Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Golden Shiners or bluegills

(new member) Question: I have a 1/2 acre pond that is 8 years old,depth of 9 ft. with lots of cover. When the pond was built I let it set for 1 year before stocking it with fat heads. 2years later i stocked seven 12 inch lmb. All went well and now I have about 50 lmb of all sizes. but my farage base is all but gone. I really do not want blue gills in the pond unless absolutely neccesary.Can I get golden shiners to take hold or should I just bite the bullet and go with the bluegill.Goal is to have just large mouths of a decent size. Thanks to all, this is the best site I've ever found.

You any relation to Rockytopper?

You are correct in thinking that the best way to have decent sized LMB would be to introduce new forage species(s). (What IS the plural is species - speci?)

GShiners often have trouble maintaining a self-supporting population in the presence of LMB, since they don't spawn as prolifically as BG and possibly because they are easier to swallow than a BG the same length. (I swear we had a real nice discussion about this 1 or 2 weeks ago, but I have been unable to find it just now.)

It would probably be possible to establish GShiners, if you could stock large enough adults. They can get as big as 10" or so (I have lots of 7" - 9" GShiners), although commercially available stockers would usually be circa 3" (?).

Maintaining a viable population of them would require 1) reducing LMB numbers to limit predation and 2) providing suitable (small-grained) structure to encourage GShiner survival and (if possible) spawning. Controlling LMB numbers should be fairly do-able in 1/2 acre, and would of course have the side benefit of giving the remaining bass more to eat. GShiner-suitable structure has not, IIRC, received a lot of discussion here, but perhaps someone has info I don't recall or some good ideas.

Adding either GShiners or BG would also help lower LMB numbers somewhat via egg predation.

You have an interesting goal that may well be attainable. It might make a good basis for an article ("Featured PB Reader") in Pond Boss magazine.

It is much easier to first get shiners estabalished and then add bass. Lots of problems with this idea. From my experience with similar situations to yours, you will have a hard time getting gshiners established in the presence of a normal population of basically LMbass. Heavy weed cover would help them succeed but not much.

The main problem is the bass are already established at about carrying capacity. The more edible sized forage you dump in there the more the bass grow and become even more "healthy"/energetic thus causing more pressure on the shiners. Not enough shiners will survive and grow big enough to provide brood stock for next years shiner spawn. It takes about 3-4 yrs for a shiner to grow to 9" long.

However, it might(?) work in a weed infested pond where some shiners could escape predation until next years spawn. Shiners rarely get long and wide enough to be beyond the prey size of 16"-18" LMB. Thus they are constantly vulnerable to being easily eaten. If you stocked 9"-10 shiners the chances of this working improve somewhat, but not much. Extra large shiners for stocking are almost impossible to buy. Another thing you could do to improve chances of shiner survival is to dramatically reduce the LM bass numbers and add way too many shiners. A few might survive until the next spawn cycle. All options are very risky with out forage diversity and adequate weed cover. Structure does not provide adequate refugia for smaller sized "baitfish".

Systems with high diversity of forage items pull some of this predatory pressure off some gshiner populations where they succeed in ponds or small lakes.

What is so bad about bluegills?. The next issue of PondBoss mag Condello, Baird and Cody will have some ideas for managing bluegill so the population is skewed toward large 8"-10" bluegill.

You'll notice that both of these guys are saying that to establish a forage base, you have to reduce the bass numbers and control by culling in the future. You appear to have too much of a good thing. Too much for their own good.

For what it is worth our approach to stocking forage fish into an existing adult LMB population (which has worked for us) is as follows :

1 Reduce LMB population by 30 % by removal and add cover like xmas trees or thick brush for BG hiding around shallows where BG stay.

2 For each LMB adult 1yr. + (over 6in.) in late Feb-March add 10 adult BG in spawning condition.

3 Add 25 2in. BG/RES mix for each 1yr. + LMB same time.

4 Same time add any other forage fish (GShiners).

5 In Oct. following add 10 3-5 in. BG per each adult LMB 6in. +.

6 Keep culling LMB as needed.

7 Supp. feeding for BG.

These added forage fish are added behind a blocking net for at least 2 weeks for adjustment to a predator filled pond. This is the program we have used successfully in our southern ponds. One of the northern guys will have to comment on if it would work up north.

This is the typical scenario with people and bass. No one ever thinks to pull them out and leave the BG go. Is there any reason why you don't want BG's? If all you are worried about are BG's overpopulating, well that is a good thing in your case. You are trying to establish what I call a trophy bass pond. You have to reduce the number of bass to a few at a very large size and a ton of BG's and bait fish. I would pull out all bass under 13 inches. If that is all you are catching then begin by stocking at least 150 4-6 BG this spring. That way they will begin to supply your bass the food they need. I would also stock 15-20 pounds in both the spring and fall this year. With that said, shiners will help, but only once you harvest the bass.

Fifty bass in that small pond is too many with the absence of baitfish. Your fatheads are gone. The bass are probably living off their own spawn. If I were you I would stock some adult bluegills and thin those bass out.

Since Hilltoppers goal is "" to have just large mouths of a decent size."" I don't think he can produce this with just shiners or a minnow type of forage base unless he limits the LMB number to 5 or 6 fish in 1/2 ac - maybe just females in the pond. Overabundant forage and PROPER numbers of bass are usually necessities for producing larger sized bass. Diversity of forage items is also very helpful. He now has some good ideas now he just needs to decide which plan to follow.

If he is set against a sunfish type of forage then one idea not presented is start over with pellet trained bass. These fish will grow large enough for most average fishermans needs (easily 2-4 lbs). With a high protein pellet food based food source Hilltopper can have decent sized bass and no bgills. He will still need to monitor and adjust bass numbers when needed. Offspring of pellet fed bass often do not resort to eating pellets very well.