You do pay for free shipping. Nice fingerling SMB can be 'had' for $1.5 to $2.60 ea. But one has to be willing to travel in my case 3 hrs one way to get them so shipping cost vs time & $ spent traveling may be similar. Did you check with this place in Indiana for fish? Of course if they don't have or can't get the fish then they are not reliable. Often a fish farm will take your order for SMB but provide only an excuse when it comes time to deliver the fish. Reliability and dependability is sometimes worth a little extra money.
http://clearcreekfisheries.net/GSH per pound will depend on size of fish. At 3.5"-3.75" equals 100/lb; at 4" about 50-55/lb; at 5" about 35-38/lb. You can order more than 100 GSH breeders if you desire to by fall have more GSH. Depending on delivery time and stress one can loose a high numberr of GSH due to handling and hauling stress. YOu want to insure the minnow shiner delivery is pre spawn timing.
10 lbs of breeder FHM is about 250/lb at 2.25" long = around 2500 fish. Recomended number of stocker brood stock for breeding adult FHM is 500-600/acre to produce without any predators 200,000 minnows/ac (about 328 lbs/ac) (Kentucky) by fall. Adult shiners will eat some newly hatched FHM fry to reduce the final FHM production. So adding 1000 FHM/ac is not unreasonable.
When stocking minnows allow for some mortality depending on the provider and time or air temperatures for delivery.
