Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose 15 acre pond

So my gravel pit is nearing completion, they will begin restoring the pit next summer. So we may be stocking the pond in just over a year!It is a pretty incredible site right now they have 4 excavators going 12 hours a day. They have been moving 10,000 yards a day.

But, the pond is going to be bigger and deeper than I thought. It will be between 15 and 17 acres in size and at least 20 to 25 feet deep in small pockets. So what to add for fish? LMB and BG are most likely, but at 15 acres in size walleye are also a possability. The MN state record LMB is only around 8lbs, needless to say, up here walleyes are king.

If walleye are going to be stocked next to bass what numbers of bass and walleye? and What forage?
Yellow perch? Golden Shiners? White suckers? What about per acre 30 LMB 350 BG 30 Walleye
100 Suckers and 1 tiger muskie(to eat suckers over 12").

Any other suggestions? Cautions? What about crappies and Yellow Perch? Any extra possabilities
for a large deep pond?
Thanks

Your musky will eat more bass and walleye than suckers. They are opportunistic and will eat the most common and size appropriate fishes that the musky encounters. Allow your walleye to get established before adding bass. After adding LMbass, the walleye populations will never be the same again; enjoy it in the early stages of your pond. Once you have a LMB population established restocking walleye will be expensive and maybe frustrating due to your having to stock sizable fish and possible fairly good numbers of them to get a dedcent number to survive to 15"-17". Ever closely look at the cross sectional size/shape of a 10" walleye? Not much bigger than a 50 cent piece or silver dollar. Since walleye are inactive during day and LMB are active during day young walleye are very easy meals for a 14"-16" LM bass. Your larger bass will love you for annually restocking 8"-10" walleye. When a few walleye grow to 15" to 17" long then the musky will love you. Over the course of a year it will probably eat more walleye than you do. Sounds like you will have some very affectionate fish in your pond / small lake.

TyW33; some species seem obvious. Pumpkinseeds will help control snails. SMB might reproduce in a lake such as yours, even with LMB in it. White bass or HSB are always fun. What about channel catfish?

You haven't said what kind of fishery you want. That would certainly help everyone give you suggestions.

The primary goal, as of right now, would be to have a nice BG fishery. Lots of them with good size. A close second would be walleye.

First off, all my ideas are just ideas, but here is my plan and reasoning.

Has anyone ever stocked daphnia magna or hexogenia (wigglers) in their pond? Both of them are readily available and could provide a serious adition to the food chain.

The idea is to have two mostly seperated food chains. One for the open water/benthic zones- bugs/ suckers/ walleye (4 muskies) and one for the shallow weedbeds bugs/BG/Bass. Walleyes and BG would be harvested as they reached table size.

The Tiger muskies would be stocked later to eat suckers in the +16" range. It would probably be less than 4. Also remeber that suckers have soft fins unlike walleye and bass. We plan on having the pond bass heavy anyway because BG are going to be harvested as pan fish, so if they ate some LMB it might be a good thing.

The suckers would be stocked dense enough to provide forage for the walleye. If the muskie/sucker idea won't work out as planned (quiet possible) what would be recomended for walleye forage?
The pond should have enough deep and open structure for the walleyes to evade the bass. If the walleyes do not need to compete with bass in the weedbeds for BG then I think they would have a good chance. Also if walleye are to be stocked some effort will be made to provide them the neccesary spawning habitat. Sand bars and rocky shoreline can be made, we have more than a few boulders. It is unlikely that we would restock 6" walleyes every other year, for the reasons you stated above.

The reason SMB are not being considered is because BG are the number one priority, we would rather have LMB/walleye than LMB/SMB.

What about yellow perch and no muskies or suckers? Will walleye grow at all if the only forage is BG? Is a yellow perch/walleye lake possible? What kind of stocking rates would be used?

Thanks for your input. I take all input and suggestions very seriously, seeing as I have never done this before!

Supplimental forage base stocking. Done them both. Daphnia magna will survive well until the bgill & or golden shiner populations become established, then D.magna will become extinct.

