Your plan is predator too 'heavy' and forage fish too 'light'. For having 'acceptable' numbers of WE, HSB, and the reproducing SMB you won't have enough prey forage fish to get good growth of your small fish eating predators. As the WE & SMB approach and exceed 16" they will start eating more of the 5" and 6" YP that will curtail YP reproduction. Very likely the WE and SMB will not eat pellets which means live foods have to feed all years classes of WE & SMB. Feeding the HSB pellets will help their growth. YP are prolific but do not produce enough recruits to feed those 3 types of predators unless the total number of predators are uncommonly low such as a total of 20 maybe 25 per acre. Remember the adult YP also prefer to eat small 1"-2" fish in their diet further strongly reducing the numbers of minnows that enter the reproduction size. Young YOY and juvenile SMB will also be eating 1"-3" fish. Forage pond will definitely be needed to supplement the forage numbers. Consider also using golden shiner, if available spotfin shiner, and lots of crayfish. RES are "weak" spawners and produce low limited numbers of offspring. Do not count on them for much forage benefit. Remember each 10 lbs of forage produces around 1 lb of predator. Each adult predator can easily eat 10 lbs of forage foods per year. For 25 one lb+ predators this amounts to 250 pounds of forage fish consumed each year. IMO keep predator numbers / acre low and increase predator numbers per acre only when forage numbers of the appropriate all mixed sizes appear to be too low / few to maintain continued predator growth. Predator body plumpness in terms of relative weight (RW) also indicates predator growth, good numbers of adequate forage, and body condition. Prey fish of various sizes should always be apparently obvious to observers for a good predator fishery.
To get a better estimate of predator density one should have a fairly good estimate of the number and or pounds of forage fish that are likely to be added to the pond from for forage fish pond.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 08/25/19 01:58 PM.
