Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Unwanted bluegill in SMB, yp pond

IMO you are not going to get "real" good predation or thinning of the 1.5"-2" RES using SMB even when SMB are 10" long. Just my opinion. IMO I don't think SMB are nearly as aggressive sunfish predator compared to LMB. Smallies do eat sunfish but I think and I know that they are not a main item in their diet when other types of foods are available. Now if your panfish were YP then yes SMB would be VERY good at thinning 1"-2", 3"-4" YP or other easy to catch and swallow foods. If you were a fish and had to quickly swallow your food whole, what would you rather eat a hot dog or something shaped like a can lid?

Of coarse this all depends on the size of the smallies. For your case I hope I am wrong.

Depending on your end goals for the fishery these will determine how many and what size SMB that you stock. However --- you are probably going to be size limited as to what size of smallies you can even buy. Few if any are larger than 8" and most will be 2"-4" and some Ron (as noted above) now has are 5"-7" and maybe a very limited number around 8". A month ago all Ron's SMB were spoken for and no 2024 year class would be available. A few things changed with his buyer so now Ron does have some limited numbers of YOY smallies this fall. YOu better put your order in quickly.

Obviously the larger the smallies at stocking the larger fish or foods that they will eat. The fewer the smallies you stock the faster they will grow toward big sizes. And the more smallies you stock, the more fish that will be eaten and the less their average sizes will be or eventually become. For optimum growth until they die, it is very important the fish are eating and growing the best they are able to grow each day. Less predation pressure vs more predation pressure influence number to stock. Then again how predatory are SMB on small RES vs SMB eating preference for FHM that are also quite abundant in the pond?? I recall you are feeding fish pellets. Remember Ron's smallies are pellet trained and some may trend toward eating welfare pellets because it is EASY food,,, no chasing needed. IMO predators are basically lazy wanting to fill their belly the quickest with the least amount of effort - aka Optimal Foraging Theory.

Again however, I think the smallies will trend to eat more FHM this fall compared to small RES. Thus the current YOY RES will continue to grow and need to be thinned with angling, traps, and some periodic seining. RES do enter traps well similar to BG especially when using the Z trap versions.

Goals - If you want eventually larger SMB then initially stock fewer SMB. If you want more predation of small fish effects then stock higher numbers of SMB/ac.