Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Virgiina Farm Pond, Bluegill?

VAFARMDOG,

First, a BIG WELCOME to Pond Boss.

My ponds are up in the Winchester area north of you, just over the border in WV.

I have two fishing ponds that are both primarily managed for big bluegill. The 0.7 acre pond has pure strain northern bluegill, redear sunfish, catfish, largemouth bass and hybrid striped bass.

The 0.3 acre pond has hybrid sunfish, redear sunfish, channel catfish, and hybrid striped bass. It is truly a "put-and-take" pond.

Adding minnows and sunfish now would be good. They will thrive and grow. The next question is what kind of sunfish?

We are too cool for a southern strain of bluegill known as copper nose bluegill. If you are buying from the fish trucks out of Arkansas, don't let them talk you into them.

Go with either pure strain bluegill or hybrid bluegill.

Hybrid bluegill are a lot of fun, but you need to add them every year. They have very little reproduction (recruitment), and what they do reproduce is not always desirable. They grow very fast when fed. They are very aggressive and easy to catch. They need a predator fish to keep whatever they reproduce from becoming problems. Therein lies a problem. When you annually add new hybrid bluegill they will generally be 2-3 inches, and quickly become snacks for your predators.

Pure strain bluegill won't grow as fast nor be as aggressive as the hybrid bluegill. But after about five years the pure strain bluegill will usually be approximately the same size as the hybrids. They both will need good predator control.

Lastly, regarding sunfish, many of us like to add redear sunfish. They are generally not for catching -- at least not in my ponds, or in my experience. They are there to eat snails that produce white grubs, yellow grubs, and black spot grubs. Black spot looks like pepper. Most these are not a health concern when eating the cooked fish. They are just unsightly. The snails producing these are introduced through the poop of waterbirds, like herons and kingfishers that eat infected fish. The redear help control the cycle.

I need to be out for a while and will continue this later regarding predators and other fish.

But now is a perfect time to put in the minnows and sunfish. The other fish go in later.

To be continued.

Ken