Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Considering forage/silt pond

Hey everybody. I'm in Southern Illinois and I'm considering a forage/silt pond on the "shallower than I wish it was"(1'-5') end of my 5 acre pond. My goal is large LMB and I just stocked it w 800 bg/ac and 200 RE/ac and its currently full of fatheads. I get my bass in a month or so.
My questions would be is it worth my time? It would be about 100' upstream. I will build it myself and it wont cost much as it will only be about .5 ac big. Of the 40 acres of shed that comes down this draw roughly 30 of it is tillable acreage (silt loam) and although its usually no-tilled I'm scared over time I will get enough run off to cause some issues.

If I decide to go with it I was wanting to figure a way out to just let the fish flow through a pipe rather than seine. Any issues w this? I figured if I really wanted to flood the big pond w fish I could make it siphon, drain the forage pond down some and maybe really flush a lot of the forage down stream.

And finally, I have been told BG should be my main fish in the forage pond. Does this sound right or should I consider something else?

I'm considering feeding (I did just put a rot basket at the end of the dock... temporary), and in time will aerate but not for a couple years.

Any input is appreciated. Thanks a ton!

Other than the BG/RES and FHM, have you stocked anything else into the main pond?

To add to that, are there any other fish in the pond? How many LMB per acre are you planning on stocking? Also, how do you plan on combating winterkill if the winter is severe?

BG/RES/GSH and FHM are currently the only fish in the pond and I was aiming to stock 50 LMB/ac. I guess I don't have much of a plan on the winter kill side of things, but am certainly open to suggestions. The pond is mostly 6' to 12' deep, but this specific bay where the draw enters is much shallower. Not positive how deep the forage pond would be as I have not actually shot it yet, but I would guess it to average 4'-9'.

If the first pond is a combination forage/silt pond, I would think that you might want out be able to clean all the muck out easily, accessible from all edges. You would have to be careful not to flush all the sediment down with the forage fish when sending the forage fish to the big pond. Others might give better advice, but you may want to consider two smaller settling pond rather than a big 1/2 acre one. I seem to remember Bob Lusk having a short video somewhere on a forage pond and the +/-'s of having one. IIRC it wasn't that deep, maybe 5 '?

Here is the video I was thinking of. It is for a hatchery pond, but might be of some help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwQ3Wm4qGCc

NHC,

You pose a lot of issues than cannot easily be answered without an on-site survey and discussion.

Because of your location, I'd suggest you contact the Herman Brothers. They are really great people -- but more than that, they really know people, as much as they know fish and habitat.

Ken

I can not speak for your location, but I can tall you what I do.

I do mine .25 ac and smaller and not deeper than 4' so we can sein out to move to ponds for winter forage. I build a driveway on the low side where I am going to make the pond before building (do this so the silt does not travel down stream and silt will settle back into the forage pond). I put a flow pipe just like in a drain pipe thru a regular drive at where I want the water level to be. I make sure to keep it above the high water line on the lower side so fish can go down stream and predator cant go up. Here is a pic of the last one I built foe the BCP this winter.