I fully agree with 'liquidsquid' of "warn you about the fish you choose in the pond need to cooperate with your goals". If swimming is one of your goals, don’t stock bluegills or pumpkinseeds."
My experience is these two species do not always bite swimmers unless the fish are lacking adequate food items or swimmers are wading or resting in the spawning area during spawning time. Or as in liqidsquid's case you happen to get an overly aggressive bitting prone fish. Sunfish guarding a nest do become defensive. Redear sunfish are more deep water dwellers and less prone to bite, however they can occassionally bump intruders who are in their nesting area.
I would add to the NO list - the 'standard' hybrid bluegill (HBG aka BGXGSF); thay tend to bite more than BG due to the aggresive green sunfish genetics. For stocking this new pond, I highly suggest Jim & Jo do
good diligent home work for stocking this new pond based on their goals so they do not have to then pay the infamous "Dumb Tax" as it is known in the Pond Boss Family. Dumb Tax is basically later saying " wish I would not have done that" and then paying some sort of penalty be it monitary and/or having big regret. Once spawning fish are introduced into a pond it becomes very, very difficult to almost impossible to get all the breeding pairs of them out. Thus the next spawning cycle renews the population problem. That is now why I like for certain pond GOALS of adding fish that do not reproduce.
My first suggestion is not rely on what a fish farm suggests and wants to sell you as fish for pond stocking. Their business, especially the less experienced sales staff, is to sell fish not to accomodate or fully understand your ultimate goals. IMO fish farms are good at growing and using small fish but not so good at fully knowing their behaviors and Pros & Cons as adult fish.
IMO get several ideas here from well experienced PBoss members as pond owners and managers and then Jim&Jo should decide what goal or goals best suit their long term plans for the pond. A one acre pond is not cheap endeaver to completely have to renovate the fishery if it is no longer desired due to unwanted problems. Thus do it RIGHT the first time by knowing a lot of the possible options and the Pros and Cons of each plan. Know how each fish specie behaves and how it fits into the fishery community. All this is especially true if you have never first lived with a pond for numerous years. Living with a pond is like living with a marrage partner. One does not get a full understanding of the individual quirks until they have the full time arrangement. Same goes with a pond and you are saying "I wish I would not have done that" - a Dumb Tax.
Reminder for readers Jim's goals are: "My fish goals are very basic. Healthy balance between bluegill / shell crackers and bass. Sounds like these fish along with minnows - is the starting point. I don’t lean one way or the other. I don’t need 2 lb sunfish nor 10 lb bass. I’d like to strive toward a healthy balance that makes for good panfish fishing and the opportunity to catch a 5 lb bass."
A good suggestion from me is subscribe to Pond Boss Magazine. Tell them to start with the 2025 Sept-Oct issue. Read the good article by Dr. Wes Neal - "Setting Your Pond Management Goal and Objectives, pg 22-24." This well versed article focuses on a BG-LMB based fishery. However there are other good fish stocking optioins that can make a pond a success when the goals are different. If we are lucky some members here will provide some other fishery options than the standard BG-LMB plan.
I will start with a different type of pond stocking option that is now being used in NW Ohio and recommended by a local USDA Soil and Water Conservation Agency. For a mainly swimming pond stock only hybrid striped bass (HSB). If you want them to become large toward trophy sizes feed them pellets, stock fewer numbers and or provide lots of forage foods. Know their full diet preferences.
A. They do not bother swimmers,
B. They do not reproduce to ever cause over population problems,
C. They do not need to have any forage fish to grow to become 5 lbs+ providing: they receive an appropriate amount of pelleted food for healthy body growth, and not too many are crowded per acre. Seek good reliable experienced advice on this topic.
D. They could thrive with just redear sunfish (RES) as a forage fish. Learn all the Pros and Cons of RES.
E. They are good as dinner guests.
F.. When on the other end of a fish pole, they are very, very strong opponents. IMO inch per inch the hardest fighting freshwaer fish bar none.
G. They do not need lots of habitat. IMO they do not need any habitat except good water quality - aka Bob Lusk's "happy water". They are primarily an open water living fish.
I. They swim or hang out in groups that allows one to more easily assess the numbers and sizes that are present.
J. They will live okay in warm water ponds as far south as Texas although they grow best with higher TDS (total dissolved solids).
K. They can be caught on both artificial and live baits although frequent angling can make them and LMB become harder to catch i.e. hook smart. No fish likes to be jerked by the jaw.
L. Best survival rate of stockers is the 6"-8" lengths. survival of stockers can be variable depending on how well they are handled before stocked both at the farm and the buyer. This also applies to any fish for stocking.
