Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Bluegills and Fatheads

Would bluegill and fatheads together work in a small pond say 25'X 75'? Or would
the fatheads be food for the the bluegills? I have fatheads in my smallest pond now
and was thinking of putting a couple of breeding pairs of bluegills in. At this point I
throw a minnow trap in over night and its a quarter full the next morn. I have a third pond about the size of a hockey rink I was thinking of using, but I would have to remove all the LMB or kill off the whole pond.Thanx in advance Bill,I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.

Jimmy

I have intermediate bluegill 3-6 inches and fatheads in the same pond. No problem doing this the mouth of a bluegill is too small except maybe a few freshly hatched fatheads and I see this as a bonus for bluegill growth if it occurs. Hybrid bluegill would be a different story.

Fatheads and bgill will work together in the same pond depending on how long of a period you are taking about. Bgill will eat fathead minnows; the bigger the bgill the bigger minnow it can eat. Bgill 8"-9" long can eat 1" to 1.25" fatheads. Adult bgill will ignore the 2"+ fathead breeders. Lots of 2"-4" bgill in a pond your size will take a relatively heavy toll of the fathead fry. If only a few bgill (10-15) are allowed in your size pond, their diet will also consist of a lot of the larger insect larvae and invertebrate adults that are too big for the larger fatheads to eat.

As the number of bgill increase the large invertebrate food supply decreases and bgill will resort to eating more&more small fatheads. As the pond ages with bgill in it and no selective thinning occurs the fish composition will gradually become more and more dominated by bgill until bgill will eventually outnumber the fatheads. This may take several years (5 to 10) and will also depend upon the amount of fish cover. Periodic pond draining and dramatic population adjustments will be necessary to keep the bgill numbers at low density. Selective thinning by heavy trapping and/or seining could help maintain a desired balance.
The goals or desired results for doing this will determine what additional pros and cons I suggest to you for doing something like this.

Thanks Greg and Bill, as always you guys are an amazing wealth of information.From Bills post I take it 5 or 6 breeding pairs could work out well. As far as my goals go,I am using the smallest pond with the fatheads to add a little extra forage for the small bass in my bigger pond(4 1/2 acres). I was hoping by growing bluegill in the same pond to add extra (inexpensive) forage for my medium and larger size bass. The plan was to trap couple of times a year and dump all trapped fatheads and bluegill into the big pond. I took over the property last year and it appeared to be over populated with stunted bass. After implementing a program using much of the information found on this site,this spring I'm starting to see 15" and 16" bass with a little girth on them . At this point I'm looking to push the progam a little further.

Bill has a great point. I use my ponds to hold fish and grow slightly, but harvest reguraly. Jimmy I think if you were taking out bluegill regularly they would coexist.

Bgill together fatheads in the small pond should work okay for your current goals. You can also make a trap or two out of 1/2" or 3/4" wire mesh (hardware cloth) to select out only the larger bgill. A few places sell traps made from larger mesh. I don't have any names today; maybe later.

JImmy, I have fatheads and bluegills together and seine about 3 times a year. Get mostly small bluegills and large fatheads. No way I can stay ahead of their spawning.

Thanks again guys, it's nice to know that this can work before just throwing bluegils in. Bill if I can find larger wire mesh, I'm thinking I should copy the design of my minnow trap and double the size? If you come across thestore bought version, by all means please post.
Dave , at this point that is what I'm hoping for!What size bluegills are you pulling out? I'm hoping for 3 to 4 inches so they can feed the decent size bass in the other pond.

Jimmy, I'm mostly getting 2 inch and smaller bluegills. However, I'm having to use my wife to help seine. She is not about to get off in the water so I have her stand on the bank holding one end of the seine while I make a sweep around with the other end. Not the best way but then good help is hard to find when you're not paying much. It seems to help if I throw floating fish food out just before I seine.

Thanks Dave, I can picture a very similar scenario happening over here. Maybe I'll wait till the end of the year and then trap and seine heavily.

can any of you recommend how many fish i need and what kind. i have a 7 acre pond, 25 feet deep at max (just raised the spill way to capture more spring water since it filled up faster than i thought it would.) back in september 2002, the game and fish supplied about 600 bass, 600 catfish, and 900-1000 bluegill. the bluegill were larger than the bass fingerlings. i also put in about 20 pounds of fathead minnows which have spawned a few times i think. i got them all at once because it was the last year they would provide them for free. now, i'm wanting to pack it with forage fish. what should i get? coppernose bluegill? other bluegill? red ears? how many? i'm feeding the fish, and i have fertilized my pond, and just got done putting in about 20 + tons of lime. now i've got a nice green color to it. if you could give me some info...scenario one...cost effective, and scenario two...cost not a big concern. i'm not very patient, and if the difference between the cheaper way and the BEST way is only a few hundred dollars or so, i just won't eat for a few weeks so my pond will be better!! i have heard eventually when the bass are bigger, tilapia and shiners etc are an option. but not yet. thanks again. also, how often should i fertilize, and how much and what type should i get...boy, i sure don't expect much do i?!!! mark (BOB...i have ordered those 3 books from the web site...if it will tell me in there, just tell me so you don't have to waste your time on my questions that i'm sure have been asked on this site a thousand times.!) thanks

Several sizes of fish traps are available from Dakota Aqua Trapping Systems. 800-808-9893. They also make a panfish trap. They will have a website prepared about the middle of June. www.baittraps.com.

Another supplier is Jelan Products Garfield MN 800-407-6352. They produce the Minnie TRAP; & their crayfish trap (medium & large) has 1/2" mesh.

Maybe we can get PondBoss Mag to produce an article about fish traps commercial and homemade styles plus trapping tricks.

Thanks again Bill, at this point I'd prefer to just buy a couple of the bigger traps.