Will a gravel pit have mud bottom areas? Hexagenia will do well for several yrs on oxygenated muddy bottom areas until "weeds" such as Elodea, Chara, Nitella or other mat formers form expansive beds. OR until the suckers are stocked. The kind of sucker population that you are proposing should keep Hexagenia from becoming very abundant. With bass you better explore crayfish, probably papershell (Orconectes immunis) as supplimental forage.

Evidently you did not believe in the Lakedoctor's SMB - blugill stocking philosophy to produce quality bgills? Did you call any of those pondowners with his SMB-bgill?

Never rely on walleye spawning to recruit walleye into your LMB pond. I hope you can prove me wrong. It will be publishable information. Hatchling walleye IF even successful in a 15 ac pond will never make it to harvestable size before being eaten by aggresive bass. Walleye primarily inhabit benthic zones after they are around 10" (2 yrs in your case). 2"-6" walleye, esp those bottom resting, are as good & easy forage as any minnow. Your spawned fish will never make it to that size before being eaten.

Before stocking any musky, be sure to show your musky the part in the book about eating suckers in preference to spiney walleye or bass.

You will be a lot smarter about raising LMbass with walleye, musky, suckers and bgill in 6 - 10 yrs after your pond is built. After several years of research many State DNR's consider Tiger musky overall (including catchability) pretty much not worth the effort compared to pure strain musky.

Walleye will grow on bgill forage. Numerous "it all depends" here.

Maybe you ought to get your pond builders shove up a wall and create a smaller 1/2 -3 ac pond in one of the sections of the 15 ac. Or with a wall Split the 15 ac pond into two ponds: 12 ac & 3 ac, 13 ac & 2 ac, 14 ac - 1 ac, 10 ac & 5 ac, etc. Use the smaller pond for a second fishery, forage producing pond or REARING pond for the stocker walleye etc. . Have two separate more balanced fisheries instead of trying to create three or four species of balanced sport fisheries in one pond which you will eventually conclude is quite difficult.

I think the problems that could arise with managing a 15 acre pond with stunted BG could be overwhelming. Since this technicaly isn't "my" pond I need to take into account what kind of effort the rest of my family is willing to put in. I can't imagine siening this lake to reduce a stunted BG pop.

If there is 0% chance of Walleye spawning then they won't be stocked. It all comes back to the effort, I don't think that they are willing to spend the money or time on getting 6" walleye fingerlings. Already For the initial stocking they want as cheap as possible.

Would walleye have a chance with SMB? What about simply SMB/Walleye/BG? Maybe cut the BG in half and stock 25 SMB and 30 Walleye per acre.

The bottom is going to be varying mixes of sand and clay. And hex. should be able to burrow in the sediments. I spend alot of time looking at mayflies at work, the first time I saw a hex (it was around 1.5-2") I thought "Fish Food!". When do you stock inverts? Before the forage or at the same time?

tyw33- I am not a big advocate of SMB with bgill but Lake Doctor has said it worked well in several ponds that he has stocked. I wanted to make sure you were of aware of it and explored this combination before discrediting it. You need to talk to him about the pros and cons and talk to some of the pondowners that have used it esp people with ponds similiar in size to yours. As I said in past posts I don't think SMB are suitable predators on bgill for reason given previously. However I do not know of a pond with this combination as a firm reference or basis for my conclusions.

You are correct, you do not want to let your 15 ac pond become a haven for stunted or even slow growing bgill esp since you are on a limited budget.

