Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Changing things!

Hey everyone, my name is Chad. I was recently given the "go ahead" to the management of our 2.5-3 acre pond on our family farm. Not exactly sure on the whole stocking history, since the pond was there with the purchase. But it had CC, Minnows (unsure of specifics), BG (but not many). With poachers, the CC are practically gone but we have since added a structure to the property and the poaching ceased with increased time spent there. No history of LMB in the pond at all to my knowledge. That's what I want! My goal is trophy LMB. There are a lot of minnows in there, but I'll be adding more before I introduce the LMB. I'd also like to really boost the BG. I want TONS of forage before I introduce them. We have another piece of property with a large creek going through it and a spring. I routinely catch 3-4 lb (Up to 8lb) bass out of the creek and BG as big as your hand out of the spring. Would it be okay to transport some of these fish, especially the BG to my pond? Or even 1 big bass (I plan on stocking it correctly with fingerlings, I'm jw if it would hurt anything to have 1 LMB in there far ahead of the others) ? I have a lot of work to do, structure wise. It's just been a CC pond (CC boxes). When it was real low I should have been working my butt off, but like a fool, I didn't. It's going to be a lot harder now I have quite a few pallets, Christmas trees, cedar brush and a boat.

Also, I heard today that a local feed store "has a guy that comes through with a truck of fish in the spring, you buy them a dozen at a time."

This sounds ridiculous to me! A dozen at a time? I'm not buying bait!

42 views and not one suggestion? Did I say something wrong?

Nothing wrong said....it's just been pretty busy for many folks as of late. Perhaps one or more members of our very well informed Texas contingent will weigh in shortly....

In the meantime, I will weigh in on the issue of transporting fish from the creek. I probably wouldn't, although like you I would surely be tempted. You run the risk of introducing an undesireable plant species, or even encountering an issue with the fish themselves.

If I understand you, you want to manage with big Bass as your primary goal. If it were me I would take advantage of some of the superior genetics available these days, and bypass the creek fish, AND the fish truck, right off the bat.

If you have the chance to start from scratch, try to find the best stock that you can....don't just add fish.

I am really surprised that if the CC are poached out and there are BG left in there, that the BG haven't overpopulated. Are you absolutely sure there isn't something in there that is gorging themselves on the BG?

Probably a bad idea to just stock one LMB to grow big. It will just have a field day eating the fish you want to stock later. And like I said, maybe there is one in there already, or a large CC....

Chad, welcome aboard, and everything's cool.

One of the issues you have with advice is the current fish and fish types. That makes it hard sometimes to give good advice, which is what you want and need.

If it was me, I'd get that structure in the pond as soon as possible, and give it a good soak before I stocked anything. If you do still have larger number's of CC, that will give any BG you add a place to hide. I would continue to fish for the CC and any possible LMB to get a better feel for the numbers already there, and get them removed.

Here's a thread on structure and cover from the PB archives.
Structure and cover

As far as transporting BG from the creek, if it was me, I wouldn't do it under any circumstances.

LMB are easy to identify, so if you do move some to your pond, they or may not survive the move, but they probably wouldn't hurt the pond. But, they'll aggressively eat anything else in there, including future LMB fry stocked, so you would probably lose quite a bit of those.

Here's some pictures of Coppernose BG, which is what you ultimately want.
Coppernose Bluegill

As far as trophy LMB, it's recommended that you stock 1,000 Coppernose BG for every acre of water. For trophy's, you're probably talking 2-3,000 per acre. That's 6-9,000 CNBG for your 3 acres. I would give them until late Fall at least, then stock your LMB at no more than 50 per acre. Maybe half that for trophy's. But, my limited experience has been that lower stocking rates for LMB, and higher stocking rates for CNBG, can make the LMB far more difficult to catch. LMB stocked at lower than recommended rates will swim around like Blue Whales eating Krill. They'll just swim and eat. It can make for great trophy's, but it can also make them harder to catch.

So, if you read all this, remember it's just my thoughts. Smarter guys than me will chime in also. Good luck, and post some pictures of the pond. We love pictures.

Great input, guys! It's all very appreciated. Y'all confirmed my fears about moving them. It's not worth risking anything with my pond. WOW! That's a ton of them. How many FHM? I'm sure this will be costly, my wife will hate my new passion! What kind of quality bass are you talking about? Where from? I would drive several hours to get these fish.

For starters, search here for Camelot Bell Bass.

Welcome to the forum!

I'll do it, thank you! Not sure how to post pics on here...On my iPhone. I have some great shots of it though. I'll even email them to someone who can post them?

how to post photos

If you get the mobile photobucket ap and create an account you can post pictures from your phone. There might be an easier ap to use also.

http://i888.photobucket.com/albums/ac84/...zpszl1shans.jpg

Hopefully this works :\



You still have to follow the directions that was in the link that I posted.

Looks good! And best of luck with getting what you want out of your pond. Mine was new 5 years ago and has brought so much enjoyment (and money spent, but hey, you can't take it with you!)

CMM

If you are going to reboot the pond, you might think about draining + rotenone treatment before restocking.

I'd be really surprised if there weren't some predator fish lurking in there. CC are notoriously hook-shy.

Also, use this planimeter to measure the true surface area of the pond. People are often surprised.

http://acme.com/planimeter/