Thanks for the response. Most of the fish I seine are horned chubs, common shiners, red finned shiners, white suckers and hogsuckers. I can pretty much choose the size. The majority are in the 3 to 5 inch range. There is a lot of other species that take a little more effort, but I'm not sure how good a forage they would make. There is a ton of sculpins. I could catch as many of them as I do crawdads. They seem to be under every rock. I'm afraid they would eat as much forage as they would provide. I've noticed about a 10% mortality rate on the crawdads. Alot of them are also making mounds around the edge of the waterline. Most seem to be adapting well.
I would like to get some regular bluegill. I know their spawing rate is much higher than hybrids. I'm planning on catching a few dozen around 4" or so this weekend to release. Believe it or not, my local hatchery only carries hybrids and redears.
One concern I have is weed growth. I would like some weed growth to help support my forage. It's a new pond and doesn't have any weeds at all yet. Should I introduce weeds of my own choosing now or let nature take it's course and see what grows? I'm thinking that if I established weeds of my own choosing, they may prevent unwanted varieties from establishing. I'm hoping also that the bottom cover would help keep algae to a minimum. I would value your opinion on this. If it is a good idea, what weeds would you suggest. The pond is tiered. It has a gradual slope down to about 5 feet, a second slope down to about 10 and then drops off to 15 to 18 feet. I did leave one end (about 1/4 of the pond) shallow. I'd say 7 feet or less. I'm sure weeds will grow very rapidly at this end. I'm hoping the depth will help control weeds in the rest of the pond. I do have a few areas of gravel and some large rock piles scattered that should help keep some areas open. By the way, I'm in west central Ohio.