If slow growing or stunted bgill are an issue with you and your pond is still under construction do your, very, very best to minimize the extent of shallow water (that less than 6 ft deep). Even if it means making the pond smaller to get a greater depth in the shallow areas. I can't stress this enough in your case. Shallow water weeds will protect lots of small bgill until they get big enough to avoid heavy predation pressure. Thus amount or extent of weed coverage and predation pressure will then have a big impact on how abundant the bgill become. Bass can't find a lot of the bgill if they remain deep in the weeds. As larger individials and saftey is less of a concern, bgill spend more time in somewhat open water and less in deep weedy protected areas. Your budget will not allow for chemcial weed control so you will have to rely on deep water to minimize weed growth and bgill recruitment. With high water visibilities which are very likely in you region weeds can grow well in depths to 7 or 8 ft. Eurasian milfoil is notorious for this. Your budget is not adequate to fight Eurasian milfoil and some of the other deeper growing aquatic macrophytes. Pray it does not get seeded into your water. Once the aquatic macrophytes get established in your pond you will appreciate and realize the wisdom of this minimizing the amount of shallow water advice. But then it is too late.

If you want to grow big bgill then you do not want the system to recruit scads of YOY bgill each year. The fewer the bgill you have the larger the average size will be. You will also likely have clear water so production per acre will be on the low side. Realize it and manage with that in mind. 15 ac even with low productivity can producre lots of large cleanable bgill.

If you want to produce larger bass then you have a conflict because producing lots of large bass usually requires abundances of 3"-5" bgill. High numbers of this size gill limits the food availability for the larger bgill. I think you have to set a priority of which is more important larger bgill or larger bass. Once you decide then manage toward that goal. Having it both ways will be a conflict and mgmt will become more difficult and require more effort.

Resign yourself the walleye in a 15 acre sheltered pond will be a put and take fishery. If the pond is windswept and you can establish cobble sized rocks on the down wind side then a walleye spawn MIGHT occur every few years. Survival of hatchlings is real iffy and dependent on numerous things. I think you should be working and earning money by this time and just buy each yr or every other yr 20-30 10" walleye at around $2-$3 ea each, if you are truly mindset for this walleye thing and want several continuing year classes of walleye. Note that large walleye readily eat smaller walleye. Stocking 6" walleye in your pond situation is a waste of money for what will eventually be harvested.

I will post more later on this topic after I reflect on it more.

TyW � I�ve been reflecting on your comments and questions, just as Bill is currently doing. Bill has provided his usual reliable, good advice. I have a couple of points that I might add.

First on the walleyes � if you are in a gravel pit/sand pit type of pond, you might actually get a little bit of walleye natural reproduction and survival to adulthood. We manage an 8-acre gravel/sand pit north of town. The walleyes actually do produce a few offspring each year that survive. However, when we electrofish the entire shoreline of the pond in the fall, we typically see 3-4 young walleyes (6-7 inches, most often). That is NOT enough reproduction to sustain a predator base in a pond to maintain control over a panfish species (much less provide fillets for anglers). My best advice for walleyes in north country ponds is that they be used as a secondary rather than primary predator. Restocking, likely with large fingerlings (as Bill has already described), will be necessary to maintain a fishable population. I realize that you indicated that continual purchases of walleyes are not going to occur.

So, that brings the largemouth bass to the top of my mind as the top predator. They will sustain themselves naturally in gravel/sand pits, and they will effectively control bluegills.

Second, I am a little concerned about the eventual sizes of bluegills that might be produced in your pond. Everyone on this site, including me, always talks about largemouth bass thinning small bluegills, increasing bluegill growth rates, and producing big bluegills. However, �big� is relative when it comes to bluegills. Some sand/gravel pits have quite a bit of water movement through them. As a result, their productivity levels can be lower than expected. I know that you have a biological background, so the gravel pits are more likely to be mesotrophic or even oligotrophic, rather than eutrophic. More productive waters produce BIG bluegills, probably because bluegills feed on zooplankton and the larger aquatic insects.

We manage a 3-acre sand/gravel pit with largemouth bass and bluegills. The pond is relatively new, and it just looks pretty sterile. Do you know what I mean? There are some aquatic plants, but not many, despite the ultraclear water. There is very little in the way of free-floating algae in the pond. There are plenty of largemouth bass to control bluegills, and bluegill density is only moderate, certainly not high (not overabundant). There are few small bluegills because of largemouth bass predation, and most are �big.� However, �big� in this infertile water means mostly 6-7 inch bluegills. An 8-incher is rare.

