Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New stock and structures

We are taking the plunge and last Friday ordered fish to be delivered on Wednesday. We went with 2 lbs of FHM, 100 redear, and 25 LMB. Our pond is just under 1/4 acre and meant to be more swimming than fishing so this seemed enough. Saw a comment in a Jones catalogue that redear tend to nibble less....hoping that's true

The pond is new, dug last summer, so very limited vegetation. One small area is 16' deep. I have an old Christmas tree and a couple scraggly branches that I think will work as structures. I also made a small "puptent" shape with old wood lattice. I got that to sink in the deepest part, but didn't get enough weight on the trees to sink them (and the water was too cold to work more at it ) So my question...is it better to have structures in the deep part of the water? or in the shallow?

I should have looked more...apologies if this question should have been in another forum...and probably asked and answered many times already...

If you don't have a bottom aeration system, the cover that you put in the deepest part of the pond won't be utilized by the fish until the winter - there won't be O2 for them there during the summer.

I think 25 LMB might be a bit much for the 100 RES. You might end up with slow growing, skinny LMB. But, then again, it all depends on what your goals are. If you want some big RES, then you did the right thing!

We would have prefered fewer LMB...but that's the minimum purchase. Should we share half of them with friends?

I would research stocking some more.. Is this the first initial stocking?

We put a pound of minnows in last fall...they seem to be all gone so for all intents and purposes this is the first.

Are the fish you mentioned already in the pond?

Where in Indiana are you located? If you are near enough to me, I have a bunch of fingerling to ? size LMB that I will be culling out of my pond. I'll be storing them in a cage when caught so they can stay in there indefinately. I probably won't start culling until the end of the month. (gotta build a few more cages)

We ordered from Farley's and they're being delivered today so they will be in the water by evening.

We're in Goshen.

Heck, you aren't that far away, maybe 50 minutes from here. Jones fish also makes trips thru the area, and they opened an office in Ft. Wayne.

Farley's came to a feedmill a few miles away from home, Ft. Wayne is an hour away so this was an easier buy. We did consult the Jones catalogue that suggests RES nibble less which is why we went with them.

It's probably sacrilege here but we don't need big bass ....just want a good balance of fish to control mosquito larvae and fish to control the larvae eaters. We anticipate adding a white amur in the future to control weeds. At this point there will be more swimming than fishing.

Ok, this is probably a real newbie question....but we stocked a couple weeks ago and since I put the fish in I have yet to see ONE. Haven't seen any dead fish so we're assuming they're in there some where, but is it common to never see them swimming in the shallows?

What species and sizes of fish did you stock? RES tend to stay in deeper water, so you will rarely see them. Usually the only time you see them is during their spawning season.

I wouldn't panic but you will generally see FHM and small BG in the shallows.