Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Chronicles of stocking Hybrid Striped Bass......

Heres the view from the other side.

Would you need aeration under a cage with so many fish in it, or dose the pond have enough O,2 for the fish if you put them in 8 to 10 feet of water? The cage lid would you use a solid top for shade or netting?

It all depends. Remember its not the number of fish that is concerning with regard to dissolved oxygen levels. It's the total mass of fish, or biomass. And there really isn't all that much biomass involved. One of the reasons I stated in my post to put a 4 ft deep cage in 6 ft of water was to assure water flow through the bottom of the cage. And its nice to have extra cages so that you can pull one out and let the algae die off from that cage while using the other to house fish. If you're planning to do it on your larger fishing pond, and you assure the netting of the cage allows water flow thru then I don't believe dissolved oxygen will be an issue.

OK thanks for the info. I will probably not try raising them this year. I am way behind on the farm work do to all the rain we are getting. But June is a long ways away so maybe. I did put some in a year and half ago. They were fun to catch the first fall. They grew from 3 to 4 inches to 7 or 8 in 4 months. They would come form a long ways to hit a lure. Did not get to fish much last year, we got a lot of rain 1 or 2 times a week all summer.

nehunter if you’re not up for raising them yourself just let me know. There’s a kid in the Geneva area that raises them for an ffa project. He would be happy to sell you some.

I like to raise them myself just to learn something new.
But helping out a FFA student would be a good think too.

Snrub I want to say thank you for offering to pick some up for whoever. I would be happy 2 pay my fair share. If they are that cheap I will just get a pound also. And if they make it. I'd be willing to share with anyone who wants to pick them up. Since I dont think I would want that many in my small of pond. Around 2/3 acre now.

Here is one of the fish that I raised in 2018. Last August I caught one around 13". Last night we caught 3 rather quickly between 15.5" and 16.5" and very thick. We had been struggling to catch them but found a technique that worked last night. We put a fathead minnow 2 ft. below a float. They hit within seconds each time it hit the water.

Oh man! I wish just one of the 25 we stocked would have survived. Two places are supposed to call me if they get any in..

Hopefully if I find some, my SMB won’t quickly eliminate them..

Very healthy looking fish Nedoc!

I find them difficult to catch as well, but when they are in the mood...look out! I have had the best luck with short pieces of nightcrawlers during feeding time anywhere from 1-2 feet under a bobber.

I prefer a 2 to 3 inch bg under a float.

Btw, nice fish

Trust me if you do it to many times they will start to get keen to that also. I have some very, very smart HSB and very hard to catch now that they are pushing 24 inches, but boy howdy when they do bite you better hang on!!!

Beautiful fish. They go nuts at my feeder, too. Much easier to grow than LMB, in my experience.

I added around 25 per acre through ladder stocking over the past 4+ yrs. the best I can tell, there are around 12 to 15 per acre that have survived. My adult son told me just a couple weeks ago that he had gone lmb fishing but had trouble keeping the hsb off the line. I suggested he go to plastic worm fishing and he came back and said they eat those too lol. We also hand feed them 3 days per week using Purina lmb feed and they also feed on the MVP that is thrown by the TH feeders. So they don't seem to be underfed. However if fishing after the feeders go off they will be harder to catch.