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

I think that before we jump on the LMB bandwagon, we need to make sure whether the BG that he stocked are HBG or Northern BG. If they're HBG, then I think they'd be easy to control without LMB.

I would agree with that too. He needs to talk with his supplier and find out what BG was sold to him and I would find out at that time what the name of the minnow is. A picture of the stocked BG may possibly help.

I have Emailed my supplier about the type of bluegill he sold me. Waiting to hear back from him still. He did respond and say that perch will eat much larger than 1" bluegill.

I really do not know.

Bill feel free to change the title of the thread.

Looks like we have an adventure on our hands with this pond. I am really really good with a few walleye and small mouth if this can be done with still the primary goal of nice big perch. I am fine with caging and feeding perch too. The boys would love to have to feed the fish every day.

As soon as I know more about the bluegill I will let everyone know. Me and the boys are going to walk out there right now and take a look around before dark.

Cheers Don.

We were able to catch one of the bluegill tonight with the boys.

Here is a few pictures of the one we caught.

All three look like p-seeds to me.

Oops.. I guess they are all of the same fish?

Suprising turn of events. North Shore Fish Farm sold you those sunfish as bluegill AND were pellet trained??. I find that hard to believe. Those are pumpkinseed sunfish(PS) as noted by Sprkplug and not bluegill. It will be interesting to hear in the email what the Fish Farm says they are. Dr. Willis at South Dakota St Univ has had limited success with smallmouth controlling pumpkinseeds. Offspring of PS will not as readily accept pelleted food compared to BG. PS do enter fish traps so you can manually remove excess individuals.

Good. Since you don't have BG, I would first try to control the reproduction of YP & PS with SMB and WE. I think it is going to be too difficult for a new, novice pondowner to locate male LMB to use as a controllable predator in this situation. PBoss magazine had an article by Dr Willis et.al. that discussed use of PS stocked into an existing SMB 0.5ac clear water gravel pit in South Dakota. SMB improved by getting larger, but PS tended to be too common and not growing fast nor large. PBoss Mag Jul-Aug 2010: "SMALLMOUTH BASS AND PUMPKINSEEDS. W. Schreck, B. Graeb and D. Willis look at some test results about smallmouth bass growth before and after introduction of pumpkinseed sunfish. Management hints from me would be to keep your weeds to a minimum to aid predation of PS, and use a trap several times a year combined with angling with live bait under bobbers to remove some PS. Keep track on paper of how many and what species you remove each year.


Those PS stockers of 3"-5" will definately spawn in 2013 when water temps get 67-68F (19.5C). Remember that YP spawn at 10-11deg C. Brush branches can be added - removed during and after YP spawn season to optimize use of structure/cover. PS are fairly prolific and can overpopulate a pond. Nest building in shallow water occurs prior to spawning in sand or gravel 12"-24" deep. In spring 2013 try to find some SMB and WE stock them. Having predators present prior to PS spawning will be a big part of controlling the PS overpopulation. In your 0.3-0.5 ac stock 30-50 SMB (3"-6") and try to get 6-10 WE (4"-8") in spring or fall. Keep records of how many and what type of fish are caught in each pull of the fish trap. We will help you evaluate the data regarding fish balance.

Dr Willis and I have submitted an article to Pond Boss Magazine (early 2013) about the main points of using SMB in ponds. I think SMB with a few walleye can work in your situation to control PS & YP with some help from your boys and you. If the SMB and WE do not work to your satisfaction to control the PS and or YP after 6-10 years, you can always add LMB and they will in 5-8 yrs be the dominant predator and will control any of your over abundant species. Consider LMB as your defalt predator.

The fish farm was correct that YP will eat BG larger than 1". I said larger sized YP will eat up to 2.5" but they mostly eat BG 1.2"" and smaller. To verify this check the stomach contents of some of the large 10"-12" YP that you harvest in the future and then report back as to who was correct most often about this topic.

Save the information in this thread as reference and a guide for managing fish in your pond.

Cage raising fish is best done if the pond has a dock (aka jetty). Without a dock as access to the cages, it becomes difficult to feed and properly monitor the fish.

And can we be sure that the bunch of fish are of the same type? I would have my doubts at this point.

I think that fish would be in the size range of 3-5". At least the area the fish would take up in my hand would be 5".

PS - wonderful - better situation than with BG. I think you can more easily manage them. Go SMB and WE - as Bill suggests - and have a ball! If HSB are legal there, 10-15 would help manage PS further...and are a blast to catch/manage.

Another vote for PS. Whew!

Catch a few more if you can, and make sure they all look like the one posted (look for the small red spot on the gill flap).

If any have orange fins, or do not have a red spot on the gill, take their picture and post it.

