Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Trying to sort out just what fish I want

I am still very early in the planning stages for our pond, but I can't stop going over and over what I might do with it. I'm estimating we will be in the 6 acre size range with a max depth around 22 feet and the pond is spring fed from at least 3 springs.

Forage fish is pretty easy. GSH and FHMs are being raised in a very small forage pond for the large pond.

I'd like to stock a minimal number of catfish just not sure which flavor.

For eating fish I'm looking at BG, YP and 'maybe' Talapia.

Now all I need is an apex predator. I don't really eat LMB so I'm looking t SMB (a lot of fun to catch) or HSB (no worries about over population).

For the really fun part, instead of either of these apex predators I's much rather try to raise Sauger or Walleye. We have sauger in the river near here so I know that they can thrive, but trying to find sauger fingerlings is apparently near impossible. I'd be forced to enter them in to the witness protection program and provide them with new identities and a new place to live.. Or I can work on getting walleye delivered here somehow.

The plan is to start with the BG and YP and give them a real head start on the predators. Maybe even a full year. If I can find sauger or walleye somewhat locally, maybe longer.

So many options, so much confusion.

Six acre pond makes me jealous . Take your time stocking and make sure your predators will have enough to eat when you stock them.

Good luck BigSteve .

A question for you BigSteve... Ever consider making 2-three acre ponds or even 3-two acre ponds? It opens a lot of different stocking options.

I'm with HL on three separate ponds..One for SMB and YP, one for LMB and BG, and one for Catfish.

If you have regular BG, you almost certainly need LMB. Then the LMB makes it hard for the SMB to flourish. You could go with HBG, but I don't know what/how it would work in a pond of 6 acres in regards to restocking them and keeping their spawns under control. I would be leary on putting in BG in so early unless the guys here think its ok. Depends on your ultimate goals of which species of fish you want to do best.

It will be interesting to see what the pros say...

I had thought about several smaller ponds, but with where we are building the house, the views and everything else, we decided on one large pond and a smaller, .25 acre or so small pond uphill from it. The main reason I agreed to move here was the very cool pond / small lake opportunities for the property.

That area is spring fed and runs between three hills. A simple dam at one end does 90% of the work for me.

This is a sat. view of the property and the blue is where I guestimated the pond would fill with a 14' dam and zero excavation work. I used my dad's old transit that is older than me and my wife and I spent 2 days measuring and gridding the land. There is about a 14 foot elevation change from the bottom left to the top right where the pond is going to be.

Since then the plans have changed 'slightly', but not a lot.

Steve, I spent the last few days hiking much of the KY hills similar to those in TN while trying to locate a suitable place to build a fish farm and saw one recurring theme...Many spring fed ponds dug that were empty due to the underground streams that often follow, in far greater volume, below the soils than what water we see above the soils. I saw 11 "spring fed ponds" that were bone dry due to the pond construction hitting the underground streams, and creating sink holes said spring head waters are again flowing into.

Make sure you excavate the entire above surface, spring flow path then refill using a 2-3 foot thick, well compacted clay lining in 6" lifts over the path of your surface spring flow area to avoid creating a drain. Also cover any exposed bedrock with good, compacted clay as well to save yourself many, expensive-to-correct-later headaches from leaks. Your Dam Core should need to go deep enough to cut off and plug any underground flow that would flow "under" your lake/dam as well.

I'd love to hear from Otto and get his suggestions on this thread!!!

BigStever, your pond looks like it's gonna be a great place for your family to enjoy.

Do you absolutely have to have BG? If you do, you're really limited if you want them to thrive to having LMB as a predator for them. It is very difficult control BG with other predators as they just don't have the mouth size nor the predatory nature to keep up with them.

If you do decide to go with BG, DO NOT give them a huge head start on your HSB or SMB. If anything, wait until your HSB and SMB have been in the pond for a year or two before adding the BG. A 6 acre pond gives you some room to play with. It will support somewhere between 300-500 pounds of predatory fish, maybe a bit more. Managing a pond that large takes a lot of time though.

Can you give your must haves? Do you absolutely much have BG? Or could you live with just RES and say possibly a less prolific sunfish like RBS as your sunfish species and not BG?

@Rainman, We are making sure to keep the springs out of the pond and let the creeks fill them. We had a well drilled earlier this year and went 160 to water bearing sand and did not hit a single rock. Very strange land out this way for sure and it is almost all clay.

Part of the reason for the 'test pond' was to do some experimenting with just what will happen to the water levels as we get in to the heat of summer. We have several neighbors with some pretty shallow spring fed ponds that got real low last year, but never quite empty. We've never seen that particular creek go completely dry so that gives me a lot of hope.

@CJB, BG are not a must have at all. If I can make it work I'd skip BG and SMB entirely and look more toward YP and WE if I can.

As for time, my wife and I were semi retired when we bought the land and both went back to work when we realized just how much we wanted to do and how much it would cost. So once the building is down we are both looking at kick back and just 'playing' on the farm and pond.

Send a PM to Mike Otto and see you can't get him to post here.

I believe that we have a plan in place. Now I just need to execute.

I'm looking at building a smallish (.2acre or smaller) pond at the top of the 5+ acre pond to serve as a silt reducer and a forage pond. I hope to have that done start growing some forage by fall (we are also building a house a couple barns right now so 'fun' projects are low priority).

For the big pond my apex will be Walleye. The pond will be built specifically to give them the best chance at spawning and growing well. The target is not trophy fish by good eaters and enough to make them fund to catch.

To feed these guys we are planning on YP, RES and BG. Then furth down the food chain will be FHM and GSH along with crawfish, a few types of snails and grass shrimp.

I wanted to thank Walt Foreman for coming out and looking at the property. It was nice to talk to someone that wasn't locked in to LBM/BG ponds and saw my vision for what I want to try to do.

Now all I need to do is hit the lottery

Hello-
Sorry for coming a little late to this thread, just saw it.
I think your idea of walleye as apex predator has merit. I've not had success getting YP to sustain themselves in my pond, which was disappointing-until I discovered that the dozen WE my fish guy gave me [without my knowledge at the time] are about 4# now, and looking at their gape, capable of eating some pretty good sized BG.

I would recommend trying to construct your pond with as much good WE habitat as possible, and specifically, structure that will give them the best chance to prey effectively on BG. I suspect you'll still have to do a lot of removal of BG by other means to keep numbers in check, at least for the first few years as your WE mature.

If you have YP and BG, your WE will likely preferentially prey on the YP, whereas you really need them to focus on the BG.

It is unlikely that you will have a self sustaining WE population, as reproduction in ponds is not common. Don't let that discourage you, the fingerlings are available pretty readily.