I am in N.Y, the other side of the lake, so our climate is similar. You definitely get colder in the winter as you don’t often get the moderating influence of the lakes.

If I were you, fathead minnows first ASAP. You won’t need to feed them as they will find plenty of what they love naturally. With some patience, you will have huge amounts of fatheads by late summer next year which will set the stage for regular stocking of game fish. I put in the FHM before the pond was even 1/4 full.

A type of sunfish that stays in forage range for larger predators is the pumpkinseed sunfish. They also multiply fast, and it is possible you can stock them early summer or spring next year assuming you stock FHM this fall to let them get a leg up first. They are a ton of fun to watch, and will take to hand feeding easily.

Otherwise for a top predator fish, I would initially start with yellow perch in the early fall next year, as they are great for controlling snails and leeches. Perhaps the following spring, choose a fish that is unlikely to spawn in ponds, like walleye. I am suggesting this as new ponds tend to have low fertility. Ponds need to establish for a few years and accumulate nutrients before putting in fish that will multiply and quickly strip the forage base, leaving you with the need to manually balance the pond with excessive fishing.

I went too fast and wound up with pencils and credit cards with eyeballs. Walleye don’t take to feed well, and black crappie was an ill advised mistake, which also don’t take to feed well. These along with yellow perch stripped my large forage base clean in a month as the forage just wasn’t able to thrive and keep up.

Our seasons are shorter up here than down south where most members on these forums reside, so my advice is more from cold water pond observations and some advice from here. It takes longer for our ponds to “mature”. There is a lot of “it depends” here, and there are far better experts here than this electrical engineer, so there may be contradictory advice. Listen to others with more weight than me,

The good news is you can likely have cold water fish like various trout, as you have depth and size for refuge during the hotter month(s). For example, this year in the Finger Lakes, it got too hot this summer and I would have lost my brook trout if I had stocked some. I tried LMB for the first time in my 10+ year old pond instead, and they love it.

Last edited by liquidsquid; 09/26/25 06:49 AM.