Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Emerald shiners in the foodchain

What role can emerald shiners play in the forage base of a pond? They seem to be everywhere in the bodies of water near my home; and are very easy to catch in MASS quanities. This would sure beat paying big money every spring and fall for other forage fish. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Isaac - There are pros and cons of adding emerald shiners to your pond from "wild" habitats.
PROS: They live 3-4 yrs and can grow up to 4-4.5" long. Since they are larger than fathead minnows and swim faster, and they live primarily in open water areas they may last longer than fatheads in a pond with predators like bass who frequent the shallow areas. The cost in your case is only the collection effort. Ohio does have laws regarding how many minnows/shiners can be in ones posession at one time before you need a bait dealers licence or fish propogators license; check it out possibly on the fishing laws or from the ODNR, game warden or bait dealer. OH Div. Wildlife considers all wild fish theirs and they "own" & rule them for the general public. Be careful and more importantly, secretive by not bragging to your "buddies"; one of them may turn you in. A game warden could also see you collecting/hauling and ask questions & see ID.
NEGATIVES: 1. They do not readily spawn in ponds so annual or frequent collection effort is necessary. Numerous bait dealers, entrepreneurs, and educated types have tried to get them to spawn in ponds for the baitfish market in the Lake Erie region. No success. Spawning in a pond is very rare and pond spawning is the rare exception not the rule. Spawning is more likley to occur if you have a stream that feeds your pond. 2. Unless you carefully sort "the catch", you have a good chance of introducing an unwanted fish species into your pond; this also includes zebra mussels esp. if you collect from the tributaries close to the Ohio River. Zebra mussles will probably devistate your pond's food chain by filtering out all the plankton. 3. You also have a chance of introducing new disease organisms such as parasites, bacteria and viruses that will be on/in the fish or in the transport water. Sometimes fish diseases are latent and do not appear until some future time when your fish become stressed. Every time you add a wild fish or batch of fish the disease risk increases. It's a gamble you may be willing to take; it depends on the value you place on your fishery. B. Cody