YP size group because these are mostly runts & males and slower growers. Using mostly the slower growing male perch has benefits but not for what I think are your stated goals.