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

Ty: To date, I haven't taken any BG due to the low stocking #'s of mature fish in mostly late 2002( approx. 600/19 acres of surface water at that time). However, I may re-evaluate this spring and take a few good meals of mid-sized lake spawned BG from the mature adults of 2002 with a few mid sized yellow perch. 2005 will only be the 4th spawn for the BG and 3rd mostly for the LMB and a few mature SMB. Do you think supplemental zooplankton/plankton stocking and other invertebrates would be a good think for my biomass and if so, where would I buy such things and can I receive from the USA? (I'm not really big on the idea of adding other things from lake communities from around me...little scientific background to identify) The ducks and geese keep the water vegetation cropped low into the water but there is plenty of underwater leaves to hold invertebrates, frogs, dragonflies larva etc. Since adding the ducks and geese with a few Canada geese joining the party, the lake seems more productive with the added nutrients and reduced water clarity. I'm hoping this will account for a good plankton/zooplankton bloom for the various YOY fish produced each year. I would love a healthy productive fishery of good total lbs per acre. Once I feel I have achieved that, then I may add that third predator in low #'s- WALLEYE, and this could change my previous gains with a newly added predator to the mix? To date the relative weight of all larger caught fish are good but the smallest perch 3-4" seem a little on the slim side.....therefore my thinking of adding more food for the younger fish to increase their relative weight and survival? Thanks

Rowly

How long has this lake been established? Most likely it already has a full assemblage of zooplankton and inverts. Most, if not all, inverts have a flying adult stage that colonizes new water. Take a fine meshed net, about 1mm, and scoop up some mud of the bottom. Don't go in to shallow of water were wave action can bury the bugs. You will probably see alot of bugs in the muck, if not then maybe I would look into stocking. If you had a finer mesh net you could sample zooplankton too. It would probably be difficult to establish any bugs with your abundant forage fish.

Your skiny perch could be a result of a big YP spawn. Adding walleye should thin the YP, and improve your RWs.

Ty:
Lake started in 1988 with a acre or more added each year depending on sales. Yes there are bugs etc within the water but to what density required, I don't know? Since adding the mature LMB and SMB the RW's of the larger perch has increased but the much smaller catchable perch really haven't. My thinking is because there isn't enough food sources established to enable these small 2-3" perch to grow well. Once they establish themselves to the larger sizes they have an abundance of live fish to eat with the various YOY. Is the lack of plankton/zooplankton one of the causes or probably the sole cause? If at 2"-3" there eating live fish ....why aren't they putting on the weight, or are they hiding more do to their sizes being the preferred size at this point for the LMB to eat? Thanks

Rowly

First I am not an expert, but I did research YP diets first. Here are my ideas.

Plankton are not YP primary diet, larval YP eat zooplankton but soon add more insects, snails and fish to thier diet. Most of thier diet is made up of insects (like midge larvae), amphipods, fish and snails.

My guess is that the 2"-3" YP are part of a boom year class. Every 5 to 6 years YP pull off a huge spawn. That big year class suppresses the numbers of the next 4 year classes, because there is so much diet overlap between year classes. The initial growth of the boom year class is also slower because of increased competition.

Adding invertebrates like zooplankton is going to be hard with an established fish population. Zooplanktons defense mechanism is pure numbers, the only reason they survive is that they can replace 25% of thier population each day. If you add 100 daphnia into a pond it isn't likely that they will survive to produce many young.

Before I spent money on "pure culture" zooplankton I would find out how many and what kind you already have. A healthy population of zooplankton can actualy clear pond water by eating all the phytoplankton. And then I would find a lake that has good fishing (for walleye and pike, not for BG) and no exotic species, and harvest some zooplankton from thier.

TyW33, thanks and best of luck.

Rowly

There is a possible development for our pond. We may use the pond to rear/hold walleye broodstock. We have been approached by a hatchery to stock and maintain the walleye. The plan is to stock between 3,000 and 3,500 10"-14" walleyes this fall, or 230 walleye/acre. The walleye get fed fathead minnows. They usally add 4lbs of fatheads for every pound of walleye. So that works out to about 12,000 lbs of fatheads each year.
We still want to have BG in our pond. Is there any chance that BG can survive under these conditions? And how many and how big would we need to stock this spring?

After extensive research on walleye consumption, predatory abilities, and BG growth rates, I have come to the conclusion that BG will not survive unless walleye predation can be controlled.

I think maybe YP would be the best fit in this situation. Very high predation and a very fertile pond, at least after you add over 10,000lbs of minnows each year. If walleye are going to be stocked in the fall at 12" long and 200/acre how many YP should be stocked this spring, and of what size?

Also does anyone have any info on yellow perch length at age data?

Thanks ty

HI Ty. There is a wealth of yellow perch growth information available. Here are a couple of examples.

Based on 58 samples, yellow perch in SD average 86 mm at age 1, 145 mm at age 2, 190 mm at age 3, 220 mm at age 4, and 242 mm at age 5. This is the average, so is mid-way between the "stunted" populations and the low density, fast-growing populations. I looked through all of those 58 population samples included in the statewide average to show you the range. For example, the fastest-growing population averaged 280 mm at age 4, while the slowest-growing population averaged 125 mm. There is a huge difference between an 11 inch perch at age 4 vs. a 5 inch perch at age 4.

Carlander (handbook of freshwater fishery biology, volume 3, 1997) reported mean lengths at ages 1-5 of 71, 115, 158, 187, amd 209 mm. This was an average for a big number of populations from MI, MN, and WI, and so might apply directly to you.

Ty -To suppliment Dave's good data, here is some perch growth information from my Yellow Perch article. Data are from only my experiences with YP in NW Ohio. Keep in mind that the males generally grow slower than the females, thus the lengths have a fairly wide spread in each group. Also these data have not be adjusted for the record breaking fast growing perch that Cecil caught this winter. The table and columns didn't align very good when they were finally posted and I had to improvise a little bit with dashes.

Age------------Length in Inches
years--- Slow-----Medium-----Fast
1-------2.0-3.0----3.0-5.0---5.0-7.0
2-------3.2-5.6----4.5-6.8---6.2-10.2
3-------3.9-5.6----5.5-8.5---7.8-12.2
4-------4.2-6.5----7.0-10.1--9.3-13.6
5-------4.8-7.0----8.1-11.3--10.5-14.2
6-------5.4-8.5----8.9-12.1--11.2-15.0
7-------6.0-9.5----9.7-12.8--12.0-15.7
8-------7.0-10.4--10.5-13.1--12.8-16.3

Thanks guys, can you believe I couldn't find this info on the web?

DW Willis, I searched "GoogleScholar" for your journal publications, and got somewhere near 80 hits, but none of them were on the web. I did notice several papers on perch growth, thanks for sharing your experience here.

So we have talked with the guy who wants to (as of now) stock our pond. He wants to put in 500 1lb YP (which are around 3 yrs old!) and then in the fall 500 16"-18" walleye and 300 10"-14" walleye.

The following spring he will trap net the walleyes for thier eggs and milt. He will also trap as many of the 3"-4" YP as he can so that they don't take over the pond and stunt. He also sells fingerling YP. The walleyes will get supplemental feeding of crappie minnows.

Can a three year old YP weigh 1Lb? (they are supposed to be a strain from a blocked off canal out east)
We would like to catch big YP and nice walleye, but I am concerned that there won't be any YP for us. Has anyone ever had YP stunt in a WY pond?

Thanks, I think these are tough questions, but you guys are the only ones who can handle it.