Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations This year's fry?

Today we netted and re-stocked about a dozen 3/4 to 1 inch BG that were in tiny pockets out from the spillway. They seem too small to be from last year's spawn. We had a warm March. ??

I would guess that the 1" BG are from the last spawn last year. I usually see BG about that size in Feb/Mar before they start spawning for the year. with that said, my pond isn't fertilized so yours could grow faster

Likely a late fall or winter spawn of BG unless your pond is non-productive (not enough food for the BG).

From SRAC fact sheet � southern ponds

With a feeding
program, fry should grow as
much as 1 inch per month.
Fingerlings should reach stocker
size of 2 to 3 inches (51 to 76 mm)
in 60 to 100 days.Bluegill fry are reported to grow
best at 30C - 86F.

It's productive, and I feed them fairly well.

With the early warm weather they could be a Feb spawn.

I think that might be correct. Today I found three 1/2" live BG in a tiny puddle left over below the spillway after it stopped running over. They were so small the lower half was almost transparent.

No telling how many small BG got into my new pond that I only stocked 58 CC, 30 RES, 15 HBG, and 800 FHM into. With the small watershed and small leak, I figured the "old" pond would run over maybe once every 4 or 5 years. WRONG! It has been over twice in the past 16 months.

I saw some tiny things darting around on the edge of my pond today. They were too quick to be tadpoles, and too organized to be bugs (I think). So maybe they are from a very recent hatch of some kind of fish.

They may be FHM. I have definitely had at least one hatch of FHM this spring. They are barely visible in the grass at the edges of the ponds.

Your tiny fry may be FHM or possibly Gambusia. Being considerably north of me, they probably are not BG.

It would be nice if FHM could survive in my pond, but it has no weeds of other shelter/structure. That is, it didn't have any weeds until the pond came up several feet.

you can add some brush piles along the shoreline for the fry to hide in and may provide some cover for survivability. Its easy to add a cedar at the shoreline.

Xmas/cedar trees on their side in shallow water are very good for fry survival. See pic below of BG yoy hiding in a xmas tree ( looks like one on every limb.

I recently put a cedar tree like that in my forage pond for the new RES YOY to hide in. Tied a concrete block to make sure it stayed down and a rope on it so it can be removed at a later date. Put it out from the bank just far enough so it was all just barely submerged and staked the rope off at the edge of the pond.

Late winter before last ('15-16) I put three huge bundles of honeysuckle/ greenbrier/ privet tangles in my pond from the old fence row. I weighted them down with big limbs anchored to the bank. They were much thicker than cedar. I have a huge amount of BG fry now. This year they had compressed somewhat, so a month ago I put a good sized cedar on top of them. In the new pond late this past winter I put one large cedar and two huge bundles of tangled briars / honeysuckle. My wife says the brush looks ugly, but at full pool it is almost totally submerged.

I also was informed by my wife that all the "trash" I was putting in the bottom of the pond was ugly. I told here when it filled with water she would not be able to see any of it and it would not be ugly.

Because of other spring projects I have taken on I have nothing other than some crushed rock piles placed in my new RES pond. I had hoped to get at least one structure to provide shade for the RES and perhaps be a congregating point where I could catch them more easily.

I think it was Shorty that pointed out to me I might now want much cover if I was going to try RES only so more of the fry would be subject to early predation by the larger RES to help prevent over population. I thought that sounded like it might be a good idea. I think Nedoc uses SMB for his top predator for his RES pond which I also would not be opposed to. If I could find the SMB.