Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Adding crayfish to the pond

I have a 300 gallon and a 100 gallon stock tanks sunk in the ground by the house. I added 10 to each tank, hoping that without predators they will do just that. I'll keep them open this winter, and put a bunch of cut pieces of PVC in there for homes. I'll check them this coming late spring to see if any have eggs.

On another note, my neighbor has a pond in the woods that is shallow, maybe 5' deep at the most and during dry summers it will go almost completely dry. He doesn't do anything to or with the pond, and he said that I could use it if I wanted to. I was thinking of seeing how well it would work for raising baitfish. The pond is about 40' x 60'.

It's completely surrounded by trees. I'll take some pics today. It is in a sort of a low area, and when the woods floods, so does the pond. If the pond has fish in it during the Spring, the fish will probably be swimming in the woods as well. The water does go from his pond to mine in the Spring as well. I know that the pond is devoid of fish right now, last summer it was dry for 2 months.

Should I wait 'till the water goes down in the Spring before stocking it? My concern is if I put fish in it now, they might die over the winter, or be washed away in the Spring.