Ok, so the fish stocking is complete. I stocked 275ish copper nose bluegills and 5lbs of fathead minnows. I put all the bluegills on one side of the pond with 2.5lbs of fathead minnows and then the other 2.5lbs of fathead minnows on the other side by themselves. The tank is a long rectangle with peninsulas, so it creates a winding lake with considerable distance between each end of the pond. Hopefully the fatheads on one side of the lake will be able to get established a little better before the bluegills make their way over to that side of the tank. Now because this was also an experiment to see what happens I did want to see what will become of the fatheads that were mixed in with the bluegills. Hopefully I can report something meaningful back, I have slightly stained water with around 24"-30" of visibility (I haven't ordered my Secchi disc yet but getting on it). All of the fat head minnows went down to about that 20-24" depth and became essentially invisible. Is there an area they like to congregate or specific areas that I should look for them?
I have two fish feeders, one for each side of the lake, however for the time being I was only intending on using one on the side that I released the bluegills. Once again, thinking I would try and keep them to that side of the lake so that the fatheads on the other side have a chance to populate. 100 of the bluegills were the larger 4-5" and obviously the hope is that they start to spawn. Ideally my entire lake is full of baby bluegill by the fall. So I would likely only run the single feeder until I saw bluegill around the structure on the other side and then would kick the second feeder up. Dumb idea or does this have some merit?
