Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Missouri pond

I'm thinking about making a few small ponds on some property in the future, and decided to plan ahead and figure somethings out.

What fish are options to stocking a pond or two of an acre size in missouri (permitting weather)?

is stocking my pond with tilapia legall in MO?

Are Rockbass a good opotion? if so where can I purchase them?

Smallmouth bass?

Welcome to PB! You're a wise man to plan ahead, and it'll save you countless $$ and headaches in the long run.

In your climate, depending on the micro-climate where you are planning the ponds, and how much time and effory you want to put in to managing your ponds, you could put just about anything in them.

I'm not saying that all the fish will work with one another, they won't long term, but your options are vast. The ones that pop out at me at the moment are:

Yellow Perch (YP)
Smallmouths (SMB)
Largemouths (LMB)
Bluegill (BG)
Redear Sunfish (RES)
Rock Bass (RKB)
Channel Cat (CC)
Walleye (WE)
Hybrid Striped Bass (HSB)
Possibly Coppernose Bluegill (CNBG)
Blue Cats (BC)
Of course, forage minnows, including but not limited to Fathead Minnows (FHM) and Golden Shiners (GSH)
Depending on water quality and temp, any of the trout, but most likely that would be seasonal.

I don't think Tilapia are permitted by the state. RKB would be an option, and they would split the niche between BG and LMB. They are not a commonly stocked fish, so sourcing them might be difficult, and because they are not common, they might be more expensive.

Thanks for the warm welcome, and the advice!

Here is the rough Idea I have in my mind. three ponds:

Smallmouth 3 acres
Redear Sunfish
crayfish

Rockbass 1 acre
crayfish
fatheads

those two ponds are pretty set in my mind. the 3rd pond is up for grabs. but what I do know is I want it to be around 5 acres with LMB and some type of BG or maybe YP.

this is the very rough outlook on the 3rd lake.
LMB/F1
BG/CNBG/YP

still undecided about the 3rd lake and open to suggestions/arguements for one or the other.


The reason I would like the Rockbass pond is due to the quailty fishing these guys have given me here in my hometown. Same goes for the smallies.

I think it would be best to put the rock bass in with your smallmouths. If the rockbass have no predator, they'll overpopulate and stunt. I've never had any luck getting rock bass to naturally reproduce in ponds. I'm not saying it can't be done though. I suspect they need spawning habitat similar to smallmouths. Check out some recent Pond Boss Magazine articles for information on that.

Such great options you have! So you're saying you have the resources to get 3 ponds going, 1, 3, and 5 acre ponds? Man, the possibilities! With those options, you could really get some great diversity. I would really encourage this diversity. Get creative. Love the SMB direction you're going and you could couple them with your YP, some HSB, and RES. And like CJ offered, possibly some RKB. For your other ponds, maybe consider your typical LMB/BG/CC pond or, if you live on the property and can offer some very aggressive management, a crappie pond. Sounds like you have some land to work with, so maybe some small forage ponds can be built here and there to supplementally stock your ponds. I'm just throwing ideas out there. The possibilities are nearly endless! Welcome to the forum!

I have half of the resources needed, and by that I mean land. all the money isn't there. This project is years from coming to realization but I have time. And I would like to have my plans pat and research done well ahead of time.

Steelville Mo is where I'm at.

I was wondering about a SM, YP, and WE pond? what kind of numbers will I be looking at in all of the pond sizes I'm looking at(1,3,5 acres)? will WE survive in my area of MO?

I've read SM only ponds can do well. I've also read that RKB compete directly with SM so I thought I shouldn't mix the two. However I would love to manage a nice trophy RKB pond as they are great fighters and taste great also, and get respectively big for panfish 12" to 17".

I'm shying away from crappie and Channel cats idea. As crappie can become outta control, and a pond without CC can have more room for trophy bass and what not.

however I'm interested in redear sunfish as they get to a good size and taste well also. some questionable inhabitants I'm looking into are crayfish and bullfrogs/tadpoles? has anyone had these before? whats to expect? look for? are they good forage? ect.

Thanks for the time to read my ideas and for the help it means a lot to me! also I'm not up to par with all the abbreviations just yet so it would be very helpful to tell me what some of them mean, I've caught on too a few.

Here's a link to the thread on page 2 of the archives that has all the abbreviations.

