Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Just Dug a 4 Acre Pond, Send Help!

Your pond with 1/3 at 25-30 ft deep should have enough depth to prevent any winter kill due to deep snow cover. With your bottom structural configuration you should be okay. Annual tree leaf organic inputs would be the danger of oxygen losses in the future of promoting winter fish kills in the long term 10-25+ years. If the pond maintains clear water of 6-10ft you should not need any type of aeration and still maintain some cool oxygenated water layer for summer survival of trout. Low water clarity of 3ft to 4ft could cause loss of oxygen and no DO production in the cool deep water layer of 8-10 ft. during August.

I agree with esshup use no sunfish types. If you want to ruin the fishery add crappie. I somewhat disagree that larger trout are eating lots of live larger sunfish. Trout eating fish offal, okay wth that,,, but IMO not very many live 4"-5" sunfish are eaten unless soft rayed fish are not common. . Start checking the gut contents of your larger harvested trout and report back with what you discover. Your trout IMO will not eat very many spiney fin fish for their total annual diet. For a good trout fishery you will need to feed the trout pellets plus during cold temps,,,, have at all times various types of soft rayed fish available plus invertebrates living in good habitats. This means IMO a strong harvest of those minnow eating fish that are present. Proper harvest is critically important to manage the proper balance of forages and predators. Protect and maintain minows for the winter cold water trout diets. IMO trout and perch have widely different natural habtat requirements thus this fish combination is more difficult to manage them for them both producing a high quaiity fishery of both species compared to each specie grown separately. IMO trout will definately by themselves NOT control strong recruitment ability of YP.

If you want perch (YP) they will thrive best if you stock PELLET trained YP. Use trout food. This keeps them growing well to big sizes. Done correctly you should easily grow some 13"-14" YP. Pellet eating YP will grow fast to 10"-12" (3yr) and will produce enough numbers to allow a good harvest of YP each year - maybe 30-50 lbs per acre per year for up to 130 - 180 lbs per year (8"-13") when in 4 acres with good management.

No pellets - then plan 5 yrs to grow some to 10"+ YP and a harvest of maybe 40 - 50 total harvest pounds per year (8"-11") from 4 acres. However annual fish harvest will strongly depend on average annual water clarity. My magazine articles for YP harvest in non-pellet fed clear water ponds with clarity of 7ft-10ft would be 20 - 30 lbs of YP per acre/yr. A 12" well fed YP weighs 1 lb. The clearer the water the lower the allowable fish harvest pounds per acre each year. Clear water 7ft-10ft does not grow as much fish foods per acre as water 3ft of clarity.

For YP stocking and an early YP spawn in 2026 stock mainly 5"-7" and some 3%-10%) 8"-10".

If I was stocking YP in Ontario,, I would also be stocking smallmouth bass(SMB) but not largemouth, unless the pond has a significant submerged weed community. YP can thrive in a weedy pond with LMB. Smallies are a natural predator of YP and the two pair well together and are common species in Ontario lakes especially more northern lakes. IMO Trout will eat YP as a last resort. SMB will be your predatory controller of the YPs tendency to overpopulate. If you have decent SMB spawning habitat then you will also need to harvest enough SMB as maybe 10-20 per acre/yr as 6"-10" to keep them from overpopulating and over eating your minnow and crayfish forages. That will all depend on the SMB recruitment per year which can be notable in the right habitat conditions. I help with a 1 ac clear water pond that has a sand composition small beach, all rocky shoreline and pellet fed SMB recritiment has so far been strong each year. I have eaten Ontario SMB and they have a better taste than LMB.

You being in SW Ontario, you will not be able to locate, buy, and stock saugeye .

Walleye (WE) when adults as 14"+ would be an option to help eat lots of large minnows and small YP, and small SMB. Walleye would be IMO a bonus fish (5-10/ac) for your pond project to help control small YP. From pond experiences of WE in ponds do not plan on them growing larger than 4lb - 23" maybe larger of 5lb unless you are very fortunate. Pond grown WE for some reason do not grow the same way as lake run walleye. If SMB and YP over populate you might need to add more WE or one pike as a bonus fish per acre but as pike get 28+" they will eat stocker trout, 8"+ YP and some SMB. Pros and cons.

If it were my Ontario pond I would do my best to be contacting some local and even some more remote bait dealers who capture their own minnow - shiner type baits from lakes, rivers or streams. FHM will not survive and thrive any form of decent predator presence. I have seen YP eliminate FHM from ponds. You would be looking for in this order: bluntnose minnows, spotfin shiners, redbelly dace, spottail shiners, and depending on what predators that you chose to MAYBE later adding some golden shiners after the other minnow types are spawning and are recruiting new year classes, providing good numbers of forage fish are present per year. Find out what minnow species are available at bait dealers and I can advise as to their usefulness in pond habitats. You are looking for minnows/shiners that are pond spawners. Emerald shiners will not spawn in most all ponds. I am working an PBoss article about that.