Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations bobs pond

Bob have you stocked your pond yet? If so, what are you putting in?

The lower pond has the most water, as of now. I have stocked fathead minnows, 24 smallmouth bass and 12 walleye, along with 33 adult coppernose bluegill. The pond, when full, will cover about an acre.
The main pond, next to stately Lusk Lodge has only four feet of water. I still have to plant dock poles, then we'll fill with well water. So far, it has fathead minnows with coppernose bluegill fingerlings. I came across 100 adult coppernose for this pond, and stocked them. This pond will cover and acre +. The upper, existing pond has largemouth bass already, so I stocked 150 adult coppernose bluegill. Debbie wanted a few koi, so I yielded to that nudge. She can be quite persuasive, as you know. Also added a few channel catfish. This pond is low, too, as we are removing standing timber in the upper end. Too much wood in this acre pond. Then, there's the two hatchery ponds. Filled with well water in three days, each is stocked with fathead minnows, until I decide what to do with them, next spring.
Ultimately, I have decided to stock the pond next to the house with female largemouth bass, trained to eat pelleted feed, with some genetic mix of Florida strain. I want to intensively grow big bass in small water, and watch daily.
With a 150 gallon a minute well, we have the latitude to exchange fair amounts of water, and keep the environment clean.
As we go, I'll keep you posted.

Hi Bob,post reply oness-13 this morning. thans budman

150 gallons a ninute. I get about 10 gallons per hour. Hard to believe we are less than 100 miles apart.

Excellent well man, locally. Been here 25+ years. Told him I would like a well producing at least 50 gpm, to service a fish vat shed, and keep ponds full.
Drilled 360 feet, set pump at 150. Water smells of sulphur, and has iron, but these fish won't care.
Haven't analyzed the water, yet, but will do it before long.
Go 50 miles west of your place, and the only water you get below ground is so salty, nothing grows.

Sounds like you are having a great time of it - can't wait to see finished product. I kept a pond I owned once filled during a drought with well water - the electicity cost gets a little testy when one runs their well 24/7 but sure comes in handy when water levels are down.

bob, what size females are you stocking. mark

Fingerlings, 4-6" long...picked up in Kansas. Fish were hatched in Nebraska, fry transferred to a hatchery in Kansas.
They probably won't thrive in north Texas, but I intend to leave them alone, competing only with each other, in small numbers, and see what the survival rate will be.
Just for fun, no expectations at all.

bob, how difficult is it to buy only females from a hatchery. how can you tell for sure if male or female?
This sounds like a great idea for smaller pond owners my pond is close to one acre. it is strictly going to be for lmb fishing. one would think you could raise better quality and quanity of bass with out all of the smaller bass hatching,what is your opinion for me ,my pond will be full by spring. it is .75 to 1 acre 14 ft max average 8 ft, fed from spring that runs after a good rain, it will run for 4or5 days, im in ohio.Mark

Hosty ,
Hopefully Bob will chime in with source of female bass. I'm working with two clients right now that we are managing for female bass. We have their ponds chock full of forage. My thesis work was with the sex reversal of bass. However I have yet to find a hatchery that produces the bass on a commerical scale. It is coming soon. I plan on sexing adult bass this spring to stock in the mentioned ponds. Here the biggest problem I encounter is lack of bass harvest, so the female option is a good one for many reasons. BOB got a source?

Greg? Sex reversal? If you did a thesis, the research must have been intense. Can you share some of it with us?

Dave,
I dropped it after about 6 months. It was better for me (having my own businees plans) to take more classes instead on a project that I did not originally agree with. That being said knowing what I do now I wish I would have finished it.

Here goes (briefly):
The frustating part was that the bass we obtained had not been trained over the years to take pellets. I lost about 90% this way. Then another 5% from canabolism. Another major diff. was that I wanted to modify a bath immersion technique instead of the treated pellet tech. Anway I provided all of my literature research to another student who complemeted his thesis on the subject.

Bascially bass do not differniate their sex until a certain size/age. If subjected to say "17 beta estradiol", (estrogen) you can convert to females. This is done from immersion in bath or feeding treated pellets. After all the data was crunched this can be done. Problem? What is the effect of bass treated with estrogen on humans who consume the fish? FDA approval is expensive, who is going to pay for this? This was back in 1997. Currently tech is to convert to females then through their offspring get all females. Can't remebr my Chi square right now to figure this. Anyway this is going to work and female bass will be available soon. They may already be avail, but I can't find them. Until then I am just sexing adult bass for stocking in all female ponds. I will post reuslt of bass growth of these fish in the future. Ok, Dave you got me to write more than I normally do, hope that made sense.

Greg, To bring it down to the stupid level where I live, it appears that if you subject a bass to estrogen, you can get all (or mostly) females. Did the guy who completed the study determine the max size or age that they can be treated? Do I understand that the treated fish have all female offspring?

Dave,
I'm still kinda ticked I gave my researched literature (about 2 months worth) to the guy for a promise I would get it back plus his final thesis. I got neither after several request. The size/age was already known, but I can't remember for sure. It was something around 2 inches or less.

If done correctly you can get 100% females when subjected to proper concentrations of estrogen at the right size/age befroe they differnate their sex.

To get all female offspring you need to get sex reversed bass (original males) then cross them with (?) to produce all females. It is simple chi square genetics but I for the live of me can not think of this right now. Belive it or not still working 70 hr weeks. Scott Allen are you reading this? Figure this one out for me. Sorry for the poor memory Dave. You would think somehting you worked on for 9 months would not be that hard to remember. I feel the genetic approach is where it is headed, so you have bass that were themselves never actually treated with the estrogen.

Hosty,
Missed your question last time...I intend to stock 2-3 pound female bass from a small hatchery in Oklahoma. Those bass have been fed pelleted feed since they were 2-3" long. We will wait until spring, and sex bass based on ovary size. It's tough to sex bass other than when they have obvious eggs. Big tummies, mommies, tiny tummies, daddies. Me no want daddies in main pond. So, once their ovaries have swollen with lots of eggs, we'll cull.
If the fish isn't obviously a female, we'll cull it.

Greg, Just curious but if gender of a bass isn't determined until they are approx. 2 inches, what is the determinant in the wild?

Dave,
I was hoping others would chime in here with there info. Bass gender is set at birth 50% male and 50% female (normal). However a male can be converted to female when subjected to estrogen at an early developmental stage. These converted ones are the ones that you use to get all female offspring when crossed properly.

Bob did you see my question? I think you answered it though since you are sexing the bass yourself. Still no source of buying females?

In the marketplace, this is a concept still in the research phase. I know of no hatcheries attempting to produce female-only bass. As people become aware, and a market develops, private hatcheries will take note. But, for now, no one I know raises them. Private hatcheries tend to spend minimal time for R&D, and plenty of time providing products for which they have a ready-made market.

Thanks Bob. As mentioned I have two clients wanting an all female bass pond. I will just sex in the psring for now. SInce I had done this in the past I may look into doing this again in the near future (if I can remember anything). It is time consuming but somehting I think will become more popular in the future.

Greg, what exactly do you do to sex in the spring? Since you said you can't remember, what do you do to remember? Is it something that people just don't do very often anymore or what? Is it difficult to sex in the spring? How long does it take? Thanks, mark