Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Information on growth of CNBG in hatchery pond

FishingRod, I think this has a lot of merit. The challenge, when the fish in grow out are spawned in-situ, will always be just how many are in there? This is important because it tells us what proportion we want to remove. In the beginning this is not an easy answer because the BG will not have reached a food limitation and will be growing at ad libitum consumption rates of growth. Once the BG have crashed the zooplankton and are dependent on feed for growth, then knowing the feed given and the rate of growth, one can estimate populations more reliably. To work, one must have evidence that the amount of food was limiting their growth below potential. When one observes this evidence, a decent estimate of population can be calculated.

If a particular size of fish and a particular number of fish are the goal. It would always be best to enumerate swim ups and stock specific quantities of swim up fry into pre-prepared nursery ponds. They don't say specifically, but I think this is standardization the paper was seeking. First stage of the process was stocking 311,000 fry to grow to 25mm. Second stage is growing 250,000 25mm fingerlings to 50 mm. It doesn't make alot of sense to me to move fish from the first stage to the second one. The population of fry stocked is only a little over what is stocked in the second stage. So, I take this to mean that second stage fish are survivors of first stage and grow-out in the same pond (80% survival).

So if one can control the number of the initial stocking of fry ... then your idea is a very valuable idea. Because the initial number is known, what number and when to remove predetermined numbers of fingerlings can be planned. This would allow one to grow 50,000 3" BG but also to stock up to 200,000 BG of smaller sizes. Keep in mind that 200,000 additional BG would be enough to feed ~238 LMB ad libitum for a year if they are consumed at 1% proportionate weights.

The problem with guessing on numbers is the incredible variance in BG reproductive output. The variance is huge from a few thousand to 50,000 eggs per female. For example, to get 150000 thousand fry per acre it could take as few as 3-4 female BG or as many as 100+-. In addition there are other large variables like mortality. If one is that worried about BG numbers then grow them out to 4-5 inches in the growout pond and seine and place only the number you want at that size.

Experience will tell you what works over time. The easy way is to put about 50 good quality feed trained adult BG in the pond and let them go after it. Those 50 are not going to put a dent in BG fry numbers if they are fed. Growout the spawn for 3 months +- on feed, and let them all go in the big lake. Do habituate them in the big lake as mentioned earlier. See what the population looks like before the next years spawn and adjust from there.

Thank you for this post ewest. He will for certain get 2 cycles and could produce anywhere from 100,000 to 360,000 BG to feed his hungry bass. Just keep it simple and don't sweat a specific size or number in the forage supplements.

This might help with the difference in opinions. The 3 inch plus was suggested because of sexual maturity. The biologist wanted to get those cnbg breeding as soon as possible. There are other predators in the lake. The two we have are catfish and crappie. Surprisingly nothing else has been caught besides lmb along with the crappie and catfish that would be considered a predator I was actually thinking along the lines of giving the brood stock a couple months and dump them in the lake and do it again a few times this year. Our water stays warm enough it would be possible to dump the last group in around November. If I could get a low number of 50k fish in each time I pull the plug that should be enough to out run what the lmb can eat, so some make it to sexual maturity and start to establish the population without extra help.
Thoughts?

BG spawn at small sizes (3-4 inches) when there is no other BG competition (i.e. large BG). Where large BG exist spawning by small BG is suppressed. The concept of stocking several sizes of small BG (2 inch and 4 inch) at the same time is used in new ponds to jump start the original BG population. It does not work as well when stocking into existing adult populations of mature BG. The stocking you are contemplating will be a numbers game to feed existing predators and take some of the pressure off the existing adult BG population. That is, you are going to overwhelm the LMB with numbers of BG so that enough BG survive to enhance the overall population.

scampbell,

I don't think you will go wrong producing as many BG YOY as is possible. I am pretty sure it won't be too many and it will make a profound difference in your LMB over the next 18 months or so. Just keep in mind that with growth also come additional forage needs. A good rule of thumb? Whatever forage is consumed this year will be needed next year JUST TO TREAD WATER (assuming no mortality of LMB). In addition to supplementing forage there are a couple of other angles you can employ that ensure you can keep them growing year in and year out. One is culling your LMB while the other is enhancing recruitment of BG in your lake to sizes > 30 mm.

As time has passed over the last year we have finally completed the 1/2 acre pond. We will start filling it up with the 45 acre lake water by the end of this month April 2026. It will be limed and fertilized and the cnbg will be feed from a feeder.
To answer the question of more predators before we put up the berm, yes crappie and catfish are abundant. Some of the catfish have gotten very large.

Here is a question, how many cnbg adults should be stocked to get max production as far as numbers of smaller fish? And should we sein the adults out after the have spawned?

Some reading for you.
https://extension.rwfm.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2010/04/2_Forage_Species_Production.pdf

Thanks that tells me a good bit about what the next steps will be. So far looks like we have done it correctly. We have power and will be installing the pump this week and will be ready to fill it up from the large lake water.
One thing we did was install a dump pipe from the hatchery pond to the 45 acre lake. Figured once we see what we have with population and size, I can open that pipe and let the fingerlings in the large lake without having to handle them. Should help with less mortality of the population.

Once I get a couple of dumps in the the big lake then we can move fish to all our other fisheries in the area.

Over the year so far we have discovered we have catfish in pretty good numbers it would appear along with crappie. These all came from the creek before we put up the levy to make sure we don't gain unwanted fish, or lose what we have stocked.
Not only are the bass eating the BG but so are the other two species mentioned.
All i know to do is fish it as much as possible and remove unwanted fish every trip we fish.
I thought about in the spring instead of spending money on thread fin, just hire Mike at southeastern pond, to shock up as many as possible in an afternoon and see how it looks. An electrofishing boat could get 10 times as many as me putting several boats out there for a day.
Remove predators and add bait from the hatchery pond is all I know to do?

BTW I really appreciate all the information and advice you guys give. It really helps

If you truly want to eliminate all unwanted predators, your best bet will be to do a pond draw down, kill the existing fish, and start over.

"Fish it as much as possible" - I hate to do that.