Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Help with Stocking New Pond

So my 3 acre Tennessee pond is 1.5 years old with no fish and I want to get started on stocking. Average depth is 8 feet. I would like to continue swimming in it and have 1 smaller easier to catch fish for the kids and some kind of good eating and fun to catch bass to entertain the adults. Plus anything else to make an easy food chain with little need to restock. My pond also attracts a lot of herons and other bird right now because of the frogs and I would like them to keep coming. I will install an aerator soon but don't want to have to feed. I like the idea of catfish but it sounds like they can add a lot of work to the pond. Thanks yall.

DOC

Hey Doc - Consider this as a truly unique TN fishery. First stock some golden shiners maybe around 12-20 lbs per acre and 10-20 lbs fathead minnows /ac if you allow them to spawn before adding other fish. If adding shiners-minnows with the fingerling sport fish then stock 40-60 lbs per acre of the shiner-minnow combo. Add fingerling and/or 4"-8" yellow perch (YP - 250/ac)in spring (or fall), then in fall (or next spring) add 30-35 3"-6"hybrid striped bass per acre. As an option you can also split the bass number between smallmouth and hybrid striped. Neither fish will bother swimmers. Note the YP will not do very well combined with largemouth. None of the suggested fish will bother swimmers. Do your homework now to locate the needed fish. Let the mixture develop for 1 to 2 years. Then start fishing. YP are always easy to catch so young and old anglers like to catch them plus they are great eating - a delicacy around the Great Lakes. If after 5-8 yrs you do not like what you are experiencing stock your traditional bass - bluegill program then this will produce a great bass - bluegill fishery. Thus you had a chance to experience two great fishery combinations. Return here and let us know how things are progressing with whatever plan you decide. YP as a main panfish in TN will be a learning experience for many.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jun/20/yellow-no-caution/
see pg 17 of: http://www.state.tn.us/twra/pdfs/anglersguide.pdf
http://www.easttennesseefishing.com/107-species-crappie-panfish/27214-yellow-perch.html
possible stocker: http://www.jonesfish.com/catalog/2

With plenty of food in TN they do get pretty big for a panfish. Maybe you can grow some as large.
https://news.tn.gov/node/5620

Absolutely perfect. Im excited how this will turn out. Making the orders now.

Bill:

With it being a swimming pond, should he add RES because of the heron visitors? (snails and swimmers itch possibility)

Some RES would be okay to help control snails especially if eating some fish with out grubs is important. A good number to initially stock would be 30-50/acre - any available size. The redear sunfish would also help control chances of swimmers itch. Yellow perch do eat some of the thin shelled pond snails but not the snails with thicker shells that you cannot crush when pinched between your fingers.

Im getting all kind of strange responses to the yellow perch ideas here in Tennessee. Seems nobody stocks them and hardly anyone catches them here. The state government will have to give me an importation exception to even bring in them in the state and most people are saying that they need more cold water than I have to give them. I gave the professor at the college who tried to raise them an email so im waiting to hear back from him. Anyone else on the site have luck raising yellow perch south of the mason dixie line. Thanks

There are plenty of YP in central Va. as they live in tidal rivers and migrate upstream to spawn. My back pond flooded in late spring and may have gotten many if they were still in that part of the river. I have been unable to fish so I have no clue. I wish I could talk to the SOB's who poach so I could find out.

Howdy, Doc.
I stocked YP when the pond was new a few years ago. They seemed to do well, grew fast, very active and a lot of fun to catch, then disappeared over the course of a year or so. Never saw any die, never had a fish kill of any kind, they just sort of vanished. I was never able to confirm reproduction via the presence of young fish, and never saw any egg strands. I don't know exactly what to make of that....some walleye were put in around the same time, these have grown very well and are still going strong, so I don't think it's necessarily a temperature issue.
This is not to dissuade you from trying, I really enjoyed having the perch, and would restock them if I had a viable source, even if I needed to add new ones from time to time to keep the population up.
Hope this helps.

Yolk - you have a source, a pleasant 11 drive away. You're welcome out here anytime. Have Hudland YP growing out as we speak, and they need a good home.

FYI - my YP population also suffered upon introduction of HSB, SMB, and WE. Now I have a 1/3 ac pond specialized for trophy f YP and m BG in order to get my fix. Hoping you won't have to go to that extreme - but if you want any feedback or direction should you consider a specialized fishery similar, I insist you call me and take all the time you need.

Thanks, TJ-much appreciated.
I've thought about a specialized pond to give the YP another go, but don't have a really good candidate at this point, nor a source that's anwhere close.