I�m afraid that most Minnesotans think big bluegills are 10 inches or longer, based on a lot of those good panfish lakes around the state.

Now, I have managed another gravel pit that was older, and simply looked more productive (more plants, more algae, water not as blue). In that pond, we did produce bluegills that exceeded 10 inches when the largemouth bass was the predator in the system.

So, I don�t want to be negative about the bluegills without a solution. However, I don�t have that solution. I just wanted to provide you a little food for thought. Also, I thought Bill Cody might give this bluegill situation a little thought, and we�ll see if he has any helpful thoughts. I wonder how much experience he might have with the sand/gravel pits in Ohio.

Dave

I have pretty much abandoned the idea of walleye, you can't put a square peg in a round hole.

I definetly want to manage for big BG, regularly catching 8" BG would be a real treat in my areaaa. But, I am not worried about having an oligatrophic lake, I hope I do, but am not counting on it. This lake has no out flow, and the inflow will be ground water and runoff. There is a creek less than 100 yds away. The water flows out of a lake about 5 miles away. This lake is super eutrophic, phosphorous levels of (no kidding) 300 parts/billion. Its also choked with eurasian milfoil.

Since none of us are Bass fisherman per say (although there are a few good SMB lakes near duluth) BIG BG is the order of the day. The lake also seems (right now) to be short on shallow areas, I will try to get the constroction company to leave it that way.

Thanks, any other tips on getting big BG. How many can I expect to harvest per acre/yr?

Ty,

Thought I'd post the link to the following thread. You were in on the conservation but it's been a while & others reading may not be aware of it:

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000079

note: bolding is by me.

Is it possible for this creek to ever flood into your lake? If it does, then it doesn't matter what you put into the lake because you will get everything that is in the creek.

How will you manage Eurasian milfoil? You will certainly get it. I've seen very few emergent plants in sand pits. Are you going to plant any?

This question is probably for Dave Willis. Is a sterile sand pit one of those rare exceptions in a northern pond where fertilizing might be appropriate?

Are you going to stock small or large fish? Do you have any suppliers lined up yet?

To me, these questions need to be answered before you go on to what fish to stock.

Hi Norm.

Here's my best thought (guess?) on the sterile sand pits. I think they are sterile here because of the groundwater flow. If the water volume is replaced at too frequent an interval, there just isn't time to get the algae community developed, I suspect. If you test water quality, the water still has plenty of alkalinity (plenty of nutrients), just as do our lakes around here. I think there is a water exchange rate that keeps the pits from reaching their potential. Thus, they tend to be less productive (perhaps mesotrophic). Adding more nutrients (fertilizer) would not make a difference in this situation, as there already are enough nutrients in the water, and anything you add probably just heads "downstream" through the groundwater.

So, that brings up the question of why are some more fertile than others? Could some be in a location with "less" groundwater flow? Could others be older, and perhaps have more silt on the bottom, and perhaps this has slowed the water movement? I don't know, but suspect these type of answers are probably the explanation.

Dave

First off, ponds must be above the 20 year flood line in MN to even get a permit to stock it. If it is not already high enough there will be a berm built.
I plan on planting lilly pads were I can. Other than that I don't know. Not adding nutrients is certaintly one way to limit the competativeness of milfoil. I am not going to fertalize this pond. My biggest fear is run away weed growth, small BG and the eventual winter kill. I am not sure how sterile it is, the bottom will be a mix of clay and sand and the water shed will be fertil, unfarmed, black dirt. The ground water may already be high in nutrients.
I do not have a supplier yet (I sent out four emails asking about prices and didn't get one reply), but we have time for that yet.
My concern about SMB is that they will have 2 bad spawns in a row and the BG will take off on them. How could I correct a small BG population, with out expensive stocking of SMB?

