Nebucks provides great testimony to this topic. Thanks for sharing your experiences. Pay attention to the predatory power of LMB on YP and smaller 6"-8" and at times 10" WE. Those WE are not bigger around that a good sized cigar. Juvenile 6"-8" walleye cost about $12.60 to $19.00 per lb and make for expensive bass food. Adult WE will even prey on smaller supplementary stocked WE. IMO for WE and YP to work in a normal pond setting the LMB, whenever caught, should be harvested at anything greater than 12" maybe 14". LMB like to eat the slender bodies of YP and small WE compared to wider bodied BG and sunfish. Normal pond is one with minimal submerged weeds. Significant weed cover provides more refuge for the YP, small WE & BG too. Thus in this situation BG are likely to become overabundant, esp with fewer larger LMB of 12"-18".
Best success with WE & YP is without LMB. Other preferred predators with WE & YP are SMB and HSB.
The other part of this topic is cool water fish in a warm water pond of the Midwest. For YP and WE water temperature should be no problem. We've had YP & WE survive well in local NW Ohio ponds that have summer water temperatures of 90F. Resident WE live well in the Maumee River where summer water temps can get to the lower 90's. From my experience it is not so much the water temperature that is the problem for WE but the water quality. WE don't tolerate low dissolved oxygen levels very well. However YP will tolerate low DO quite well compared to LMB and BG.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 04/20/12 10:58 AM.
