Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Pond diversity/example please

By that I mean speciesof fish. Who here has a wide variety of fish species and what species are they?
What bonus fish do you have?
My "dream pond" is 5-10 acres with trophy largemouth, black crappie,HSB,CC, Bonus fish would be 20 Walleye,20 smallmouth, with YP, BG, GS, and fatheads as forage and a 1/10 acre pond for shiner propagation.
Am I dreaming or what?

MB,

Sorry but I cannot offer must assistance on this one. I've got two ponds, both small in size. One is for BG. The other is earmarked for SMB/YP. Hopefully Norm will see this post and give you his thoughts. He has a variety of fish over at his place.

masterbasser, get the July/August 2004 issue of Pond Boss for an article about our lake. With your primary goal being big LMB, a simple system focusing all of the forage into your LMB would probably work best. You will sacrifice some LMB for high diversity.

My goal is lots of fair sized fish with very high diversity. Here's what we have: LMB, SMB, HSB, white bass, rock bass, bluegill, HBG, pumpkinseeds, green sunfish, white crappie, black crappie, walleye, sauger, yellow perch, CC, freshwater drum, goldeye, shorthead redhorse, white sucker and sterile grass carp. The only species that reproduces in any amount are bluegill. This lake is very predator heavy.

We feed Aquamax 600 pellets and anything that eats them does very well. This includes the LMB, SMB, HSB, CC, rock bass, bluegill, HBG and goldeyes. I'm assuming that any pellets that sink are eaten by the white suckers and shorthead redhorse.

The green sunfish and yellow perch have almost been eleminated by the LMB. There just isn't enough open water forage for white bass. The crappie, walleye and sauger do well when the water is cool but are not competitive for forage when the water is warm and get very thin.

Our lake is completely catch and release and except for the bluegill, I must continually restock everything. Hopefully, this will give you some ideas.

Whoa, sounds like a awsom fishing pond! What are some of the better sized fish you have pulled out of there? How many acres is it? Do you stock golden shiners?

masterbasser, the lake is actually 3 3/4 acres with 1 1/4 acre in 7 islands. It was started in 2000 and was just finished last year.

While not trying to raise large fish, we have raised a number of fish that are considered trophy sized in South Dakota. These are 30 1/2 inch CC, 20 1/2 inch LMB, 10 1/4 inch bluegill, lots of 10-10 1/2 inch rock bass and a 21 inch sauger. More importantly, most of the bluegill are in the 8-10 inch range, the SMB in the 12-16 inch range, the LMB in the 14-18 inch range and the HSB in the 10-18 inch range. What this means is that we have lots of fish of a size that are fun to catch. No golden shiners although I had stocked them with lots of other small species. Small fish just don't have a chance in our lake.

I am one for diversity. Here's my current population by species:

1) LMB
2) SMB
3) HSB
4) Channel Cats
5) Yellow Perch
6) Black Crappie
7) Bluegill
8) Rock Bass (I've only ever caught one, and I threw him up on the bank; I now wish I hadn't, but assume there are a few more in there)
9) Bullheads
10) Grass Carp
11) Suckers
12) Fatheads
13) Golden Shiners
14) Various types of creek minnows

The pond is 6-7 acres. Depths range from 2' to 15' plus. I hope to add a few walleye this year sometime.

Two years ago, I added some Rainbow, Brown, and Brook trout, but after the first week, I never saw them again.

Sunil, which fish species would you consider to have the best body condition? It fascinates me in really diverse fish communities to see which are the ones that thrive.

Bruce, I'd have to say the SMB, LMB, and YP have the best body conditions.

I've never caught a Channel Cat, although I've only stocked a total of 30-35 of them over the past few years.

The Grass Carp are chunky at about 16" long.

I can't remember...Do you pellet feed?

Sunil, what species of suckers do you have? In our lake, the white suckers and shorthead redhorse provide a very useful purpose. First, they are fun to catch and fight hard. Second, the white suckers reproduce (not successfully) and provide forage for other species.

Just for pure fun to catch, not many species can match the western goldeye or eastern mooneye.

Bruce, I currently do no have any pellet feeder systems set up, however, I do throw out some pellets when I'm at the pond, and my caretaker dude does the same from time to time.

Norm, unfortunately, I don't know the specific type of sucker fish that I have in the pond. The ones I've seen have been as long as 15" and are all silver in color.

Sunil - Do your SMB reproduce or do you rely on stocking?

PS - If you stock, at what size do you stock to avoid predation?