Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking adding cnbg

I have a 7 acre pond that suffered a fish kill after the huricane. Lost lots of big fish. Was thinking of adding 7-8" cnbg. How many per acre?

I'll start the bidding at 30/acre.

Are you looking to replace/upgrade your forage base?

Good question Calvin. What size bass survived? A 20 inch bass can eat an 8" BG.

i'd be interested in the answer to that also as I have a 4 acre pond with low numbers of bluegil. my bass are 12-14" average.

A bass prefers forage that is 1/4 to 1/3 its body size. More calories for energy expended.

So 7"-8" CNBG should be fairly safe from predation.

There are still various sizes of bass left, just not very many. Lost lots of bream and shiners. The only fish that we didnt loose were the crappie. Pond has lots of cover in narrow cove so I think I can let the cnbg loose in there and most should make it.

Careful purchasing only graded large bluegill you may get mostly males as they grow faster than females. We have debated for years the best mix of bluegill for stocking with existing bass and have settled on a 3"-6" mix, which you could do along with some 7"-8" bluegill.

This is not just an biological but an economicial question. Here in SE it is rare to find bluegill over 5 inches much less 8 inhces. If you do find some 5 inch+ fish the cost will be about $1.25 each or more. My recommendation is to go with 4-5 inch, you have a decent chance of survivial and cost is ok. If you go with say a 1-2 inch I doubt any would make it to sexually mature size. For bass heavy ponds we shock rec rate is 250/acre or even more if goal is to grow large bass. This of course should take place after pond owner has mad efforts to acheive target bass harvest rates. Calvin it is about goals if you want better bass growth rates keep in mind you can not put too many.

I plan on transfering cnbg from another pond that has a good population from 3-8".

questions,

so isnt this type of thing an ewest blocking net type solution? or put some of the cngb in net and most into main body?

why did they die? salt water?

thanx

i am also curious as to why they died?? my first bg that i stocked was a day or so before hurricane Faye (i think it was Faye) in august. my pond wasnt full when i stocked them, but afer all the rain my pond got full and some extra!! i had several baby bg die. wasnt sure why?

Most of the time you loose a few fish within a week or so of stocking. Stress of capture moving and release often cause some morts.

It could have been a quick water temp change, a bunch of crud washing in with a big rain or just handling issues. Hard to tell, but, like Ewest says, nothing unusual about some morts when stocking small fish.

I believe it was a turnover that caused the fish kill. Lots of fresh cold water during the hot summer month.

I think Calvin is right. There are almost always widespread fish kills in South Louisiana after hurricanes.