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

Part II
to VAFARMDOG

Something I didn't say in the post above, is that there are many different areas in North America that are all very different from each other. We'll have more about that here on Pond Boss in the not-too-distant-future.

I don't know exactly where you are, but from your description, I assume your location and mine share many of the same characteristics.

I'm just up I-81 from you, and just over the WV/VA border. Things don't change a whole lot 25 miles on either side of the I-81 corridor through all of Virginia/West Virginia. The amount of sun (growing days for fish) that we get each day throughout the year is basically the same. We have very similar soil and air temperatures throughout the year. We have very similar soils, water and soil pH, about the same rainfall, etc.

So, with some confidence, I can discuss what might work for you.

With that said, and with your desire for a sustainable fisherie with minimal human interdiction, I can say this:

Think of your pond as a garden. You must keep fertile soil. After you use up the nutrients in that soil, you must add plant food of some kind, whether chemicals or organic. Same with ponds. The water must be fertile to grow fish. If not, you need to feed them or you need to add nutrients to the water.

You need to thin and control a pond much like you do with a garden or orchard. If not, it gets out of control. If you don't thin your carrots, they will become stunted.

Same thing with fish. The bottom of the feed chain in a pond like you desire has bluegills at the eventual bottom of the main food chain. The minnows will get thinned pretty quickly when you start to add the predators needed to keep the bluegill under control. But, those minnows, and letting the bluegill spawn successfully a few times, are like growing a crop of peas or clover before growing a field of corn.

You need predators to keep your bluegill from over populating and becoming stunted. I have lots of small hungry largemouth bass (LMB) in my 0.7 acre pond just for that job. I also have channel catfish (CC) and hybrid striped bass (HSB) in that pond. The LMB and HSB control "recruitment" (reaching a certain size or reproductive stage) of the bluegill and the channel catfish. The channel catfish, as they grow to between 14 to 18 inches become top line predators that compete with the LMB and HSB.

It is important to keep all in balance.

I feed my ponds with floating fish food pellets when the water temperatures are above the mid-60 F degree range. Where I live, my water never gets warm enough to quit feeding. I realize I don't even know what that temperature is, because I know I probably won't reach it. You probably wouldn't either. I believe it is in the mid-80s and above.

I also don't need aeration in my ponds to keep my fish healthy because we almost always have wind that churns the water and adds oxygen through the small waves that are produced by the near constant winds. You may very well be in a similar area. In addition, in our area, we can have plenty of phytoplankton in our waters to produce oxygen from the sun. But, that goes back to feeding the pond.

So, hopefully I haven't frightened you from moving forward. The most successful pond managers are probably those who have killed and mismanaged the most fish.

Good luck,
Ken