Well not sure now what to say. The fish farm is now saying that the bluegill above are a mut or hybrid. Stock from Arkansaw and stock from the east cost. He stated that I will be getting more of these from him in the future as the perch will eat them all up much faster than they can re populate. There was only enough old enough to spawn so the ratio of perch to bluegill is more like 4-1 for the age and size of the fish.

Even though we stocked 400 perch and 200 of the above bluegill hybrid pumpkin seed the sizes and population will be about 4-1.

He assures me that with a three quarter acre BOW I have nothing to worry about with over population. He has added these bluegill to all his ponds and manages them for food for the perch he raises. He states he has never had to worry with his pellet trained perch that these bluegill with take over the pond.

Soooo... I guess we keep an eye on the population of these two fish for the next few years and keep good notes with fish trapping with the kids and if I run into any problems from what I have read we have a few bullets in the chamber we can try.

In the spring we will get this dock built and fish trap built add more minnows again maybe even twice more in the spring. Look at an aeration system and enjoy the warm nights on the dock with the family.

Cheers Don.

Wow.....that fish sure looks like a pure PS to me. I wonder what that farm considers a Pumpkinseed to look like?

Selling fish acclimated to Arkansas weather in Canada? Hmmmm.....

Would this be out of the ordinary but would these fish be trying to spawn? There has been a large temp swing from the indoor farm 78F to the outdoor pond of 53F.

I will tonight grap two more from the shore. They seem to be pairs of them along the shore line here and there. Mostly where there is .25" and crusher chips on the shore.

I can grap two and post pictures. Maybe a male and female?

Cheers Don.

Ok these pictures are of three different fish. We were able to sneak up on them right close to shore and net them. I am really siding with you guys here on pumpkin-seeds.

We could watch the minnows eating our water bugs when we were down there tonight. The minnows are not shy at all.

Few pictures of the pond. That one blue spruce tree on the point (left) is 16 feet tall to get an idea of size of the pond.

Cheers Don.

Beautiful pond Don!

I'm not a PS expert...not even close, I've never even caught one, but these last three fish sure look like they have some RES characteristics...but it could be just because I'm only familiar with them. If they are RES - you won't have a problem with them overpopulating and stunting, as they won't likely make it through an Ontario winter. Hold on for expert ID...it will be along shortly.

This is an interesting situation and will be interesting to see how your fishery progresses. My 1st professional opinion is this Fish Farm should not be selling these fish as bluegill. That technically is fraudulent -"not honest, true or fair and deceitful". Technically these are something other than bluegill, however they are a sunfish.

IMO they could be a hybrid sunfish (mutt or hybrid as named by the NSFishFarm) a cross between redear and pumpkinseed sunfishes which would be a very interesting hybrid sunfish to produce. Redears are not intense cold north tolerant but they do grow large. The Pumpkinseed do not grow large but they are cold tolerant. The RESXPS hybrid would grow large, be cold tolerant and likely be not real prolific. Low reproduction is a feature the N S Fish Farm is claiming which is how the YP for them can reasonably control the offspring from this sunfish. Actually the North Shore Fish Farm may have a very good idea here for a useful northern panfish, if the sunfish are truly hybrids between RES and PS.

Don - Note that if these sunfish are hybrids and not pure PS, I would still add some SM Bass to help with control of the sunfish offspring and perch. However you could stock 20-30 SMB instead of 30-50. If you think the bass are eating too many young fish and you are not seeing any new youngster fish in fall, then remove several (3-5) bass (note: each year you will also loose the occassional bass to deep, swallowded hooks). Then watch for youngster fish the next fall. If still no new young sunfish nor perch then repeat SMB removal and be watchful & monitor. Trapping will be a very good way to monitor for young fish - sunfish, YP, and SMB. Until you see ample small sunfish, YP and fingerling bass, I would not add any walleye or no more than 4-5.

Four PS and one PS X BG (last pic) ided by Wisc Fish













PS X BG



Cody Comment - Based on ewest's pictures above of the PSXBG hybrid, the "mutt" sunfish from North Shore are not a close match to the PSXBG hybrid noted above. One has to consider the male-female parentage of the hybrid cross and water quality that influenced the color pattern of the photo specimen. Keep in mind that the sunfish from NShore was supposed to be a RESXPS mix of some sort - a "mutt", and not a BGXPS mix as in the ewest photo. It is hard to tell what the NShore sunfish is due to lack of pictures and information for RES X PS hybrids. The RES X PS hybrid and its potential has me very interested in this type of panfish.

Thanks for the pictures. I have looked at them so much over the last few days. I really think I will have to wait till spring summer and take more pictures. They need to colour up and get larger to really try to compare. The fish don't seem to have any vertical strips like most above do.

