Hi,
I have a 1/4 acre pond that is stocked with fatheads now. I definitely want to keep lots of fatheads, as I crappie fish and like to have the bait readily available. Other than grass carp and koi, is there anything I can stock that will leave an abundance of fatheads? I would love to be able to catch and eat bluegill. Would adding them alone work?
Thanks in advance,
Dan
This is doable if you take care to stock only BG of one sex. Work with an equation that is is similar to the LMB/BG combination. So perhaps 60 lbs/acre as a goal weight of BG which serve as a surrogate to LMB as apex predator. The FHM are your surrogate to BG as the prey species in this combination and they will be allowed to reproduce at will. So the BG will be a put and take proposition where you stock males >7" and harvest them > 9.5 or 10". The stocking rate annually might be around 10 per year in a 1/4 acre pond. When you catch a large BG ... release to the grease. Such a scenario should provide all the bait you could possibly want and a few HUGE BG for occasional treats. I would limit fishing to the fall and I would would ladder stock in the spring using dominant parental males as the put&take BG stock.
Keep in mind that this isn't really a BG pond, it is a bait pond with BG as the apex put&take predator. If you misidentify the sex of a BG ... it will destroy the goal of a bait pond.
