Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Kinda glad I found this site.......

Welcome to the forum. The pond looks beautiful! I think you are on the right track getting a population of GSH going ASAP for forage, the crappie will love the smaller ones, and the LMB will chow down on them no matter what the size.

I agree, adding a feeder (the good ones aren't cheap, but you will have less headaches and better results if you bite the bullet and get a good one in the beginning) will help the BG grow and produce more fry.

Look in the Common Pond Q&A(archives) for a post called Relative Weight chart. Look up LMB (largemouth bass) and see how that chart compares to your fish. If your fish are weighing less than the fish in the chart, you should either remove some LMB from the pond or pour the forage to them. The only problem with not removing some LMB if your fish are underweight is that for every pound of weight added to a single LMB, it needs to consume 10# of forage fish. Depending on the number of LMB in your pond it might not be possible to add as much forage fish as you need without overcrowding your pond. As said above, the crappie in your pond are competing against the smaller LMB for the same food. If you want to have large LMB in the pond, I'd remove as many crappies as you can catch.

What are your goals for the pond?

I forgot to ask, what type of netting did you use on the water side of your holding pen? The water looks pretty clear, how far can you see down into the water?