Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site How big n where should I seek a WE, SMB, HSB pond

KRS

First off, congrats on your pending move to the Midwest! I'm just West of IA in Lincoln NE so look forward to learning where you end up.

You are fortunate to have Bill Cody provide such valuable feedback - he's an expert and I'd advise to follow it all to a "T".

My feedback for what it's worth:

Really like your fishery goals. I agree you should be looking at 2-5 acres. I have a SMB fishery with all these same species with a couple wrinkles:

I have BG, RES and GSH serving as my forage base in addition to a steady pellet program.

Observations:

RES doing great - good growth and population is regulated with moderate spawns and predation. A great panfish with no negative impacts IMO.

4-6" BG are overpopulated - chalk up this decision to stock to inexperience. My YP, WE, SMB and HSB are doing decent work on the 1-3" BG, but limited gape and preference for fusiform forage renders anything 4"+ bulletproof. Heavy angling and trapping still doesn't dent population. I now am now going to have to stock single sex LMB to help curb their population something that is very risky.

GSH population is strong and provides the backbone of my fishery. If I had to do this over again I'd have stocked Spotfin Shiners...but they aren't commercially available to my knowledge. They max at about half the size of GSH so even adults serve as forage, unlike my adult GSH which are up towards 9" now.

I also have a strong papershell crayfish and grass shrimp forage base.


I understand your reasoning with GSF - but Bill is of course correct on his reservations and I'd reconsider. My suggestion would be to establish GSH, Crayfish and Grass Shrimp populations in addition to RES.

I really like Bill's HBG suggestion. If I were to do it all again that's exactly what I'd do. The HBG will provide great angling, fillets, and ice fishing action too without the drawback of BG overpopulation. You can supplementally stock HBG as necessary to establish different size classes.

Side note: Harvesting YP should be an easy task for you if the WE prove elusive [which they will]. In my estimation YP fillets easily rival WE and they are far more plentiful/easy to catch. You can definitely go from pond to peanut oil to plate routinely.

I am eager to see your plans...good luck and keep us posted!