Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Question on Stocking a new pond

Just built our new pond in Jan and expecting it to be full by May. I plan to stock LMB, CNBG, and Mosquitofish as soon as I can. I'm getting mixed signals from suppliers as to whether i can stock all at once or just stock the baitfish this year and wait until next year for the bass. Any advice would be appreciated.

The pond is 3.5 acres and is located in NE Georgia.

Congrats on the new pond!

I am not an expert, but there are plenty of stocking experts on the forum.

However, my advice would be to put in your Mosquitofish right now. They do not need a full pond. You want them to start reproducing as soon as possible so your LMB and CNBG will have millions to gorge on when they are subsequently added to the pond.

You might be able to stock your predators this fall, or even in late May if your supplier still has good fish (not the slow-growers) available then.

Hopefully, more people will drop into your thread and give you some actual expert advice on your stocking plan and numbers.


P.S. Have you started adding structure to your pond? That is much easier before it fills.

If you have a clay bottom, have you added some spawning substrate for the CNBG and the bass?

Timing of fish stocking can be important. Best answers to you will be dependent on your goals for the fishery. Primarily big class panfish; general bass and CNBG fishing in a good generalized fishing pond, high catch rates with regular sized bluegill and bass mostly 2 lb to 4lb with a few 5lb sizes OR are you wanting primarily trophy class bass of 6lb-10lb. . Be informed it is very difficult to have together trophy CNBG and trophy bass mostly 6lbs to 8lbs. Different types of management are needed for having mainly each of trophy big panfish and trophy bass. Trophy CNBG need lots of smaller 1lb to 3 lb bass and trophy bass need lots of small panfish to properly feed the lower numbers of oversized bass. Note that trophy bass means you can't grow very many per acre and bass catch rates are low per hour of fishing due to only a few exist per acre.

Along with the mosquito fish you can also now stock some fathead minnows to help enhance the small fish forages. If the pond were mine I would allow the pond to get full. While this is happening Nature is producing an abundance of invertebrate foods to enhance the food chain. Too early of stocking when pond is murky due to high mud silt turbidity this suppresses the light limitation for production of the important bottom of the food chain - primarily phytoplankton and zooplankton that are necessary for fast fish grow of the stocker sportfish.

Bill, are you saying to stock the fathead minnows and mosquito fish NOW, and only stock the LMB and CNBG after the pond is full and the water has cleared? (The wording in your post is a bit ambiguous.)




bronco,

Bill is one of our actual experts. Take his advice over mine if there is a difference between the two.

I would like the pond to be primarily for bass fishing, with the other species stocked primarily for forage. All stocking would be fingerlings. The reason for my question is that I was informed that by stocking both at the same time, the LMB would grow faster than the forage and basically eat everything i stock for the forage before they have a chance to reproduce. The bass stocking where I am located seems to be a 6 week window starting in May until they run out, so while i would like to be able to fish for bass next year i don't want to do an initial stocking for everything, but be left with no forage for the bass by fall.

Some additional info that may help:

Supplier 1 has F1 LMG that said i can stock both at the same time

Supplier 2 has Norhern Strain LMG but said i need to stock forage fish this year and wait until next year on the LMB.

I’m not in Georgia and not an expert in stocking strategies BUT….
I stocked FHM, in your case mosquito fish early May ‘23, LMB and CNBG fingerlings together in Sept. ‘23
In my experience it has worked out. There are tons of YOY BG and the LMB are growing well.
There is zero chance of the LMB outgrowing and eating the BG that were stocked together
Unless you can grow 5lb bass in under 2 years.
The attached are photos of original stocked BG. We can catch these all day long
Side note: CNBG aren’t supposed to grow very well in Kansas

Bottom line, to me, is stock fatheads and feed them for about 6 months. Then bluegills. They are prolific.

When to stock bass, cats, larger predators, etc? When the predator, generally bass, can go to sleep with its mouth open and wake up with a full belly, stock them.

Only bluegills can spawn enough to feed bass and only bass can keep up with bluegill spawns in Southern states.

+1 on Dave’s suggestion

The first year LMB can really grow fast, not sure about 5# but if food is there even that is possible from what I had happen in my pond when it was young

Pat,

You've been very successful growing trophy LMB. I've been wanting to ask you how long it took you to grow the first example over 10 lbs. Running through the climate model, growth of females could average 2.36 lbs per year (DFW climate). Since this is an average, individuals could have surpassed 2.5 lbs/year. So 5 lbs in 2 years or 10 lbs in 4 or 5 years is doable. IIRC, you have northern LMB?

I don’t remember exactly when I caught the first 10# but seems like just a few years after filling…. Amazing since I didn’t want LMB…..and didn’t stock them … they are native to this area what ever they are. All neighbors have 10+# also. I’m still trying to rid of them so I can have BCP…. Not having much luck with that so far….. the LMB have spawned as I’m seeing pods of them on the surface

I guess different growing season, what I was getting at is, put a fingerling LMB is a pond at the same time as a fingerling CNBG, chart the growth rate for each, month to month, lay the charts over each other and let me know when the LMB is big enough to eat the CNBG. In my case it seems to be never.
I have heard of many people stocking their BG first and letting them spawn before stocking the predators only to have a serious overcrowding problem by year 2

+1. It is not possible for LMB to catch up to BG that are already too large to eat. BG are capable of growing fast enough to grow through the consumption window (range of consumable sizes) of LMB that were already existing when they hatched.

It's funny how that works. Many others would love to have those magnificent LMB.

Your bringing this up, reminds me of a conversation that you recounted where you described lamenting to Todd about massive LMB ripping crappie off your line while reeling them in. IIRC, Todd said something like, "Don't you know Pat? A 10 lb bass gets to eat whatever it wants"

lol and he was right, they eat what they want…