Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Newb questions longgggg

Alright I live on a small private lake my guesstimate is 7-10 acres. It gets as deep as about 20-24 feet in spots. Lots of areas are 10-18 feet. Its round with 2 bay areas one is large and goes from about 7-8ft to 1 feet avg depth of it is probably 5-6 feet. The other bays avg depth is about 3 feet. Id say about 70% of the bottom has weed groth in summer. Last but not least the pond is dugout it was made back in the late 1940's. I think they may have used the 10-1 ratio no real clue. But as long as I can remember its had a ton of small bluegills. Right now the pond/lake has the following fish in it

Bluegills- tons of them most are 2-4 inches with a few big ones but not many.
Bullheads - not sure how many see a few every now and then but dont target them.
Crappie - very few but the ones that we have are massive 12-16" infact we catch them on gills.
LMB- have tons of them their really healthy lots of good sized ones can walk out on the dock and always see a few.
Walleye - our neighbor got the brilliant idea to throw a few in from Lake Erie one day when he came home and some were still alive in his livewell. Ive caught 3 all different one not sure how many he actually put in.
Northern Pike - Used to have alot of hammer handles but caught alot of those and kept them and have thrown in a few bigger ones from my buddys private lakes to get some new genetics going. Now we dont catch many but the ones we do are pretty healthy looking and bigger.
Yellow perch - used to not have too many but planted about 100 4-6" ones 2 years ago.
Rockbass - got a few their usually big but I dont think theyre breeding.
Warmouth - garbage dont really care about them.
Minnows - some little turd ones about an inch or so that swim next to shore.
Pumpkinseed/RES - a few but the gills mostly dominate

Alright now I belive that covers all the species I can think of right now. What Id like to do is get the crappies numbers a little stronger numbers wise, keep the bass numbers near where they are, get the pike a little fatter, and get a few more bigger gills.

These are the few ideas Ive come up with
Channel cats maybe 16 or so I could just catch them 2-8lbs from my friends private lake and dump them in. Also he has alot of shad 2-4" and we talked about netting 300-500 or so and dumping them in. He has alot of crappies too and told me I could just catch some from his place if I wanted to and transplant them as well.

Right now my bluegill are obviously out of control and have been as long as I can remember which is 22 years. Overall its not in bad shape fishing wise but Id like to make it top notch.

So what should I do?
I can put up a drawing of the shape/depths ect too if its any help.

Greetings, Affirmed. I was gonna refer you to the Street Sense thread, but I see you've been there.

You, Sir, have a complicated fishery. When you say "live on a private lake", does this mean there are other property owners with a stake in the lake? If so, you have the tenants' association variety of concerns to worry about.

BG size is not likely to significantly increase unless their numbers are reduced by increased predation, which would likely be associated with reduced Crappie, LMB, WE, and NP condition. There's only so much toothpaste in the tube, and when you squeeze on one end it all goes down to the other one. Feeding might help somewhat (adding a little more toothpaste), but in general large predators go along with lots of small, overcrowded BG. So you may have more goals than will fit on your plate.

In Michigan, Shad would mean Gizzard Shad - not recommended in small waters. Personally, I would not want to add them to your mix.

OTOH if you have large Crappie and large LMB, we may just want you to analyze the current conditions in great detail. That's a combo many PM's would love to achieve.

Would the shape/size of either of your bays allow the use of blocking nets? It sounds as though you may be somewhat lacking in larger [forage]size gills, though total numbers are ok...perhaps you could "squeeze the tube" by raising forage size over the early spring/summer, feeding behind a net, getting your gills to 4-6", where they might be more optimal for your larger predators. You might put some larger gills behind the nets as well, and raise them past easy pickins for the northerns.

Yes there is a lake assosciation only about 5 other home owners and my old man is the president of it. He asked at the last meeting if anyone had any objections to me playing with the fish stocks and no one objected. Frankly I dont even know why these other people live on the lake/pond since they never use it even for swimming. Anyways I was out today on it fishing with a friend and we saw a school of about 16-24 small crappie about 5-7". So The crappie arent even really a concern anymore since they seem to be populating well for now. Ya theres not alot of big BG but when theyre spawning we can catch alot of good sized ones if we want. Thats about the only time though. The avg bass we catch are 2-4lbs with the occasional 5lber. Im not sure what kind of shad they are or even if they are shad they might be something else for all I know. He keeps telling me about them so Im gonna try and have him catch some in a net and show them to me sometime in the next couple of weeks here. Id still like to add a few CC to get rid of the bullheads ( or at least attempt to ) and also keep the BG in check espcially from eating the other fry. I mean if I had a bait net today I could of thrown it off my dock and easily had 100 2-3" gills. Do you think it would be a good idea to put some CC in, if the goal to get bigger BG is tossed? I also like the way the CC fight

We have a decent number of 4-5" gills. But its the porker size gills Id like to make more numerous if its possible with my situation.

Stock CC if you want them, not for BG control. I doubt they will be as much of a threat to BG as the LMB and Crappie. It sounds like you have enough large (predator-proof) BG to spawn a good forage base. Given the predator load, that may the the best that can be attained.

I suggest stocking conservative numbers of advanced CC (10" - 12" or bigger, if you can find them). As a member of the "I Have More Large CC Than I Want Society" (Catmandoo = President) I must mention that by conservative, I mean figure out how many you want and stock 1/2 or 1/3 that many. Repeat next year if desired.

If you get a few of the "shad", check to see if they all appear to be the same kind of fish. Post a pic (or pics, if there are different kinds) and we can assist in identification.