I have recently been given a 4-acre pond to manage in the eastern part of WV from an aunt who has no interest in it. The majority of the pond is only 3 to 4 feet deep. There is a 5 to 10 foot deep section by the dam and a 5 to 7 foot channel leading from a springhouse to the hole at the dam. The rest of the pond is somewhat featureless and shallow. To combat the weeds, Grass Carp/Israel fish were stocked and they took over the pond.

I have done a lot of netting and found all different sizes of Carp so they are breading. Minnows were thick as well I found the majority to be some kind of Dance. Other existing forage includes a few badly stunted sun fish probably green�s, tons of crawfish, and few hog suckers.

I have plenty of bass and pan fishing opportunities so I thought about doing something fun with the pond. I was thinking of stocking Musky or Tiger Musky for the purpose of cleaning out the pond while growing a few trophy size fish. The biomass of the grass carp is unbelievable, so they would have pretty of forage. I took some of the 6 to 7 inch carp and used them for bait in the Potomac River the Tiger Musky there seemed to approve.

The question is how many to stock? Should I use the sterile Hybrids or the regular Musky's I considered Pike but due to the shallowness of the pond I figured it would be too warm in the summer despite being spring feed. Pickerel is another possibility but would only be able to feed on the smaller fish. Since the biggest carp are in the ten to twenty pound range the breeding stock is well established.