Have a brand new four acre pond located in Saluda, SC. Water depth varies from 17 feet at dam to 3.5-4 feet in the shallows. It has a red clay bottom. Pond is now finally full and has a great bloom. Ready to stock fish. I am interested in bluegill, redear, LMB, and channel catfish. Took a trip to a pond stocking facility. Noticed that most of the panfish were mixed in together in the tanks (redear, BG, some fish that looked like a mix of the two.) Is this normal or should I be concerned. I also was interested in the LMB that have been mixed with the Florida strain but they only had the northern LMB. What other facilities are around here that are recommended? I am ready to go, but don't want to screw this up being too hasty.

Welcome to the forum scboy!!!

You'll get some great answers to your stocking questions very quickley I'm sure.

What are your goals? an all-around great fishin' hole? Trophy bass? Big bluegill?

Personally, I would be concerned if the fish are mixed in the same tanks.

I have four kids myself, and my sisters two kids make six total....seven kids all together counting myself..LOL. I suppose that we are looking for an all around fishing hole. The pond has been around for 60 years, but was totally reworked about 18 months ago. I will try to get some pictures posted of the pond in various states of construction. Right now no stocking of any type has been done. My Dad and I looked at 1.5-2 inch fish today along with 3-4 inch fish. The smaller fish ran .30 cents, while the larger ran .75 cents. The tanks we looked at had redear and blue gill mixed. I just want to make sure that I am getting a quality fish....not some crossed up inbred crap. I have decided that we do not want to go the route of F1 hybrid bream. My father owns the pond. It sits right behind his house. It has a covered dock that sits on a penisular jutting out into the pond. He plans on building the kids a fire pit to roast wieners and marshmellows on, and the penisular is big enough to campout on. He even has them a sand beach with a water fountain. We have a punched well that will produce about 75 gallons per minute of water. Even though the pond has a great watershed, he plans on using this to keep the water level constant. I think he was trying to biuld HIS boyhood dream pond when the old pond was reworked. Even though my Dad is tight with money, he ultimately will not skimp on the fish. He has charged me with the research. Sorry to be so long winded...just trying to give some background. Although my heart truely lies with offshore saltwater fishing, I love catching big BG and big LMB. Especially when my kids are enjoying it with me.

Greg Grimes is not to far from you outside of Atlanta. If he can't help you he will probably know who can.

Hey scboy; welcome to the show, man.
Yep, sit tight, spill the beans, and let these guys pick your brain. The first step is critical (as noted by Rainman); what are your goals? They had to drag it outta me, but in the end, we are having a wild time bringing it together.
I'm gonna hit the bench and watch the game. Absolutely post pics.

If you're dying to get SOME kind of fish in the water, 10 to 50 pounds of Fathead Minnows (FH) is always a good choice no matter what the final stocking plan will be.

A word of caution about stocking FH minnows.
If HSB stocking is planned with abundant FHM population,the HSB will NEVER become feed trained...

Scboy, If you want you can go to Greg Grimes's website and go to the gallery and look at a few diferent types of bass and other species. Its http://www.lakework.com I wouldn't buy fish from someone that you don't know anything about or that doesn't have a reputation for selling quality fish. There are some people out there that will rip you off. As for as the bass go I would go with the F1 since they have the best of the Northen and Flordia bass traits. Im sure Greg can get you any of the species you want.

George, when would you stock the HSB. Wouldn't it be well after the bass and bluegill? If so wouldn't most FH be eaten?

Pictures of the pond. These were taken last spring. The pond has filled since then, and grass has been established all around. The pond has a deep channel throughout its center. This channel runs from the midpoint of the dam turns just before the dock and tapers out as it rolls around the penisular. There are depressions and raised areas along the bottom to create structure for the fish. Please let me know if the below links don't work.

http://s733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/dpadgett92/?action=view¤t=UptowardsDam.jpg

http://s733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/dpadgett92/?action=view¤t=Middleofpond.jpg

http://s733.photobucket.com/albums/ww334/dpadgett92/?action=view¤t=ShallowEnd.jpg

does this help?

For “balanced” stocking recommendations, this would be true, but in my case I rarely follow traditional stocking procedure.

The referenced case regarding HSB becoming FHM “trained” was in a ¼ acre pond forage pond, stocked originally with FHM and RES only – no BG.

The following year the pond was full of FH minnows and RES, and I set up a feeder for planned 4-6 inch HSB stockers.
Never saw a fish eat a pellet and thought my HSB were dead until my son told me he was catching HSB on a spinner bait.

I am primarily a fly fisherman, but my wife and I caught some 20, 1-2 # HSB in one day to transfer to main pond.

This group of HSB NEVER became feed trained.

Here's a little help for scboy

Nice looking pond!!

Thanks Ryan for helping with the photos, and thank you Sue for the compliment. Interested in going to get the FH minnows started immediately. Everybody I have been talking to does not handle them directly. What is a direct source near me, and how many should I put in? Also what is the correct price point for the minnows?

On another note I talked to another fish supplier today and they also riase the BG and RES in the same pond together. I don't think this is a problem. I believe the original fish supplier in the first post that I made had just seined some stock out and that is why they were mixed. Although I do not believe he was all that interested in seperating them before stocking our pond. My concern would be that there was not the correct ratio of BG to RES, and there is that mystery fish that was mixed in. It was definately not a BG or a RES. The fish we were looking at were 3.5-4 inch. When I looked at the 1.5-2 inch fish I could not tell the difference. Could the mystery fish be some sort of hybrid or is it just another bream?

The wrong number of RES and BG could be a REAL big problem for forage! You're right to be concerned.

Yes.

Impossible to say without pictures. Many of us (okay, I did, anyway) confused the beloved Green Sunfish with Bluegills before being exposed to photos of both and identification tips here at the forum.

I looked at alot of pictures of green sunfish tonight, and I believe that the mystery fish has some green sunfish in it. Its body was slightly elongated, and it had some of the coloring around the mouth that resembles some of the photos I looked at. Its mouth was not as large as a green sunfish. Still loking for a source for fish and FH minnows.

just spoke with scboy. Looking forward to fish stocking proposal. Thanks guys. Nice I go out of town for 4 days and you do my selling for me.

Too bad you can't attend our Regional PB meeting Saturday at Chris and fPeeps ponds.
Frank is presently planning his stocking plan and sure it will be discussed at meeting.

I have just completd re-stocking our pond after last summer fish kill - with adult, feed trained stockers.
I plan to comment on risks of stocking FHM with feed trained stockers.