The closest match is the second last picture posted above of the pumpkin seed with no stripping.

It would be very interesting if these are a cross RES and PS. I will talk to the supplier again and see if these are this combo.

Cheers Don.

Stripes on pumpkinseed are variable and if present, are often more apparent on larger individuals. The "hybrids" at North Shore Fish Farm may not be controlled hybrid crosses where specific male specie and female specie parents are stocked into a pond. "Mutt" hybrids would be any hybrid cross that occurs in a mixed population of PS and RES.

Hi Don- Just wanted to say HI to a fellow Ontarian and that I have a big of info for you about my own pond which is much smaller than yours! My pond is 1/4 acre or shade less and I stocked a bit of everything back when we bought the place in 2008. Originally the owner just had LMB in the pond and nothing else (although I did catch one sucker back in 2009 and I am positive the very same fish died of old age last week as it was floating and I cought a nice SMB back in 2010 but I havn't seen it again).
The fall I bought the place I stocked aprox 50 Pumpkinseeds, 50 Bluegills and 200 YP from 5-12" and 6 3Lbs LMB. I also stocked 40 Rainbow trout that fall that were 16-20" long with the intent of removing them in the spring.
The following spring the family had a blast with the trout and we left 10 in and they lived for the next 2 years until I had the pond turn over on me durring a severe thunder storm.
After having such a blast with the Rainbow's I decieded to stock other trout instead each fall and landed up going with Brookies as the main stocker (these have to be taken out by early summer although this year I am pumping well water in to see if I can get them to live all year long). I also have stocked 10 brown trout that have lived for 3 years now.

You may be shocked at the amount I have stocked but I can tell you that non of the panfish have over populated and neither have the LMB and I firmly believe this is due to the preditor trout (the browns).

One cool thing that I have noticed since I started stocking the Brook Trout and feeding them hard all fall, winter and spring is that the Wild YP and Bluegills are actually becoming feed trained (the YP flock to the dock as soon as pellets hit the water).

In your pond, if you are wanting to control the pan fish and not wanting to stock LMB I would really think about stocking 5-10 Brown's...they should live all year long for you and are actually hard to catch after the first time you hook them! and they will control the panfish.

Fall is the time to stock them and you will have no worries about them spawning in the pond and they are available from quite a few places here in Ontario!

Ryan

Ryan thanks for the idea and experience you have had. I did get a group of fathead feeder minnows for my pond from a fellow about 3/4 of an hour north that all he dose is trout.

He has this very nice mule called a tiger trout. Cross between a brown and brook. Most beautiful fish I have ever seen in my life.

Some updated history on my pond. This winter every single panfish has died. Not one made it the first winter. I am so confident that I have placed a $100 bounty on anyone caught in my pond. My three boys have been working the pond hard all spring but nothing but perch.

I have a great deal amount of emerald shiners, bluntnose shiners, fathead, and paper shell crayfish. There may be a few golden shiners mixed in with the first batch of emerald shiners.

So far so good. My goal was a very viable perch pond and swimming hole for the kids. Right now everything is going as plan. I would like to be the alpha predator for a while and when I get tired of that 5 or 6 walleye will be my go too fish first. It is very nice to know that there are other options out there very local.

I know from fishing in the rivers around here that the brown are very shy and easy to spook, but I think walleye are as well.

Aerator and feeder are all set up running great. Perch are growing like I would have never expected. I had no idea that fish grow so fast like 1:1 feed to growth. My current decision is should I stock some yearling perch say 100 3"ers and again next spring so there is no breaks in the spawning years. The perch in my pond now will spawn next spring for sure but didn't this year. Maybe it is the engineer in me over thinking and analyzing everything.

Cheers Don.

Don,

All the best on your goal in raising large YP. In the end your BOW is still small enough to make adjustments along the way. In my case, our 20 acre lake has matured well thanks to Bill Cody and Dr. Willis advise in the past few years. I have been away building approx. 100,000 gallons of koi ponds where water from the lake is pumped up to the top pond and gravity does the rest in moving the water thru 5 ponds and streambeds back to the lake in a "U" shape pattern up near our house "active solar" addition with major southern exposed glass.

Our kids have grown and are completing their post degrees but the LMB have grown to the trophy bass we wished for. Some are in the 6 lb range and many BG are very large too. The initial stunted YP when we first bought our property (approx 7 acres then and still an active gravel pit)have reduced greatly and are very large as well in greatly reduced numbers. For us, the constant pond managment responsibilty is to remove many 8-14" LMB annually. There are limited mid size BG as the mid range bass are hitting these size ranges.

I think a little trial and error will go a long way and continue to listen and learn from the PROS- who give their time so graciously.



Rowly

Did you have shallow water aeration going over winter?