Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose LMB/BG instead of Trout

Hi all,

I have a new 1/3 acre pond in northern NH in the White Mountains. I had it dug very deep in once section, likely close to 20' or more. The other section is like 4-10'.

I am at elevation and the winters here are long and cold. Reasonably the pond would be ice covered December to early April. Could be longer.

Everything I have seen says my really only option is trout, but I find them to just be finicky and not all that exciting, if that makes sense.

I grew up in the south and would much rather have the standards of LMB/BG, etc.

Is it hopeless to expect them to make it?

Goal for the pond is just to have a fishing hole for the kids with occasional fish fry. I don't need to raise trophy sizes.

I also really want to minimize care requirements.

For now, I tossed in very small quantities of FHM, BG, and a couple channel cats. All very small fry size. I have no idea how they are doing. Sometimes I see one swimming around. So just now trying to figure out which direction to go for a real stocking run in the spring.

I wanted to add that the pond is semi-spring fed. There is a spring that runs more or less year round (even in the winter) but it slows to a trickle around this time of the year.

There is a ton of water in general here being on the side of a mountain. When the pond was dug it filled up within a few days.

And I have had issues in the fall and spring with major overflows and damaged berms (another topic being addressed).

So low water levels will not be an issue.

I am by far no expert, but I'm in central Maine, my ponds are frozen from Nov-May. The deepest a little less than yours, the shallowest less than 10 feet.
I have no bass that I know of, but all of my ponds are filled with fish. Being iced over half the year sure isn't hurting them. I have at least a couple kinds of sunfish, chubb and brook trout.
My ponds are spring and stream fed, I don't do any aeration or circulation. They are au natural lol.

What is your elevation in the mountains?

I am not a "cold water fish" guy, but do fish up in Canada at my uncle's cabin (whenever I can get there).

Their lake is several hundred miles north of you. The shallow bays will freeze 5' deep of ice during cold winters. A surprising (to me) diversity of fish species survive those tough conditions.

If you don't prefer trout, then I (non-expert) think you can make a go of it with other fish. A SMB and yellow perch pond would be an option. If your pond is too cold for red-ear sunfish then you can probably use pumpkinseeds as your forage panfish. However, if you want to use an automatic pellet feeder, then I think you could have an excellent pond with only SMB and YP.

If you catch walleye nearby, you could even "bucket stock" a few, and have that as a bonus fish.

P.S. I just re-read your post, and see that you have already stocked BG. If the BG do thrive in your pond, then you will probably need LMB to keep their numbers in check.

All of my advice above is strictly amateur advice. Hopefully some of our pond-stocking experts or members that manage northern ponds will actually drop into your thread with some expert advice.

Thanks FishinRod, I am at 1550' right against the White Mountains to my south. I only stocked a small number of BGs. About 10 fry. So if they take over well it was meant to be I guess. LOL

I was also thinking YP a bit. I used to love catching those. Getting these fish here is the issue. Only two stockers in NH that I have found and all they do is trout. One flat out said they won't come up here. The state does stock a lot of trout in the local waterways so I could go and just catch a bucket full of them if it came down to it (easier said then done with my usual fishing luck).

I got the BG via the mail... they showed up alive but of course very tiny.

3 Ponds, glad to hear you have some diversity up there. I may be overthinking things. Life "finds a way."

Hopefully there is someone else here with the secret to northern NH fish stocking.

Welcome to both of you.. Most of this stuff can be regional
and I have no qualifications re cold weather/water.

I’ll just say welcome.

I am jealous. A year-round trout pond would be sweet. With feeding, trout grow big and fast. In the one season that I had Rainbows and Brook Trout, they were pretty bold on the take.

I think LMB + BG or SMB + YP will work for you. These fish thrive in Northern Michigan similar to your latitude and elevation.

OK maybe I need to get over the trout bias.

Because you have stocked BG then your are almost entirely limited to LMB as the predator. With the LMB if you seasonally stock some trout Sept to when the often die in Jul they will need to be at last 1/2 the length of your largest new trout.

Do you guys think the BG will be taking over? I only put in a few.

If you don't add some kind of predator(s), you will have a pond full of BG in 2-few years. Or none at all if the winterkill under lengthy ice cover.

Northern sourced LMB are typically well adapted to our climate. I am at 1220ft in WNY, and have a similar freeze thaw timeframe.

All it takes are two BG and some candle light, and the next thing you know you have 10,100 BG. You need fish with a large gspe to take on those little nippy jerks.

I put pumpkinseeds in and they went absolutely insane in 2 years, but before you add bass just make sure you have lots of bluegill - that they did in fact reproduce, if not the bass will clean them up and run out of forage in short order. You can add trout, just add 1.5 to 2 pounders when you do it and they will fend for themselves until your LMB gape size accomadates them, and if you like the trout then just cull the large bass out when you can or add larger trout.

The trout will eat smaller bluegill, if you add brookies they get a pretty decent gape and can take some bigger bluegill. Most likely the trout will survive being that deep and spring fed, my lake is 6 acres with a few areas of refuge 13 feet deep and the rainbows and brookies make it all year round here in ontario...im very surprised actually as last summer the whole lake was like bath water - but they made it.

good luck!

Start with a small number of bass to begin with if you go the bass route. In your pond I would say maybe 6-8. That way they won’t strip the forage right away, and won’t throw an established pond out of balance.

I plan to do some netting in the pond soon to see what's going on. The posts here would lead me to think the BG probably spawned by now with no predator competition. I stocked them in early May.

I had some extra maintenance done around the pond to shore up the berms and that clouded the water for now so I can't really see what's going on.

If the BGs are taking off I will add LMB ASAP and see how that goes.

Yeah and here I am thinking about how to get a swampy pond setup with floating plants. LOL

LOL, here I am with crystal clear ponds hoping to never see that!

For goodness sakes, don't play any Mantovani!

I have some LMB fingerlings on the way. Hopefully they can get acclimated over the next couple months before winter starts.

Theyll probably acclimate in very short order - pretty hardy fish.

Water temp from transport water to pond water has to be within 5 degrees or less, don't change transport water temp faster than 6-7 degrees per hour. Make sure you have enough O2 in the transport water while the fish are being tempered. Check pH too, it has to be within 2.0 points