Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New pond - big fish?

We are in SE PA and we recently had our pond dredged and it is about 2/3 of the way full. It is small, about .16 acres and will only be about 5' at it's deepest. I would like to have BG and maybe a few CC and LMB. Can I have LMB and CC in there? Can I "save time" by adding larger fish right away as opposed to stocking smaller fish? There is cover and habitat, and we will be putting plants in in a few weeks. I would also stock FHM at the same time. We will also have PLENTY of tadpoles and frogs as they have already discovered the new pond. TIA

To northern pond owners. Will 5 feet in SE PA be deep enough to avoid winter kill ? Also with that being a possibility how will it effect your suggested carrying capacity and species selection?

MAW with the depth you stated you may have problems with winter kill . If so that possibility will reduce the suggested amount and type of fish that will do well. Let's see what some of your northern neighbors say.

Here in South Dakota, on some years that could freeze solid. This year I had 16 inches of ice that I measured. It was a really nice winter here , normally it is at least 24-28 inches. O hard years it would easily be 3 foot or more.

If the pond is aerated correctly during the winter, yes, or I should say at least yes in my experience. I have had PS/FHM/Papershells survive in water that was barely as tall as a 5 gallon bucket under 8" of ice. I have also had RES survive in a 5' deep pond under 6" of ice. The deeper pond had winter aeration set up properly, the shallower one has one diffuser in the middle all year. That one is 1/20 acre.

Does anyone see a problem stocking larger fish right away?

Not at all, just as long as you understand that all the fish have to be stocked at an advanced size, and that price increases according to the size of the fish.

The only caveat is with stocking adult LMB. There are 2 things that can happen.
1) If the LMB are feed trained, and you are not feeding, they might not adapt to catching their own food as well as feed trained fish that are stocked as fingerlings.

2) If you stock adult LMB from another body of water that aren't feed trained, they might not figure out how to hunt efficiently in the new pond, resulting in a weight decrease. Bob Lusk documented that in a pond that he stocked years ago.

IMHO I would just stock the big BG and FHM for now unless, as Esshup said, you are stocking pellet trained LMB. IMO another third scenario is the LMB eat all the FHM and there is not enough other forage to sustain them as there will be no smaller BG size classes.

How many and what size of each species are you thinking about stocking?

I'd add a few RES to the mix.

I would like to stock as many as I can, but I think the size of the pond kind of limits my aspirations. I want to be able to catch fish and not worry that I have an imbalance one way or the other.