You're catching on quick!! Crayfish are great food for the SMB; RES and LMB will eat them as well. The Bullfrog tadpoles are eaten by anything that is large enough to swallow one, and the Bullfrog adults are eaten by Homo Sapiens.

From what I've heard and read, WE grow slower in smaller ponds than they do in the wild.

A 17" RKB?? That's HUGE!! What did it weigh?

I myself didn't catch it but I've heard of them getting that size, I don't expect to grow any of that size however I would like to grow some of a decent size

Travis offered a little advise in another thread regarding walleye.

Evidently "smallies" has never caught a HSB 16"-18+ or he would be considering them in some fashion for the RKB pond.
"esshup" mentioned bullfrog tadpoles are eaten by anything that can get them in their mouth, at least one exception is YP.

Omaha thanks for the link it was very helpful. And bill cody nope Ive never had the pleasure of catching a HSB however I did hook on to one once. But I'm not really looking to have to restock my ponds all the time, what Im saying is that I would like a population of reproducing fish.

Bill, you're saying that YP won't eat tadpoles, or is it because they don't swim in the same habitat that the tadpoles are found?

Ok so here is the plan for the SMB pond:

3 acres
WE 30
SMB 300
YP 450
RES 300
Paper shell crayfish 300
FH 10lbs
Grass shrimp?
Asian clams?

The goal of this pond would be two get trophy sized SMB, RES, and YP. With WE as a bonus fish. The Asian clam is already in missouri according to this map:
http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?speciesid=92
so I don't see any harm in having it in my local pond. however I don't know where I would be able to order any. the reason for the clam is to get trophy RES.

IMO you will not produce or maintain trophy SMB if you maintain 100 older or original smb per acre unless you maintain a pellet feeding program for them (Aquamax largemouth). Too many predators in this stocking combination and not enough forage fish. I consider trophy pond raised SMB to be 17"+ - 20". Others will definately have opinions and opinions are welcome.

Bill knows SMB better than anyone, Smallies. I love your passion for these specific species of fish, and share them, but you will need a forage fish and I'd recommend bumping up those RES numbers significantly also. Dave Willis, Bill Cody, and Mark Cornwall have suggested a perfect forage fish for SMB are GSH. The adults are large enough to escape predation due to the limited gape of the SMB and YP, and should continue to spawn and enable one to establish and sustain a GSH population. How cool is that?

Also, you should definitely consider 50-75 HSB for fun. They will forage primarily on pellets, grow super fast, don't pose a reproduction risk, taste great, and are arguably the most exciting fresh water fish to catch.

I would also consider lake chubsuckers which were found to be very beneficial in ponds with SMB in an IL research study conducted for 13 years.

Thanks bill cody, I was wondering if you could provide a link to this study? and where would I be able to get any?

Smallies,
Rock bass are pretty common in many of the ozark streams that are in your area. I imagine you could catch enough to stock a small pond pretty easily. Keep in mind that there are actually 2 other extremely closely related species (Shadow Bass and Ozark Bass) that look just like the Northern Rock Bass. In your specific area, you have Northern Rock Bass, but go south about 40 miles or so and you start to get into Shadow Bass zone. Go Southwest around Springfield and you have Ozark Bass zone.

Longear Sunfish could be a fun fish to stock as well. While they don't get very big, they are a blast for kids and adults alike to catch, and they are probably the prettiest native fish we have in MO. They are thick in the ozarks.

Chain pickerel could be a fun novelty native predator addition also. Personally, I would probably choose those over walleye.

Todd Overton at Overton fish Hatcheries is the only one that has Chubsuckers. overtonfisheries.com

Use search feature here to see past posts about chubsuckers. Good info there.

esshup- YP will not eat, at least very many, bullfrog tadpoles. Tadpoles swim freely among my YP.

Bill;

Can you expound on the YP/Tadpole relationship? I have a healthy population of YP in my pond, and also a healthy population of bf tadpoles and have often wondered why these languid, slippery nuggets of protein can swim with impunity in my pond. Is it related to gape or taste or both? Guide us, YP master!

I am pretty sure YP do not eat BF tadpoles because of taste factor. If the problem was gape size of the YP then lots of the tadpoles would get eaten when they were young and small - doesn't happen. The bigger YP in my pond are easly able to eat larger BF tadpoles. One can easily test this by putting a few smaller BF tadpoles into an aquarium with a YP that has never seen a BF tadpole and observe.