Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait What size forage pond would u build

Size? Depends on what weights you want to add to your pond when you seine. You can raise about 7/10 of a pound of fingerlings for every 100 ft^2 - 60 days. How large they are in 60 days depends on the stocking rate of brooders (more produces smaller fingerlings). If you had a 4000 ft^2 of forage pond, you could produce about 28 lbs of fingerlings (about 3.5 gallons worth). Doesn't seem like a lot, but this would be a huge benefit. Depending on size of the fingerlings, the numbers could be as many as:

2"- 6104
1.5"- 15764 (requires 3 time stocking rate)

Were it me, I would build the production unit in two parts. You only need brooders for the first 30 days of crop cycle, beyond that additional fry are going to be eaten by existing fry. So after 30 days you move brooders to the adjacent unit let it start its cycle. This would give you a crop of BG every 30 days. or up to 5 crops in a single season assuming 5 breeding months. That would be ~15000 2" fingerlings at a value of $5250 over buying them somewhere else. Each crop would only be 14 lbs in weight or a little less than 5 lbs/acre. Provided there are few predators in the 8" to 14" a fair number would survive to 3" which is the length 18" LMB would become very interested in them.

I once worked up a spreadsheet that simulated feeding by such a stocking. Basically the LMB consume the BG as they grow. Depending on rates of consumption and BG growth, the BG start at a low gross weight (high numbers though) and gain to maximum gross weight before the growth of the predators and attrition of BG begins to lower their weight. It is possible to get several times the weight stocked utilized as food by the predators.

One thing I will mention. The reason a forage pond can grow so many fingerlings is because there are few predators of the smaller fry. There are only few brooders to cannibalize young and no LMB less than 8" to decimate them. If your pond has few LMB less than 12", you would produce many more fingerling BG simply by removing a good portion of the BG that are too big for LMB to commonly target. 3 acres is more than 32 times the size of the forage production unit described. If the standing weight of BG were reduced by 1/4, that would provide 8 times the space to grow BG fingerlings. Reduce the standing weight by 1/2 and you have 16 times the space to grow fingerlings. I think you could grow many more fingerling BG in the pond where you need them at much less effort and expense than growing them in a forage pond.