Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Putting in forage fish in new pond

Greg Grimes has had fantastic results stocking 3,000 BG and 50 LMB per acre. I would tag or fin clip the stocked LMB. That way you can keep track of the ones you stocked once they spawn and you get a few years down the road. You will need to stock a bunch of forage fish annually OR buy feed trained fish and set up a daily feeding program. (That will be cheaper than annually adding forage fish).

If you start with 50 LMB, they have to eat 500# of forage fish for each of them to gain one pound. A LMB likes to eat fish that are 1/4-1/3 it's body length.

Here's some math for you.

1"-2.5" BG are 4#-11# per 1,000 fish
2.5"-3.5" fish are 11#-24#/1,000
3.5"-4.25" fish are 25#-44#/1,000
4.25"-4.5" fish are 45#-59#/1,000
4.5"-5.5" fish are 60#-99#/1,000
5.5"-6" fish are 100#/1,000

Since a pond's health is all about water quality, and a pond without intensive management but with feeding and aeration can't support more than about 1,000# fish per acre. Count all the sizes of fish you have to have in the pond and the quantity of those fish to have the LMB grow big and you can see what the challenge is.