Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose BG & YP in Canada - Help!

Hi Don

Lots of info here, and Cody is our expert on these matters, and many other topics.

Sounds as if your goal is to create a YP fishery - if so, BG were not an ideal companion species. OK, nuff said, you get it!;) You'll need to either extensively manage the BG [remove thousands annually] or add an apex predator like SMB or LMB. SMB have a smaller gape, and larger YP can avoid predation, but the limited gape also renders BG over 4" pretty safe from predation, too. So, with SMB you don't get effective management of BG and instead get overpopulation and stunting issues.

With LMB the gape is much larger, which means larger BG will serve as forage, but your adult YP will suffer in a big way, too. YP are easier for LMB to prey upon due to their fusiform shape - so your YP and shiners will likely serve as forage first, then onto your BG.

YP can be successful with LMB, but those ponds have dense vegetation and/or habitat. Problem is, that also helps the BG, which are the fish species you want managed - so dense cover is not what you need.

Couple options at this point in my mind:

You can drain, seine, remove all BG, and restock your YP and shiners -that's probably what I would do because I know from personal experience the issue BG can serve. If you want a panfish species to complement your YP I'd go with Male BG or HBG.

If you don't want to do this, and you need an apex predator to manage your BG, I'd go with MALE LMB. Males will top out around 2-3#, and will have a more limited gape than females. The larger the gape, the larger the YP a LMB can hammer. You don't want your 12-13" YP wasted as LMB food. For a .75ac BOW I'd stock 20-25 male LMB. Expect to supplementally stock YP on some basis...I'd cage grow them out to adult sizes prior to stocking to help improve their survival rates.