Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Is this a good plan?

My family recently completed a long term goal of building a 1-2 acre pond. I have stocked 4lbs of Fatheads and 3lbs of Golden Shiners. This year nothing else will be introduced. I have noticed plenty of insects and tadpoles in the water as well. The main goal of this is to have high quality fish. My brother wants bluegill for the kids. I don't think size is much of a concern. I would like large bass, but they don't have to be monsters. I would like to commonly catch 2lb or bigger bass fairly regularly.

My Questions:

1. Will fathead minnows spawn their first year? The ones we got from the fish guy were smaller than I thought they would be. I have no idea how old they were. I was thinking they would be the size you would use for Walleye fishing. They were about 1.5" if I had to guess.

2. Same question about Golden shiners. They were also fairly small.

3. The next is timing with the Bluegill and Bass. I was going to transplant bluegill from a pond about 30YDS away. They say 1000 fingerlings per acre. How many adult female bluegill would I need to put in?

4. I was thinking we should wait another year before I put the bass in. I also have access to 12" bass, but they have worms and are stunted. I don't want to put a 4-6 year old stunted bass to eat all of my bait fish. How many fingerlings should I put in? I was thinking like 50.

My main concern is the bluegill becoming overpopulated. Can someone help me with the timing.

Thanks so much,

Jake

1) many times

2) there was a fairly recent thread about this. I will see if I can locate it

3) Can you trust that source is healthy and true BG?

4) Is it legal to put RE in your pond? That helps with the worm cycle. Again, better to go with good quality/healthy fish.

Just answered basic stuff. The pros will/can help out with #'s and specifics....


Edit--- link to a some GSH age/spawn stuff, go to page three:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post327242


.......AND WELCOME TO PONDBOSS< GLAD TO HAVE YOU.

I think you are probably right about the bluegill. I am not for sure if they are healthy. I will just buy fingerlings. Its better not to transplant some sort of worm cycle. Thanks for the rest of the info.

The advice on here is to stock bluegill and bass(largemouth?, I assume) at the same time so the bluegill do not overpopulate.

With where you are in the country(northern half), stocking LMB and BG are the right times is important to prevent BG stunting issues. That is rarely an issues in southern waters where LMB generally over eat BG. In northern waters, LMB are slower growing and the BG usually out pace them.

To prevent this, you can either give the LMB a bit of a head start on the BG. Or, you can stock advanced sized fingerling LMB.

Make sure that you have spawning structure for the FHM. Sink some pallets along the edges.

When do FHM start laying eggs?

As in when do they mature or what time of year?

Maturity is about 4 months, 1.5" or so. Spawning begins when water temps get into the 60's and continues into the 80's.

Thanks everybody for your advice so far. I have seen a ton of ponds that have issues with overpopulation of either bluegill or sunfish, which is why I am nervous.

CJBS2003 How much of a head start would you give the bass?

Fish n Chips thanks for the tip on the minnow structure. I have been halfheartedly looking for wax boxes, but have not gotten any yet. The pond flooded a bunch of timber. The shallows have all sorts of trees, bushes, fallen logs, and rocks. I think I am good for now, but I need those boxes for when the fish get a little thicker.

RAH From the info I have read I think they spawn several times when the water is between roughly 60-80 degrees.

Forage other than BG (FH and others) then LMB. Then next spring stock BG. Another method is to stock FH (lots) and others now then stock 6 in LMB this summer then BG in the fall. Using this method I prefer stocking only a few adult BG (25-30 per acre)after all chance of spawning for the year is over (water temps at 60 F).

What time of year do they start? Around 60 F water temp - Thank you. I floated some waxed cardboard in the pond to see how this works as a FHM laying substrate.

Keep in mind BG bigger than a 1/3 the length of the biggest LMB are safe from predation. BG 1/4 the length of LMB are prime forage size.

Absolute ideal timing is to have your FHM numbers becoming limited just as your BG begin spawning for the first time. Basically, you let the FHM spawn like crazy with no predators for some time to build their numbers up. One growing season is generally enough depending on how many FHM were initially stocked. Stocking FHM and GSH in the spring of the first year, then stocking initial LMB stockers which are usually 2"-4". They are the ideal size to prey on newly hatched FHM which there will be 1000's by late summer when you can stock the LMB.

This abundant easy food leads to excellent growth rates for your LMB. Expect many to be 6"-8" by late Spring the next year. By the fall, you should see your LMB pushing 10"-12" unless you're in very northern waters. By this time they will be getting close to removing all FHM and will begin preying on the GSH. Your original GSH will mostly be too large for the LMB to prey on, but those GSH born in the pond will be prime size.

Come the following spring, your LMB should be just mature enough to pull off a limited spawn. It is then you can stock advanced sized BG at 4"-6", preferably leaning more towards the 6" range. These BG will spawn that spring and will begin producing young and the future primary back bone of your food chain.

This stocking strategy works well for NORTHERN ponds where BG growth rates often outpace LMB growth if stocked together at similar sizes creating a too successful initial spawn by BG.

If not too far north then RES are an option, they can be stocked at any size, usually 2"-4" and stocked at the time the LMB are.

I think it should be sometime around now, depending on where you are in the country. I am super excited about the fatheads too. I have a little cow pond that is on top of a hill about 40 yds from the bigger pond that currently has about an 18" V cut in the dam. I think it will be about 5' deep at full pool and is probably 30' diameter. There is a creek bed that the little pond could drain into with very little effort that directly feeds the larger pond. I am going to fix up the dam and put a capped drain pipe in as well as an overflow. I am going to grow oodles of fatheads in here. If it doesn't freeze I am going to throw some shiners in as well. Every year I am going to open the cap and watch the bloodbath down stream. They say that fatheads have little to no chance of survival in a pond after 5 years with bass. In this case unless they can swim uphill and jump into an 8' pipe my little friends should be fine.

CJ- I am really glad you are getting a chance to post more often again. I have been missing your thought process on how you see things.

In regards to his goals of the pond in the very first paragraph, does all of what you say still apply, or is it tweaked in one way or another? ----can he have 2# LMB caught frequently without having an overabundance of BG in a 2 acre pond?

The bass population can be skewed toward the 2 lb size by selective harvest of the bass - slot limits. A healthy 2 lb bass is 15.5" to 16.5". IMO remove most all the larger ones 17"+ and some less than 10" long. Number of smaller bass to remove will depend on how abundant the small forage sized fish (minnows and small bluegill (1.5"-3.0") are. Lack of small BG, remove more small bass; high numberx of small BG, remove few small bass.

Others should provide their harvest plan.

Pssstt. Bill, I caught a 16.0" LMB (Female) last week that weighed 3.24#.

Your bass are pellet eating freaks! So you are your trout for that matter!

So are his catfish

Thanks for reminding me that I have to catch those boogers. How big do you think this one is now? It's approaching 3 years after the pic was taken and it's never been caught since. In the pic it is 29.5" long and 15.94#

Seriously, that has to be the prettiest CC I have ever seen. I bet it's pushing 20 pounds by now...

How old would you say that CC is in that pic?

From what I know about the place, the orig. pond was built somewhere between 1998 and 2002. The orig owner stocked some CC in it along with LMB, BG and BC. Winter of 2002 it had a pretty good winterkill, there were many, many large fish dead under the ice.