I was at Eagle's Nest Ranch this weekend and we stocked 6 boxes of fry into 5 different environments. I should have some hard data for you in a few months.
We stocked the following:
2 boxes into a 20 acre, fertile lake that already has: 23,000 coppernose bluegill fingerlings stocked six weeks ago; 30,000 threadfin shad stocked four weeks ago and 1,300 pounds of feed trained bass, 1.25 pound average,stocked two weeks ago. The lake has 5 Sweeney Feeders and two of the big feeders from Kansas to throw the Aquamax Largemouth pellets. We're feeding Aquamax 600 in the other five feeders. We plan to stock large hybrid stripers in a month.
One box went into a 125 acre lake, that is mostly balanced, but slightly bass overcrowded, with bass up to 11 pounds (observed), maybe larger. This lake has channel cat, largemouth bass, threadfin shad, gizzard shad, bluegill, coppernose bluegill, redear sunfish, gambusia, redbreast sunfish and black crappie. It's rumored to have flathead catfish, but I haven't seen one, yet and we've spent at least 15 hours electrofishing.
Two boxes went into a 10 acre lake, slightly overcrowded with bass, slightly fertile.
One box was split between a three acre pond with no fish in it and another pond that covers a quarter acre with no fish in it. Both smaller ponds have fairly clear water, will be fertilized when it quits raining there.
We'll see.
Two more boxes coming tomorrow, one into the 125 acre lake, one into a 6 acre fertile pond that has 200-300 threadfin shad in it. That pond was drawn down in the winter, fish harvested and the puddle was rotenoned. It's now about 2/3 refilled.
One note. Eagle's Nest ordered 8 boxes, but received only 6. No phone call. The ranch manager called, Anderson's acknowledged and said the other two boxes would be Fed-Exed Monday. One box had a fairly high mortality rate. Ranch manager will call tomorrow to see if they will replace it.
