Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Managing YP for Max Eating Size Fish, Not Trophies

Drew - Your goals of "in the context of the family pond, in the event that I'm not around enough to push it appropriately to develop trophies, and if the others are only willing to devote enough time to warrant a slightly more casual pond management plan" helps confirm the goals for the management plan to produce around 100 harvestable YP per year with pellet feeding from 1 acre. Managing for minimal submerged weeds allows what predators that are present to effectively crop young perch.

Reproducing YP can easily create 10's of thousands of small perch whose numbers will need to be dramatically reduced so remaining YP get adequate food for growth. As Theo mentioned removing YP egg ribbons in April will held reduce "the herd of fry". Small perch will eat perch fry as will most any fish in the pond. The productivity of the pond (plankton) will also have a strong influence on survival of fry. Surviving fry that grow into fingerlings will need the management of their numbers. Most of this fingerling control will be by your predator populations. This is where a watchful eye, observations, and sampling become important to recognize overabundance of one size class.

I monitor size classes by using angling, fish trapping, and watching what are the most abundant sizes that are eating pellets. Keep in mind that about 50% of the new recruit perch in a 1 ac pond will not learn to eat pellets so angling and trapping round out the monitoring methods for estimating size classes. The trapping will select for sampling smaller perch depending on size of traps. Angling can target smaller perch (3"-6") and larger perch (8"-12"+) depending on the angling method. Smaller baited hooks close to shore and larger hooks and other baits such as minnows (live or dead) in deeper parts of the pond. This fall I removed with trapping 509 3.5"-6" YP from my 0.6ac pond; most were 3.5"-5". These perch were 7 months old. This spring I will trap again to see how many small perch I can catch to evaluate the remaining numbers of last year's perch crop. I have no predators in this pond except adult perch.

Results of your monitoring will tell how well the predators and harvesting are cropping the smaller fish so one age class or size class does not become overabundant and out of balance. For your stated goals and 'proper' growing of YP, expect most 1 yr olds(12 months old) to be 3"-5" some 6"long. Two year olds should be 5"-7" with some 8". The 3 yr olds will be your main harvest group at the 8" to 10" sizes. Three and four year(10"-12") olds should be the group that are the main reproducing body of perch and where your harvest for table use will be focused.