I had a new pond built last fall and am looking forward to the spring to see it fill and to begin stocking.
I thought I might post here in hopes of getting some varied and educated input on what may work best for my situation.
Given my lack of experience with stocking or maintaining a body of water I may sound and be exceptionally ignorant about some common sense things. I have been reading many posts and the book "Basic Pond Management" to try and educate myself in the meantime.
ABOUT THE POND:
The pond at about 1.5 acres and located in central Indiana. It is designed more as a "farm pond" I believe than as an ideal fish/wildlife environment.
It is basically a smooth bowl at this time and fairly deep with relatively steep sides.
As I have recently learned this is probably considered more like a small lake than a pond in regards to habitat.
Max depth is 18-20 feet, there is a lot of area that is in the 8-10 feet range which then transitions to the relatively steep sides. The sides are mostly about 3:1 I would guess with some variation.
I chose this route for better or worse because I was interested in keeping it pretty low maintenance in regards to weeds and also to mitigate some of the effects of potential level drops over the summer as I also have a limited runoff area. My primary interest was for it to look nice and be a good swimming hole and had assumed that at least some fish/wildlife would find it a welcome home as well.
For most of the near future (several years) I will be an absentee owner so whatever gets done will not get much monitoring by myself at least between my 3 or 4 time a year visits.
Most runoff will coming from open or cut grassland with a small bit (less than an acre) coming from a pasture often populated by cows (manure) and also used for hay.
If I get desperate I'll pump from a stream, assuming it is raining.
My first concern is that it not become a mosquito breeding ground as it fills.
THE PLAN:
- Early April, stock minnows, FHM I assume based on what I have read.
- Late summer/early fall, stock some predators, maybe just BG and RES.
The predator fish is where I have the most questions. My thought is to maybe just stock BG and or RES.
My thinking for this is that while I would love to have some LMB I am not sure that my environment is suitable to develop and sustain a thriving BG/RES population and therefore the Bass. Some cats would also be welcome and I might gather this would maybe be a better environment for them than the other fish.
Down the road when I can live there I would love to put more time and resources into developing this into being as much of a fish habitat as possible, but for the near future I just want to keep it clean, relatively mosquito free and be able to hook a few fish from time to time whatever they may be.
I would love to have some Crappie(my favorite to eat) and Bass in here but have read enough discouragement about Crappie in small areas to be dissuaded. Only mentioning it in the chance that a Crappie and Catfish combo could somehow work here.
Of course a lot also depends on how well it fills this spring and I'll just have to be patient to see how that goes.
I'll also plan to reach out to the local Soil and Water agencies but in the meantime I would love to hear any comments or suggestion on this so called plan.
jammer
Last edited by jammer; 01/14/14 07:42 PM.
