Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain goldfish?

FYI: SHINERS & GOLDFISH -

Firstly, Shiners -Another small word and very complex topic. Very few living things are simple in nature. Nothing in the pond system is simple. Shiners spawn in your pond? It all depends on which one you have. Ohio lists 24 species of shiner, Missouri list 33 species, Kentucky lists 32 species and North America has around 107 species of shiner. I think you get the picture.

Goldfish -
Don't give up on goldfish as forage just yet. My local fish hatchery guy (now private) who used to work for at the state hatchery says that to grow big bass you should stock goldfish as the main forage. The main negative as to goldfish as forage as I see it is, you have a panfish that is not a very good panfish. I think everyone will vote to eat bgill vs goldfish (too damn boney).
Why not stock a forage fish that is fun to catch & good eating and also does a good job growing big bass; thus the bgill. Cecil is also correct, out of the pet shop, goldfish almost always have all types of parasites & diseases esp ich. In fact it pretty hard to find a perfectly goldfish in a petshop. Just what you need in your favorite fish pond more problems with fish health. Usually at least 50% of the offspring from goldfish are drab colored which will favor their escape and more & more reproduction of drab offspring. Bass are selecting the brightrest ones first. Goldfish get too big for bass to eat (brood stock is always present) AND swim realitively slow which makes them an easy target for bass to catch/eat.

I think we need another opinion about goldfish from the big bass grower & guru Bob Lusk -The Pond Boss and author of Raising Trophy Bass. We'll see if we can coax an answer from him via Mark McD. Mark usu reads these posts daily; can you relay an answer for us Mark?