TyW -- Based on what you have said, I think the largemouth bass-bluegill combination might work well for you. If productivity is reasonable (as you expect), you should be able to produce 8-9 inch (0.5-0.75 pound) bluegills with a crowded largemouth bass population. Largemouths can control bluegill reproduction to at least 30% surface area coverage of submergent aquatic plants, and some biologists would even argue up to 50% coverage. I'm not sure if that remains true with Eurasian watermilfoil, because I've never worked around that plant, but it should be coverage that is the key even with milfoil.

It sounds like largemouth bass and bluegill may be your best option, and certainly you would expect those two species to self-perpetuate without further stockings.

Dave

Dave Willis: If Ty is going to stock small fish (because of money concerns), do you see any problems with him also stocking SMB, pumkinseeds, catfish and some walleyes. If they reproduce, fine. If they don't, he isn't out very much money. Even small walleyes don't cost that much. Four or five years from now, someone might decide they like having some walleyes in the lake and will pay to restock larger fish. Or they might just catch the walleyes and it's over and done. What do you think?

TyW - In this post I will address some more of your concerns you have raised about growing larger bgills and stocking your gravel pit pond.

Growing Bluegills. Here are just a few of my rarely mentioned ideas about growing larger sized bgill in your particular pond setting. These ideas are additional to the traditional ways of growing large bgill. Firstly, I think you should make sure your bgill stockers come from brood stock that have proven genetic propensity to attain large size. This minimizes the variables that can be responsible for poor growth. Then if your bgill are not growing rapidly or are not attaining the target sizes in the expected amount of time, you can right away eliminate genetics as a problem and look to ecological problems and solutions. Eliminating variables is important in trouble-shooting problems of fish growth.

If you cannot locate a reliable source for high quality, good, brood stock fingerlings then produce your own fingerlings. Go to a local lake with a reputation for producing trophy bgill. Catch and transport about 15 adult pairs to your pond. This should produce more than enough fingerlings. In reality the percentage survival and number of fingerling produced from 4 or 5 paired bgill would be more than adequate for a pond of your size due the pond�s abundant, virgin food reserves and minimal amount of initial competition from older year class bgill. The hazard of using this method and your likely problem then would be to adequately get the bgill fingerlings cropped so stunting does not occur in the first year class. This would involve proper timing of stocking the LMB fingerlings. Another disadvantage of this method of adult stocking to produce fingerlings is it sets the pond fishery back about one year in its development while you wait for the hatchlings to grow to a size of those what would have been stocked the �traditional� way i.e. buying fingerlings or juveniles and initially stocking them.

Secondly, for growing big bgill, I think, but do not have not real proof or data, that it is important to construct the pond so spawning areas are limited and not over sized which has some impact on the number that are hatched and ultimately can have an impact on and can affect hatchling survival and reduce the chance of overabundant year classes of bgill. In most traditional management methods control of YOY and overabundant year classes of panfish are done with predator manipulation. I contend that if spawning is curtailed somewhat, or controlled, the management of predators becomes an easier task and this will ultimately result in faster bgill growth due to a more controlled system. The more variables you have to deal with, the more complex or difficult fish management becomes. Fish management is all about control and the more control you have the better the fish will grow. Limiting spawning areas may not be a major cause of better bgill growth but I think it contributes. Your task to effectively grow large bgill, will be to correctly match the number of consumers (bgill) to the amount of food reserves � i.e. maintain proper balance to achieve optimum growth.

Supplimental Zooplankton Stocking - D.magna, because they are large and relatively slow swimmers, will not have long term survival as a viable population in the presence of facultative, planktivours grazers such as bgill or yellow perch that often select plankters on the basis of size. It has been found that these types of fish can actively search for and visually select each plankter they injest. Bgill can also gulp water to filter zooplankton while swimming. Stocking D.magna is sort or like stocking fatheads with LMB. Okay for a jump start on growth but long term survival is not likely and futile. I have done stockings of large daphnid types numerous times. Basically what happens is planktivorous bgill selectively consume the largest zooplanker possible within their physical and behaviorial capabilities and abundance of prey. Large Daphnia are first to be selectively grazed esp during periods when macroinvertebrate densities are low i.e. cold periods. Cyprinid fish when abundant can also regulate the size and species composition of zooplankters. Extent of weed bed coverage and type of vegetation can also have a direct impact of zooplankton composition and survival.

