Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Help me adopt my fish family

If you're man enough to handle them.

I think they'd make a good addition to the SMB and YP, Brettski, occupying a third niche but very unlikely to "take over" the pond from the other two species the way BG might. They will give you a portent of what BG would be like in at least a couple of ways: they'll fight like BG when hooked and taste like BG when eaten (you might like eating RES so much you decide to make the leap to a BG pond ).

Also, while CB1 has had success with YP controlling snails, I suspect RES do a much better job of this in a larger pond where the density of YP is probably significantly lower than in Cecil's fabulous fat fish factories.

One does not need to stock catfish to have a successful pond.

On the plus side, they grow quickly (especially if fed), are fun to catch (especially when larger), and many people love to eat them. Most or all of the complaints about catfish tasting bad simply do not apply to CC from a pond (especially if fed). I personally do not enjoy eating CC as much as sunfish, YP, or bass, but my kids like them just as well.

On the down side there are some possible negatives (depending on how much you ended up liking CC). They would probably become the largest fish in your pond. Small numbers of stockers could effectively disappear in a pond your size (see Sunil's experience). Contrarily, given your present structure (mostly the tires, IMO) there is at least a chance that CC would successfully spawn in your pond. How much recruitment they might get I don't know, since I've no experince with SMB and YP predation on CC fry/fingerlings. CC recruitment would probably not be so high as too be a problem if you were a big CC fan.

Due to the ready availibility of relatively inexpensive large-sized CC, they are a species that could easily be added later. Given your current ambivalence about CC, I suggest deferring stocking them until the future (if you ever want to). Just buying some CC fillets at the supermarket and trying them could help you decide.

If you don't get the same or better links first (Sunil may have already told you all you need to know), I will post the info I have been saving at home from the forum on SMB spawning structure creation after work. IIRC, it's about 90% Bill Cody wisdom with a seasoning of ewest's typically useful off-site links.

I bet you have sufficient dry pond bottom still accessible to create plenty of spawning areas for SMB.