Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Can I add walleyes - 4 Acre lake

I have a 4 acre, spring fed lake between Akron and Cleveland Ohio. It has established LMB and BG, sunfish.(4 years). It is a reclaimed gravel pit with 18-20 foot max depth. Half of lake is very variable in depth from very shallow to 10 feet. No outflow or dam, but lots of drainage into the lake. Lots of humps, sand, gravel. The other half is separated by a peninsula. That half is a "big bowl" that averages about 15 feet. I want to add some walleyes, perch and crappie for variety. Some of the BG are enormous and very healthy. Do you think the added species could work out with the established bass population?

Welcome to the forum. It's not advisable to add crappie to a pond that is less than 25 or so acres due to their boom or bust spawning cycles.

What fish are in the pond currently besides Largemouth Bass (LMB) and Bluegills (BG)? What size and weight is the average LMB that is caught?

fish acronyms

There are only BG, LMB (and some sunfish I believe) I would not know the difference between a hybrid BG and a regular BG to be very honest about it. I fished it almost every day last spring/summer/fall when we first acquired it, so I beleive I have a pretty good picture of the species that are in there. The average size of the LMB is about 1.5 -2.0 LB. Some bigger ones up to 3 Lb. but not common.

My goal is to have some diversity other than BG and LMB. I have never really "loved" LMB fishing. I do enjoy catching, and at times enjoying a BG, YP or WE fish fry.. I want my pond to be a little bit different than the same old LMB and BG pond. Still trying to get the hang of some of the fish species acronyms!! LOL

Sounds like you have a pond that leans on the bass heavy side. IE, your bass are a bit too over abundant.

Is there any submerged aquatic vegetation in the pond?

I see no reason why adding YP and WE would be an issue. However, if you have 2 and 3 pound LMB, you will need to stock larger WE to give them a better chance of surviving to a harvestable size. YP often struggle to maintain their numbers in a pond with abundant LMB if there is limited submerged vegetation.

I'd skip the crappies.

Another species to consider for diversity which may work quite well in your pond would be HSB.

How long (in inches) are those 1.5-2.0 pound LMB?

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92442#Post92442

Some of us who have actually stocked walleye in our ponds have not experienced much admirable growth rates even with abundant forage present.

Don't get me wrong though, I don't think they hurt anything, but probably don't expect a ton of walleye fillets down the line.

I would definitely add Yellow Perch.

Consider Smallmouth also. HSB are good too.

But before you get to that, everyone else's questions are geared towards determining the current condition of your pond. Like other said, it sounds like you are over crowed with Largemouth Bass, and may not have a great forage base.

You might also have bullheads in there which wouldn't be surprising.

If you haven't harvested a significant number of fish recently, your pond is at or very near carrying capacity which means several things. Two of them are: 1. your forage base of appropriate numbers of small fish is probably too low to feed extra walleye and perch. They do survive on mostly fish. The current fish are probably eating all excess small fish. Overstocking predators will result in skinny slow growing predators. Slow growing perch will get eaten by bass. Since perch and walleye are slender bodied expect the LMbass to eat perch and walleye 60% of the bass's length.
2. Adding new fish into a pond at carrying capacity results in fish being shorted on food items because the excess food is being eaten by the currrent fish community at capacity. Often what happens is the new fish become food for the current predators because the new fish behave differently and the predators find them very vulnerable and easy to catch since the new fish are strangers to the habitat. Book chapters are written about carrying capacity and standing crop. Carrying capacity is one of the things that determines who survives in a pond. Study and understand this short summary about carrying capacity:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92440#Post92440

IMO to get extra walleye and perch to survive you would have to first remove at least 50% of the bass starting with the largerst ones. A 16" bass will eat a 9" walleye and 8" perch. The fewer bass in the pond the better chances the new fish will survive. Also you will have to stock large sized stockers to keep them from becoming food for big mouth bass. If a bass can swallow it, it will likey soon be food. I have a local guy with largemouth in his pond and for him to get hatchling perch to survive to 8", he has to remove every bass he catches to keep the bass numbers low; thus predatory pressure low.

What type and % of vegetation does the friend of yours have in his pond? I am curious if vegetation makes a difference?

Yes, there is actually good submerged vegetation on parts of the pond. Other parts have sand and gravel bottom.

I have thought about the possibility of bullheads and have fished specifically by bottom fishing for them several times. I have not caught any.

I had my pond for about (4) years or so before I really knew all what was in it.

To get the best bang for your buck, it really makes a difference to know what all you have going on before you start to mess with things.

It helps to keep a log of what all you catch, sizes & weights, and observations.

If you stock another predator, at the very least you should remove 1 to 2 bass for every new predator that you stock so the new fish have extra food to survive and the pond has new capacity for the new stocker fish. If the pond is currently at capacity with LMbass, and if you just remove a few bass the remaining agressive hungry established bass will use most of the limited amount of extra foods. Also it would be helpful to remove ample small bass about the length of the stocker walleye. This frees up some small forage foods for the walleye and or perch. You are removing some larger bass so there aren't so many present to eat the new stockers.