If you are serious about optimizing this zooplankton food base and want to try D.magna, I recommend that you introduce the D.magna early in the pond filling process. If possible do this 2-4 months before fingerling fish are introduced. Meanwhile locate some healthy zooplankton communities in lakes or ponds near you. Do this by quizzing the local academic limnologists or search out zooplankton communities on your own. Start your elimination process by selecting lakes (usually clear water types) with known or good populations of large or trophy bgill. Obviously something is working in these lake and if you are lucky it is related to plankton composition. Collect zooplankters with vertical net tows (64 �100um mesh) that start at or above the thermocline if a thermocline is present. You are looking primarily for larger forms of Daphnids, Cyclopoids and Calanoids that are 1.2 to 1.8mm long. It is doubtful that some of the larger (2-3mm), deep-water taxa, such as Senecella, Limnocalanus, Epischura, or Mysis (15-20mm) will survive in your pond. You will need at least a dissection microscope or simple compound scope, which you should have access to at school, to verify general zooplankton types in your search for the proper brood stock site. Another thing to keep in mind is to not collect zooplankton from lakes or ponds with known bluegreen algae blooms. You may have to do a small sampling survey to get this knowledge. I think it is bad practice to introduce this problematic bluegreen algae �seed� into your pond. Once you locate a good source for brood stock, then make several vertical tows from deep water locations. This should provide you all the plankters you need for seed. Best time to introduce your collected �seed� is up for debate. I think it should be done when your YOY bgill are big enough to eat D. magna because these largest forms will now start to be cropped heavily and daphnia inter and intra specific competition will decrease thus making �room� for the �seeded organisms� to flourish. I think biodiversity of the zooplankton community and optimum sizes of zooplankters are two of numerous important factors in growing large bgill on natural food sources.

Other Invertebrate Taxa . I would definitely explore stocking some of the amphipod taxa. The deep-water, benthic & planktonic, Pontoporeia will probably not survive in your pond but if you have some littoral vegetated areas other scuds such as Hyalella and Gammarus are good potential taxa. They should be available locally in your area and you can collect them on your own or buy the larger forms from reatailers. Habitat needs to be correct for optimum survival and perpetuation of several of the taxa.

Optimizing Littoral Zones . I recommend that if your pond will have lots of steep sides and minimal areas for colonization of extensive weedy beds, then have the construction crew create a few earthen fingers that descend from shallow water to deeper areas. Construction of underwater humps when vegetated are also excellent fish attractors, serve as small refuge areas and are very good food producing areas for bgill. Keep in mind the general rule is that 90% of the catchable fish are concentrated in 10% of the water. Knowing where that 10% is located will be key to harvesting your fishery. Under water vegetation will easily grow to depths of 6-8ft and maybe grow sparsely to depths of 13ft in clearer, nutrient poorer water like your gravel pit pond should have in WI. These fingers and humps can take the place of and be better food producers than lots of manmade structure. You may not have time or energy to install lots of the artificial structure before the pond fills.

Stocking Suckers. I think stocking suckers as a forage fish for a few musky is not a good idea in your particular situation. Here is why. 1. White suckers can live a relatively long time (14-17yrs) and will grow fast in your food rich, new, pond setting due primarily to little interspecies competition. Three yr old suckers can easily be 15� long. Only musky 34� and larger will likely prey on these fish. Growth of the suckers could outpace growth of the musky�s ability to eat them. Surviving suckers can easily grow to 25� (6-7lbs). 2. I assume that you do not plan on cleaning these fish for table use. And as they grow beyond 15� �16� they are consuming lots of valuable, protein rich benthic invertebrates such as Hexagenia and midge larvae that could be otherwise used to grow large bgill, your primary goal fish. With an aging population of white suckers, you are tying up valuable and limited pond productivity in an unharvestable, unusable, and nonproductive fish biomass. I think that the few musky that you are planning to stock, would grow quite adequately on prey of LMB, bgill and an occasional walleye (if stocked).

