Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Single Species Crappie Pond/Lake, Yellow Perch

Hello and welcome to the forum.

If you are considering a lake up to 10 acres, I'd strongly suggest splitting the ponds to create multiple opportunities for specific fisheries and goals. I'd take 5 2 acre ponds over a single 10 acre pond any day based on my personal experience. Managing smaller bows is far easier than trying to to manage a single large one, and if mistakes occur, it's much easier to start over with smaller ponds. You could go even further, and create several small .2 acre growout ponds enabling you to grow your own forage and stocker fish and become self sufficient. With multiple smaller ponds you could create various fishery types - really only limited by your imagination. Once you purchase land and determine what your watershed will support and topography will allow you can make some plans on the layout for your project and we can help with stocking strategies.

If you decide you want a single BOW, I recommend stocking hybrid black crappie, not pure black crappie. Also, going single sex fish in a BOW that large will likely be next to impossible. It's a full time project keeping single sex BG and YP stocked in a .3 acre pond - can't imagine verifying sex for thousands of fish and doing it year after year. One mistake and your fishery goals change in a hurry.