Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Want to stock trout....what type?

Rich, how far down do you have to drain the pond to repair the dam?
If your still gonna have 2 or 3 ft of water you could still stock minnows in the spring and add structure, fatheads and shiners are pretty tough.
Then when the pond is refilled you can decide if you want to stock the trout or wait longer.

Good question....unfortunately another reason for draining the pond besides fixing the dam is to excavate more and bring the one end to the 6-9' avg depth (at least). Not sure I want to put the forage fish in until after all the heavy equipment work is done. If it was a simple matter of only draining and patching that would work...but with the digging I will still probably have to wait until after the repair is done and it begins to settle and refill again.

I have a 1/2 acre pond in northern Michigan which we just finished fishing out our 200 rainbows stocked five years ago. These were all pellet fed at a moderate level and they augmented that with bugs. We had great fishing for 4 years with the last two yielding 5-9 pounders and up to 28" in length. Great fishing on a flyrod. We estimated we fished out approx 70% of the 200 with the other 30% lost to hawks, winter kill, old age etc. Overall a great experience. we are currently planning the next stocking cycle this spring.

Pebaugh -

Would you be willing to share the size at initial stocking?
Did you pellet feed year round?

Thanks

- Russ