Walleyes - Since you are in �walleye country� I would not hesitate stocking some walleye into your pond when you stock the LMB fingerlings. You can enjoy them and learn about their habits in a pond until they �run their course� in about 8-12 yrs, providing you do not supplement their numbers. I �think� walleye will feed on LMB almost as often as bgill due to walleye�s foraging habits, foraging efficiency and the body shape of bass compared to bgill. And walleye may even provide you help in thinning the bass population from 15 ac of water so bass do not become over abundant. However overabundant bass would not be all bad if you are trying to grow trophy bgill.

I have rambled enough for today. I will return in a day or two after I organize and compose my ideas about what I think are several options for the harvest of bgill from your gravel pit pond.

Norm -- yes, I would mostly agree with you. There would be no harm and potential value in initially stocking the smallmouth bass, channel catfish, and walleyes in addition to the largemouth bass and bluegills. Bill Cody just agreed with you on the walleyes. My conservative nature causes me to want to wait on the pumpkinseed stockings.

Here's my thought process on punkies. TyW is already worried about an overabundance of small bluegills. If only a moderate density of largemouth bass develops in the pond, then I worry about the capability of the bass to control multiple panfish species. In a situation without crowded bass, I have seen that the more panfish species added, the greater the risk that the bass will not be able to control them. Now, I strongly suspect that TyW's pond will move toward crowded bass, but we can't be certain. I'd rather be sure that the largemouths are reproducing and heading toward high density before I add the pumpkinseeds. As you know, I still have this old-time, conservative background that just can't shake the fear of panfish getting out of control. :-)

Channel catfish should not be stocked at too high a density because there can be some competition between them and bluegills for aquatic invertebrates.

Bill -- Great thoughts. Many thanks for your time.

Dave

Thanks guys this is the kind of info you can't get out of a text book.

Because I work in the "Bug Lab" at NRRI, I have access to the scopes you mention. I like the idea of harvesting a plankton assemblage to give the pond a good start. I also know that you can get pure D. Pulex and D. magna culutres mailed to you.

I read a study where someone found that a daphnia (maybe pulex) was able to survive when 25% of the population was eaten every day! During the summer they have increadibly high reproductive rates. I will make sure that my pond starts with some inverts.

Before we order our fish is it normal to see the hatchery facilities and brood stock? Or do most hatcheries not give tours?
I know that some people in my family would gladly save the money on fish and catch some instead, although I am sure that isn't legal here. (Welcome to MN, the land where nothing is legal!)

What about Red Ears? can I get them in southern MN? I know they eat snails and don't over populate.

To stock walleyes or not? What about stocking walleye fry or fingerlings with the bluegill fingerlings? and then stocking LMB a year later? How many walleye would be safe? How many would be enough? What if you wanted them to get big enough to eat some small LMB? Maybe we would have a large minimum or catch and release only to get the most out of them.

We have lots of humps and bumbs on the bottom, we think these will be about 4 feet deep. Most of the pond should be over 10 feet with deeper holes. Hopefully weed growth won't be excessive.

Can anyone recomend good sources for fish or crayfish in MN, Western WI or Northern Iowa?

Ty -- I can address a couple of your questions. I'll leave the other questions for Bill and Norm.

"What about Red Ears? can I get them in southern MN? I know they eat snails and don't over populate." We used to "know" that redear sunfish were a southern fish species. However, there are some reasonable populations in Michigan, as we have previously discussed on this Forum. Maybe you could find a fish dealer in Michigan who might have some? I'm not sure. I do believe the "fact" that redears do not overpopulate. So, they are like the pumpkinseed in that they eat snails, but unlike pumpkinseeds in that the punkies definitely will overpopulate.

