Answers to Questions: I think I covered all your questions. If I missed one or you have more ???? just ask. All readers are very welcome to add comments.
Habitat – Your placement of habitat sounds to me like you are on the right path. Mossback does know what creates good habitat.
GSH (shiners) I think you want to use GSH to diversify the forage base. I would stock them as breeding size adults (3”-5”) this spring so they can establish a strong population because the LMB and HSB can prey pretty hard on them especially as the predators grow into their 2nd year. I would not wait until fall for GSH. Initial stocking of GSH could be 4 to 7 lbs/ac in your case and allow the to reproduce before adding bass. Ideally you would want to stock them before mid June. Stocking lower numbers of GSH acre early allows them to build high numbers economically before LMB are added. I think for your goals, you want the GSH so be established as the same plan the BG are established so they can maintain numbers long term and reproducing to help feed the new bass. GSH could be stocked together with some tilapia in late May early June. GSH are said to eat filamentous algae, however I highly question how much FA that GSH actually eat when other invertebrate foods are available. GSH ‘might’ help with a very mild FA infestation of a new pond, but I doubt it.
Tilapia & Grass carp – You should not need very many tilapia until you have a noticeable filamentous algae problem. However adding some tilapia (5lb/yr) each year before your LMB grow to 4lb-6lb would be a good idea because it diversifies your forage base. Almost always a good thing. A couple GC in a newish 1 ac should help keep submerged weed growth and natural vegetative habitat to a minimum. Watch the development of submerged weeds each late Summer -Fall to monitor development amount of weeds.
Crayfish – The cray in the picture “might” be a white river crayfish based on shape of its ‘claws’. They can grow to be a mouth full to feed big bass.
Top end bass of 7lb to 8lb in any pond are very nice and high quality bass. If you add some HSB to the community they can get to the 9lb to 10 lb sizes as fast as the LMB grow to just 7 or 8lbs.
Meat Feeding Bass – My rule is the more fins you cut off the hand tossed fish the less chance it has for survival. Initially I would cut most all the fins off the ‘small’ bass until get large bass visually and strongly eating the hand tossed small bass or BG. Then removing just tails would be sufficient.
Bluegill Harvest w/ Big Bass As I mentioned it will be tricky to harvest very many panfish when they are needed to grow big bass. Diversifying the forage base should allow some harvest of biggest BG especially prior to initial stocker bass reaching 6-7lbs. Once LMB grow to your goal of 7lb-9lb then harvest of BG may be counterproductive for growing bass to bigger sizes. I would harvest BG as the ones too big for the largest LMB to eat. You could implement an initial slot harvest of BG to be only those larger than 7.5” or 8”. And for best BG production those harvested I think could be mostly the males because you are trying to create more BG rather than wanting the pond mainly for trophy BG where the females are the ones primarily harvested. Others can debate me about this philosophy.
LMB Female vs Mixed Gender – Both types have pros and cons. Mixed LMB can do very well in a small pond. I think the smaller the pond the more that using all female LMB is more beneficial for growing the biggest bass. If I was given two same size ponds and I grew female LMB in one and mixed gender LMB in the other pond, I am convinced that I could grow easier and quicker MORE bigger LMB in the all female bass pond.
As you mention – “”However, I am also not the guy who would be satisfied with 4-6lbs Bass only in the pond.””
If after 7-9years your biggest LMB are only 5lb-6lb then I think you are not doing all that is needed to grow big bass. You will then need to make some adjustments toward better fishery management.
HSB with Mixed Sex LMB. You can mix in any number of HSB in with the mixed sex LMB. Note HSB are sometimes difficult to obtain in Fall. If that happens then just stock the HSB the next spring preferably as 6”-8” sizes.
The beauty of using the HSB is you can EASILY control how many of them you have in the pond. Add some, remove some with no overpopulation problems. The HSB I think will also help reduce the number of small bass. How much will HSB reduce the numbers of small fingerling bass???? . I do not really know. But I do know, they will eat some small bass based on how many small bass are present and how MANY and what SIZE of HSB that are present. If I were using the mixed LMB at 50LMB/ 1ac rate, I would stock 12-15HSB and 35 LMB. Once you decide how well you like HSB and if you want more of these amazing fish,,, then harvest out smaller ORIGINAL lower relative weight, slower growing LMB (probably the males) and replace them with the same number of new HSB. If you have never raised HSB you are in for an exciting PLEASURE CRUISE.
With mixed gender bass you are then more challenged to manage the numbers of smaller bass to achieve the percentage of bigger bass that you want in 1 acre. The management becomes more intensive. This management could easily involve adding forage species and determining the frequency of added forage/s. Remember adding supplemental forage for big bass does not mean small items. Big foods are best used for big bass. Big foods cost more money. Be prepared. Do homework and cost estimates for sizes of bigger forage foods. Basically the more predators you are trying to keep fat the more forage that is needed. I think keeping numbers of bass numbers reduced and more toward a good predator big bass balance in 1 ac the less forage supplements that will be needed. Remember – bass not actively growing shown by high RWs means too many bass and not enough food for them to eat. Balance and monitoring RWs are VERY important for goals of big bass.
HSB - reproduction. HSB will generally develop fertile eggs. However very rarely will pond conditions be correct for those eggs to hatch. As mentioned the eggs need to be in some sort of current habitat to hatch. I know of only one proven instance where HSB eggs successfully hatched to produce young HSB. That occurred or occurs at the base operations of Stubby Steve's Lure Company in Virginia where they have I think a moving water raceway between two ponds. I asked Dave Beasley (Solitude Lk Mgmt) based in VA to write a PBoss mag story about this. Nothing yet.
As this post ages I will add some edits.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 04/16/23 04:12 PM.
