Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose SMB and BG

If you aren't planning on removing BG to eat, then either plan on removing a lot to feed the 'coons or resign yourself to the fact that you'll have stunted BG's. If the kids don't mind catching 4"-5" BG, then it's no big deal.

I was told that a fish producer stocks 50 BG in a 1 acre pond without predators to provide enough YOY BG to sell for the season. That's a LOT of BG babies!!!!

Here's something else to chew on. For a BG/LMB pond, recommended stocking rates are 1,000 to 3,000 BG per surface acre.

A single female BG will lay around 50,000 eggs per pound of body weight. I read that as a single 1/2lb female BG will lay 25,000 eggs. Now, granted, not all will hatch, and not all will survive. But still, that's a heck of a lot of BG!

If it was my pond, and I had to have SMB as a primary predator in the pond, with a kids pond as my goal, I'd drain, rotenone and restock this spring, leaving BG and PS out of the mix. George in Texas uses HSB and ONE Blue Cat in his pond to control CNBG - not SMB.

With you saying that you wouldn't remove the BG to eat, and want SMB in the pond, I'd go single sex BG and also stock YP and HSB. YP are more fusiform shaped, and the HSB and SMB, with smaller mouths than LMB, can control fusiform fish easier than more oval fish, like BG. It'd be interesting to see if RES would overpopulate. Nobody has tried a RES/SMB only pond that I know of.

A client of mine has a SMB/RES/YP pond, but he doesn't feed them It is aerated). There were FHM and GSH stocked in that pond too. This year there were YOY GSH, YP and RES. The pond is still relatively new, only a few years old.