"To stock walleyes or not? What about stocking walleye fry or fingerlings with the bluegill fingerlings? and then stocking LMB a year later?" My best, and pretty strong, advice is to get the LMB stocked as soon as possible! I'm certain that the LMB will NOT reproduce until age 2 in your pond, so that knocks out a lot of the southern pond stocking strategies (they expect the LMB to spawn at age 1, producing a new cohort of small predators). I don't want to make this too complicated, but I wouldn't mind seeing you stock LMB fingerlings at perhaps 50/acre, along with fathead minnows to help the bass growth rates, and maybe even move in some adult bass the same year. That way the adults would spawn the next spring, and you'd get a year-class to stay with all the bluegill reproduction (because the bluegills more than likely WILL mature and spawn at age 1). Some people attempt a second fingerling LMB stocking the second spring instead of fooling with adults. These fish will be vulnerable to predatation, so perhaps bump the rate up to 100/acre?

So, you asked the walleye stocking question, and I took you to LMB! :-) Back to your walleye stocking question. If I were buying them, I would have more confidence that stocking 50-100/acre of small fingerlings (2 inchers) would succeed than would the fry stocking. Walleye fry typically are stocked at 3-5 days of age, and waters often are cold and zooplankton not too developed at the time that the fry are available for sale. If you do go with fry, stock a minimum of 1,000 fry per acre of water.

Hope this helps, and I'll look forward to other responses.

Dave

Great info in this thread! Thanks to all!

Try hybrid bluegill with a couple of flathead catfish.

The flatheads will grow big and fat on the bluegill.

Chris

When to stock fingerling walleye? If I stock them with BG they will compete for zooplankton, and eat some fry. If I stock them with LMB they won't compete well with the LMB and BG. And if I am only going to stock 300 BG/acre how many WL and how many LMB should I stock?

-Thanks

Why not just stock only bluegill and walleye?

Leave out the bass.

CRC

TyW -- I'm not sure how much choice you'll have on some of these timings for stockings. You'll have to take the small fingerling walleyes when they are ready at the hatchery. Generally, most culturists will stock fry into fertilized ponds, and then harvest the small fingerlings when the zooplankton crashes. This occurs long before the LMB fingerlings are available in the north country.

I suggest a minimum of 500/acre of the small bluegill fingerlings. Many people go up to 1000/acre. The idea here is to stock a strong initial year class of bluegills so their first spawn will only have food and room for a "moderate" strength year class. That gets the bluegills off to a good start. It probably will take about 5 years to get a good number of the bluegills over 8 inches. Even with fast bluegill growth, it takes time to produce the big ones.

Dave

Just a little opinion I'd like to add to Bill's great post.

I believe that going with 15 breeding pairs would be preferable to four. The reason being that if there's any mortality, which invariably happens in fish transportation, you could end up with only one or two adults of a particular sex that provide all of the genetic information for your fish. If this is the case, any recessive genes which may inhibit growth or disease resistance will show up with greater frequency, which may lead to a condition known as "Inbreeding Depression". More genetic diversity is generally considered to be a necessity to a thriving population. It's been shown that even a few generations of fish isolated to a particular environment will begin to show preference to certain traits that give survival advantage. An example would be the McConaughy strain of rainbow trout, which occurred in just a few generations of reproduction within Lake McConaughy near Ogallala, Nebraska. The Feds actually have recognized, and attempted to preserve this strain because of it's uniqueness and the possibility that this strain would be ideal for other locations. If your pond begins with a diverse gene pool then there will be a maximum number of genetic characteristics available for generational selection. Your pond's "strain", if you will, may do particularly well in your pond's temperature range, pH, salinity, turbidity and foraging opportunities.

At this point you can assist the selection process by not harvesting your fast-growing, pellet-eating male bluegill. If you harvest your best fish then you run the risk of selecting for fish that reach reproductive age early before acheiving maximum growth.

You also may want to check the local regulations before transporting fish from your public waters. The C.O.'s aren't real fond of that around here