I talked to a fishery professor here and he could never get yellow perch to reproduce with our weather here in smaller ponds. They can do so in the bigger bodies out in east tennessee. I guess I will just have to stick with bluegills and largemouth for now. Got my minnows stocked yesterday so hoping for some good growing. The swimmers will just have to get used to the massages the bluegill give.

The size of the body of water is not as important as the necessary vegetation. Also, the presence of largemouth might prevent recruitment almost entirely if not enough cover is present. Most lakes here in Nebraska cannot sustain healthy populations of yellow perch largely because of largemouth bass. But we've seen yellow perch successfully spawn in cages off of docks as well as very small ponds with no largemouth bass.

Without LMB I am positive you will get successful spawning and recruitment from yellow perch in your location. Just because the young perch are not surviving does not mean they are not spawning. They also say channel catfish do not spawn in ponds but provide enough cover and get rid of the LMB then you will see CC spawn successfully in all ponds.

Bill...enlighten us please regarding the water temps necessary for YP egg production...49 F right? Is it possible some locations in TN would never hit the necessary temperature profile resulting in no spawn or am I confused?

Dig a .5 ac pond, make an annual trip to NE and catch a Husker game and leave with some female YP. I also grill a pretty mean cherry smoked tenderloin over oak lump charcoal.

That steak almost sounds like it would justify a trip to Nebraska.

TJ was holding out. I made the trip and never got a steak!!

We were too busy working

I'd go to TJ's just for the CHARCOAL!

Annual trip to Nebraska sounds great, can probably write the whole thing off on each year on Schedule F as "Stocking, Ladder".

Every lump is dearly produced within an inch of reducing myself to a pile of ashes. At $1/lb for store bought lump, everyone writes me off as crazy for taking the risk/punishment. I don't know, I just love the process - kinda like acreage/pond/fishery management sometimes.

Next time you come through Scott, we'll save a night for relaxation. Aren't you Elk hunting this year and driving through?

Dave, let's plan on it. I have a line on YP right now that's very promising if my hatchery doesn't pan out. I'll have plenty for you and have access to Husker tickets all season as does Condello, I think.

I'd like to get DD up here sometime too - sounds like all my TX boys could use a cool off.

Yep, it's warming up nicely here. Man, I would love it. Just don't know where to get the time. Although retired(and broke) projects keep me on overtime.

I have a backlog of knife orders from friends and family. I'm buying knife blades and building handles for them. Although I have made knives from scratch, I'm certainly not a knife maker. That takes a lot more equipment than I want to invest in again. But, I'm enjoying doing it. I'm buying Russell Green River blades from Jantz Supply in Oklahoma. They're inexpensive but spooky sharp. Craft wood, epoxy, brass pins and a Harbor Freight sander makes some pretty unique stuff. They are easily the sharpest knives I've ever used. I guess I have an hour of actual time in each one.

DD1, all we do is hit I35 for 10 hours and take a right at a cornfield. The problem is there are a million acres of cornfields in NE.

TJ, I was at my favorite Mexican grocery store last week, and they had 50# bags of lump hardwoods for $24. My first thought was me hovering over a 1,000 degree smoldering barrel like you do. Although I have cat-like reflexes, I'd rather buy it at this stage in life.

But, your cold smoking ribeye rig is something I've been told to get started on post haste.

TJ, no elk trip this year. Too many things to do around the place this year to take 2 out of state hunts. The annual Wi. deer hunt will be the only out of state hunt for me this year, unless an unfortunate pig shows up while I'm in Texas in Feb.

Al, it's left at the cornfield, not right, and this year the cornfield is fallow.

TJ, you are correct about that work thing! Oh, Nichols said that you could send the lead back and get a 6' one if you wanted. I just ordered an identical Fyke Net (as the one that I have) for a client of mine. John wanted to make the lead as tall as the basket & after talking to him he realized how we are using them in ponds and said that the deeper lead WILL work better. Dave Willis is still with us, that's who I got the dimensions for the net from.

Question: "Bill...enlighten us please regarding the water temps necessary for YP egg production...49 F right? Is it possible some locations in TN would never hit the necessary temperature profile resulting in no spawn...".

Egg development in for most YP begins in early fall or fall. However, a normal cold or chill period is required for normal yolk formation and to achieve final sexual maturation. The optimum chill period varies for their natural northern to southern range. YP have reportedly been successfully introduced in Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada. YP in north central US were found to need 185 days of temperatures of 43F or lower. It is likely that YP in more southern latitudes may not need as long or as cold a chill period to develop full maturation. Perch strains vary. More research is needed on this topic. Female YP at 10" long can have as many as 45,000 eggs per fish.

I'd think your WE probably had your YP for lunch. Most folks around here can't have YP with LMB because the LMB soon get big enough to swallow them due to their torpedo shape. I'd think WE would be an even heavier predator on YP.