M. Excessive feeding of pellets can cause more plant / algae growth, reduced water clarity and lower water quality conditions. The more pellets added per acre per year will ultimately create more pond fertility and more weed / algae growth. Once fertility is in the pond it is very difficult to remove those nutrients that are causing plant problems. This becomes VERY IMPORTANT for shallow ponds where sunlight reaches a larger percentage of the pond bottom.
N.. If you have too many HSB harvest some and when you want more add some. The fewer HSB there are per acre eating primarily all natural foods then the larger size each one will become. The pond owner with HSB having no reproducion can better control the growth rate based on food inputs.
O. Life span can be up to 15-20 years providing they are handed properly by the educated and forewarned anglers during mid- summer angling sessons. Catching HSB during the warmest part of the summer in water >high 70's - 80+F causes deaths after release because HSB will fight to their death in warmest water that has low dissolved oxygen sauration. Resuscitation is then difficult.
P. Life span is shorter when grown in warmer more Southern ponds.
Q Since they do not reproduce and have a limited life span it is much easier to later completely change the direction of the fishery community.
R. They blend in well when in a mixed fish community.
S. Once they are in the pond,,,, the fishery can later be changed with minimal problems compared to LMB; providing the new fish are appropriate sizes as food items or usng the new fish as for developing a panfish or for adding a new different predator to the fishery. Removing all HSB involves smart angling or waiting until the old ones die naurally.
T. HSB have a smaller mouth size than LMB and SMB so they are not as a good of a predator of medium sizes of BG and other wide bodied fishes.
U. HSB Being predatory they will eat any new small fish that are introduced from unwanted sources.
V. If one wants different size classes or groupings of the HSB new ones can be periodically added to the pond.
W Correct stocking density depends on one's GOALS. Seek several good stocking opinions from experienced well meaning pond owners for this topic.
X. Generally the more numbers per acre that you stock in the pond the fewer the chances they will grow to be trophy sizes.
Y. If you do not want to feed HSB pellets they will survive eating 'bugs", invertebrates and foods that will fit into their mouth opning size. Just eating ALL natural pond grown foods ,,,,the HSB will likely only grow to be 10" to maybe 14" long depending on HSB density and amount of available foods.
Z. They are not the best predator to use with reproducing sunfish(BG) although if I have seen them thrive in a pond with standard hybrid BG and or yellow perch or redear sunfish.
AA. They should grow well to sizes larger than 13"-14" with golden shiners (GSH) as a forage fish. Add or remove HSB to obtain a desired self perpetuating GSH population. GSH can sometimes live 6-8 yearsand grow to 10"+. Thus with good and careful HSB management the largest GSH of 8"-10" long will eventually die of old age and leave behind smaller individuals. This assumes the HSB population has the correct size classes to heavily crop the 6" shiners and the numbers of the largest GSH coming into the fishery are minimized. Learn about "ladder stocking" for the goals of the fishery.
BB. If one first starts the pond stocking with just HSB other fish species such as BG, RES, HBG, YP and even LMB can later be added whenever desired providing the new fish are big enough to avoid predation by the HSB.
CC. Here is another link for more information from PBoss Forum members about HSB from the Common Pond Q&A Archives for more in-depth learning about HSB:
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92629#Post92629As I think of more pros and cons plus some enhancements I will return to this thread.
Maybe I can convince the PBoss magazine editor maybe we can write an informative article or 2 articles about HSB??? Subscribe to Pond Boss Magazine.
Another fishery option for some panfishing with fewer problems is to stock is adding only male BG (see below) . I and co-authors wrote 3 articles in PB magazine about this topic. Pros and Cons are numerous for male only BG topic. Adding RES with male BG will very likely produce hybrids also known as Specklebelly Sunfish (SBS).
Further reading about using only male BG in ponds:
Mar-Apr 2006 Pond Boss Magazine. BEHEMOTH BLUEGILLS IN SMALL PONDS. In Part I, Cody, Condello and Baird provide the necessary details of how to accurately sex bluegills as the first step to produce trophies in small waters.
May-Jun 2006. GROWING BEHEMOTH MALE BLUEGILLS; Part II. Cody, Condello and Baird present info about size, growth, stocking densities, and choosing proper male bluegills.
Jul-Aug 2006. THE ART OF MANAGING BEHEMOTH MALE BLUEGILLS. Cody, Condello and Baird conclude their three part article about raising trophy male bluegills. Discussed are best size of ponds, natural foods, supplemental feeding, angling implications, females only, and creative ways to use male bluegills. A standard weight table for bluegill is included.
There is a lot to know about growing high quality bluegill in ponds. These are threads from the PB Archives of Common Pond Questions
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189988#Post189988See in this link all the good informative pond management topics in the PBoss archives of Common Pond Q&A
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=22&page=1An essay on Bluegill harvest
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=273316#Post273316Sexing BG and LMB
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=258505#Post258505
