Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Question about bream

Next week I am having 2000 minnows and 800 BG stock in my pond. At the end of May I am going to put 200 LMB in. My question is should I stock some red ear with the blue gills and if yes how many? Almost forgot the pond is about 2 acres.

Also what about shellcrackers rather than RES or both

Hey, T.

I know there are a lot of regional differences in what we call fish and also lots of colloquial names, but I think redear sunfish and shellcrackers are the same thing in my book. I've heard in some areas "shellcracker" is somewhat of a generic term for sunfish, so that may be where the confusion lies.

I've yet to hear of a single person express a reason that redears are a negative in this sort of situation. I think I'm relatively safe in saying that they are a good fish for a situation like yours. I'm not an expert in the numbers game(how many to stock), but I love the way a RES fights, and I think they're stunningly beautiful fish during the spawn. I'm a big fan. What's your region again?

Bruce I'm in Florida. I always thought that the RES and shellcrackers were the same too, but I was looking at the fisherie pamplet and he's got both listed.

I think the pamplet maker needs some Diet Mountain Dew to get his head straight. Do you have others in your area with RES? How are they faring? Do you have abundant snails?

There are ponds all around here with res in them and seem to do fine. I have never really noticed any snails around. I was just wondering if I should only get 600 BG and 200 RES, or something similar to that. My main goal for the pond is for bass fishing.

Hi,
Yes, RES and shellcracker are the same. The Georgia record for shellcracker/redear is larger than the bluegill. Shellcracker doesn't spawn as often as the bluegill, but even though they don't eat feed they do seem to grow larger then the bluegill, but at a slower rate. We recommend 20% shellcracker to the amount of bluegill you put. If you are going to feed, then 800 bluegill and 200 shellcracker would be our recommendation for your pond. However, if your main goal is to have big bass and no interest in catching bream, then add all bluegill they reproduce more offsprings for your bass.