Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Putting fish in the pond

That is way too many LMB for your pond and goal. I would not put in more than 50 if using 2 inch stockers.

I would use less (20) larger fish in the fall. Here is some info from a prior post.

By using larger LMB you are reducing the risk that a larger #/% of those stocked will live and reproduce. For example if you stock only 20 8 in LMB in fall that is the max that can reproduce the first year. If on the other hand you stock 200 2 in LMB now and 100 of them live to age 1 rather than 20 then you will have 5 times as many LMB reproduce the first time. Also those extra LMB for the summer will eat up a bunch of forage (yoy BG). Keeping those first BG alive for only a few mths makes a huge difference in total BG pounds of forage. Another option is to stock some adult BG now which can really jump start the forage. That would IMO depend on how many 4 inch BG you have now. The old stocking advice of 1000 BG to 100 LMB per acre has been shown to lead to LMB crowding much quicker. Best advice now is 3000 BG and 100 LMB for balance that may last up to 3 times as long. But it depends on the lake/area in question.