Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New pond what now

I had a new pond built last fall and am looking forward to the spring to see it fill and to begin stocking.
I thought I might post here in hopes of getting some varied and educated input on what may work best for my situation.

Given my lack of experience with stocking or maintaining a body of water I may sound and be exceptionally ignorant about some common sense things. I have been reading many posts and the book "Basic Pond Management" to try and educate myself in the meantime.

ABOUT THE POND:
The pond at about 1.5 acres and located in central Indiana. It is designed more as a "farm pond" I believe than as an ideal fish/wildlife environment.
It is basically a smooth bowl at this time and fairly deep with relatively steep sides.
As I have recently learned this is probably considered more like a small lake than a pond in regards to habitat.

Max depth is 18-20 feet, there is a lot of area that is in the 8-10 feet range which then transitions to the relatively steep sides. The sides are mostly about 3:1 I would guess with some variation.

I chose this route for better or worse because I was interested in keeping it pretty low maintenance in regards to weeds and also to mitigate some of the effects of potential level drops over the summer as I also have a limited runoff area. My primary interest was for it to look nice and be a good swimming hole and had assumed that at least some fish/wildlife would find it a welcome home as well.
For most of the near future (several years) I will be an absentee owner so whatever gets done will not get much monitoring by myself at least between my 3 or 4 time a year visits.

Most runoff will coming from open or cut grassland with a small bit (less than an acre) coming from a pasture often populated by cows (manure) and also used for hay.
If I get desperate I'll pump from a stream, assuming it is raining.

My first concern is that it not become a mosquito breeding ground as it fills.


THE PLAN:

- Early April, stock minnows, FHM I assume based on what I have read.

- Late summer/early fall, stock some predators, maybe just BG and RES.

The predator fish is where I have the most questions. My thought is to maybe just stock BG and or RES.
My thinking for this is that while I would love to have some LMB I am not sure that my environment is suitable to develop and sustain a thriving BG/RES population and therefore the Bass. Some cats would also be welcome and I might gather this would maybe be a better environment for them than the other fish.

Down the road when I can live there I would love to put more time and resources into developing this into being as much of a fish habitat as possible, but for the near future I just want to keep it clean, relatively mosquito free and be able to hook a few fish from time to time whatever they may be.

I would love to have some Crappie(my favorite to eat) and Bass in here but have read enough discouragement about Crappie in small areas to be dissuaded. Only mentioning it in the chance that a Crappie and Catfish combo could somehow work here.

Of course a lot also depends on how well it fills this spring and I'll just have to be patient to see how that goes.

I'll also plan to reach out to the local Soil and Water agencies but in the meantime I would love to hear any comments or suggestion on this so called plan.




jammer

Welcome to Pond Boss!

A real expert will be along shortly to answer your questions. In the meantime, please consider posting some photos of your place. We love pictures.

jammer:

Welcome to the forum!

Do some reading about Hybrid Bluegills and Hybrid Striped Bass with the Redears. Also, have you thought about Smallmouth Bass?

If you go the hybrid route you won't have a population explosion, and it'd be more of a put-n-take fishery. You can always add BG and LMB, but once they are in there, it's hard to change a pond over to something else without killing and starting over.

Some cliff notes:

Without habitat for the small fish to hide in, the predators will have a field day.

In smaller ponds, without human fishing pressure and humans removing LMB, they tend to overtake a pond and become stunted. It might take 5 - 8 or more years, it all depends on cover, forage and stocking rates.

CC have (at least in the ponds that I know) become hard to catch once caught and released once or twice. Once they pass 3# or so, they compete with LMB for food.

Roughly 20% of the surface acreage should be cover for the fish.

If you pump water in from the stream, make sure to use a fine mesh screen at one end or the other so you don't introduce unwanted fish from the stream.

thanks and will do, I am hoping to get some new pics soon.

In the meantime I have posted in the new member forum a few months ago. I'll update this post in the next few days with pios

Had not considered hybrids because I assumed they would not reproduce. Did not consider smallmouth either mainly because I am pretty unfamiliar with them. I'll check up on them. Thanks for this and the tips.

Howdy Jammer, happy ta see another Hoosier. I was extremely anxious to have a good fishery for grandkids and friends and had done my research, formed my goals and incorporated the experts to help me. They explained that like landscaping, stocking is more expensive the larger you buy. Because of expense I bought small. Also as a few yrs passed my goals fluctuated so then as I wanted to add new species I had to purchase larger fish to keep them from being just a new kind of snack. Why don't you just introduce forage the first summer? FH are fine but once predators are introduced the FH seem to dwindle rapidly and are expensive to restock annually. I have had good luck with Spotfin shiners and Bluntnose minnows, they are faster and able to avoid consumption better. Another choice of predators that could be fun would be WE and they won't reproduce. But then a population of YP would be helpful. Good luck with whatever you choose to do and remember there are no dumb ?'s.

The HBG will reproduce, but not near the extent that BG will. HSB won't reproduce in 99% of the ponds. RES will, but I haven't heard of an overpopulated RES pond.

BobO and Essup, where were able to find the spotfin shiners and bluntnose minnows and maybe yellow perch, in Indiana. I am also waiting to stock a new lake in the spring and need to get things ordered. The lake is down by Bloomington.

I've not been able to source spotfins and bluntnose commercially. As for the YP, Bill knows where to get them in Ohio.

IMO - When and only when the pond is established and if it has a high density of small bass and mostly few if any large bass then you can consider stocking some black crappie. Otherwise focus on working with other species of fish.
Don't bother with bluntnose and/or spotfins if you are stocking either LMB or SMB. The minnows won't last long with bass unless the pond is weedy.