Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Does anyone have a g.shiner population

Does anyone have a selfsustaining, thriving g.shiner population? If so, what species of predators to you have in the pond with the g.shiners? Do you create a habitat that hslps the g.shiner population? How?

MB:

It's always nice to look at the other side of the coin. I have, IMO, too many GShiners in my pond considering I want to emphasize on large BG.

I believe the things that have contributed to my large GShiner population are, in decreasing priority, 1) a year's head start on BG, RES, CC, and LMB; 2) a (minimum of a) small amount of weeds around nearly the entire perimeter of the pond (floating leaf pond weed, IIRC) to provide spawning areas, and 3) supplemental feeding (my GShiners love pelleted feed and have consumed a solid plurality of what I have fed over the last 4 years).

Note that I am NOT the situation you are looking for. I believe my GShiner population is on the decline (as I intend) due to declining catch rates and VERY low indications of 2005/2006 GShiner YOY (by observation both years and seining last year; haven't seined yet this year). However, if I were trying for a bass pond, I think the basic management difference that I would implement towards this goal, reducing LMB numbers and having fewer to no CC, would be beneficial to GShiner numbers.

Either way (big bass or big BG goal), GShiners get out-reproduced by BG and lose out on a lot of feeding opportunities to them. But they are much more present in the open water in the middle of the pond than BG are. I think you could increase the % of feed that the GShiners get by feeding in the middle of the pond at random locations, as they seem to be much more likely to eat feed presented in this manner than BG do. That is another way that you could help out your GShiner population.

I had a friend who's grandpa had a pond with lots of bass and lots of crappie. There were also quite a few green sunfish in there along with the bluegill. Lots of predators. The thing about this pond that made it unique was that it had trees from about 3 feet of water to the shore along the whole shoreline and a good bit of pondweed. Oh, and it had a sustaining population of shiners!
My opinion, lots of structure.