Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
John,
I'm by GR, MI and I'm curious what your pond is like. Depth, size, what forage and what predators are in there. How many were you hoping to part with of the 100 fish order?

I'm not sure if my apex predator should be SMB, LMB, HSB, or Walleye. I even considered northern pike.

My perch have had 3 springs of limited YOY (limited because I removed as many as ribbons as I could). I have had at least 2 years of spawns of RES and as soon as I put the perch in my FHM were gone.

I have adult shiners in the 5-7" range and presumably they will have young...

I thought I was ready for my apex predator this summer but I'm not so sure now. When i walk around the pond I see no clouds of minnows. I don't know if my perch numbers are getting high enough that they are cleaning house on baby perch and RES? Maybe eating all the baby shiners as well?

I do catch tiny RES in traps so I know some of the RES are making it.

My pond is only about 9-10' at high water mark and about 1/4 acre. The bottom is sand/clay mix with soilfloc to make it quite rock hard. But my crayfish make sure I have no vegetation and there is no structure except for a few pallet condos which there are no more FHM to use.

I'm not sure walleye would be too happy in my pond unless I let the perch ribbons be and let walleye eat the yoy perch.

Do you have to drive my way on your way to get the walleye?

Thanks


If your shiners are fully grown they may be limiting your perch recruitment. I believe this is what is happening with our perch pond. The shiners spawn after the perch but the young perch feed the shiners after they are done spawning.

We have about 10% coverage or habitat for young perch to hide and we are getting some young reaching 6" but not what I would expect. We cant catch any baby perch in any traps ever. The only recruitment is check with a small hook and worm.

If walleye are not 8-10" I think they will just be feed for the perch or bass for sure. Suppliers up here have a hard time with walleye eating them selves let alone fish with a larger mouth and more attitude.

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7/8th of an acre, Perch only pond, Ontario, Canada.