Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Bowfin stocking or walleye for wv pond

I have a farm with 5 ponds, just built a new 0.9 acre max depth 15 feet with structure on one half the other reserved for swimming etc. hard pack earth bottom, small section will have gravel for fish breeding. Partial spring fed , not a lot of shade between 10 am and an hour before dark but nice vegetation around. Suspect max water temp in summer here in that cool valley probably mid to high 70. My other ponds have generic farm pond fish- bass bluegill crappie catfish etc. I once caught a bowfin and it was my favorite fight of all time. I have thought about doing something bizarre with this pond like bowfin/perch or maybe given depth even trying walleye perch with a couple bowfin thrown in. Does anyone have experience with bowfin and or know where to get some? Any other suggestions on an atypical fun stocking welcome- not dead set on anything as long as it's different than the others. It has a protected watershed and no ponds upstream for runoff of other fish. Pic attached, but it's full now

Welcome to Pond Boss!!

I've never heard of a fishery selling bowfin, but that does not mean there are none.

Short of that, hand stocking would be the other option, although I'm not sure how you would target for bowfin when fishing.

You may also want to consider Saugeye as an option. One of our members, Snipe, has been growing them, and does ship them, I think.

I do not recall a bowfin pond being reported on Pond Boss, but that lack of results may only be due to a fuzzy memory.

Wiki says it may take 2-3 years for a bowfin to reach sexual maturity. Being a rare request for stocking, plus taking a long time to reproduce probably would make this fish unprofitable for a fish supplier.

Therefore, I agree with Sunil that hand stocking is probably your best option.

I say go for it if you want to! Would the bowfin pond have any chance of allowing fish into your main pond? Bowfin can actually breath air for short periods, so they can readily move to other bodies of water during flood events.

I also like that your bowfin pond is spring-fed. If you do NOT get good results with your bowfin, you can always drain and poison, and then re-start with a new plan as the pond fills.

I would definitely be wary about having bowfin in my family swimming pond. Bluegill are well documented to bite on human nipples. I would hate to have a bowfin nip me there with those teeth!

I am NOT an expert, but just throwing out an idea for a unique pond. Bowfins look like their mouths do not hinge open nearly as far as a LMB. (Is that true? I have never caught one.) Perhaps you could make a trophy crappie pond to go along with your bowfins? If the crappie spawn like crazy, and your bowfins are voracious predators on crappie up to 8-9", then you could have a pond with a very heavy distribution of large crappie.

That might give you something tasty to eat, unless you like smoked bowfins.

Finally, are you not really using your smallest pond for any special purpose? Is not, then you could drain and poison it and use it as a brood pond for bowfins. That way you could catch 4-5 this year, and then harvest some small bowfin in the fall 1.5 years from now and stock your new pond at the appropriate level.

Good luck on developing your new pond. Sounds like you could have a lot of fun doing it. If your bowfin experiment works, then you might become our Pond Boss "expert" on that topic!

For a different type of fishery for your new 0,9 ac pond, consider using shiners, crappie and hybrid striped bass. You can add and reduce number of HSB as needed to keep the crappie numbers at density to meet your goals for average size of crappie.

For bowfin do your diligent homework for how they spawn, habitat they use for spawning and you don't want them overpopulating. They have a decent size largish mouth with teeth so they are definitely predatory. Not known much about them I would not want more than one in my small pond as predator; similar to a tiger musky usual density. I have caught two of them and they are hard fighters. Best chance of getting them for stocking is IMO bucket stocking. One of them I caught in a clean walleye lake. We cleaned it and fillets were light brown tan. Not sure we ate it because we had fresh walleye to eat.

Like Bill's suggestion with SMB as a bonus fish. Good reports on ponds using shiners, crappie and hybrid striped bass plus SMB.

10-15 years ago I saw a place that had Bowfin to stock, but I haven't seen them recently. Bowfin eggs can be used as a substitute for sturgeon eggs for caviar.

Wow thanks all for the replies. It is isolated from other ponds both catchment and drainage area, dumps into an ephemeral stream only during flood events , mostly minimal runoff. 2 of my smallest are not really being used right now for much, there are a few bluegill but I haven't pursued improving them because within 4 yrs intend to redo them partially.

I like the idea of a mini bowfin hatchery. I'll have to look into that about not having in my swimming ponds though, you are right, the one I caught was 1 oz shy of NY state record and I wouldn't want it to bite me.

Regarding the hybrid stripes, will they live in a pond that small with minimal flow? It's high quality water but not much movement, I thought they had to have huge water only. I would actually be happy with hybrid stripes, they are in my top 4 favorite anyways but had not considered them.

Saugeye might be a good alternative to walleye for sure

If I can't find bowfin and hybrids would work there, I think I would maybe do a hybrid stripe/perch/saugeye combo- that would give me depth, extend season, and I've heard perch go nuts with good structure (which this definitely has). I built many rock caves, sunken logs, brush piles etc prior to it filling . Maybe throw in a couple grass carp and 2 cats just for fun with double typical amount of minnows for first year.

I had considered rainbow/brown trout, but it's waaaay to far from the grid for aerator and I don't go down there much when hay is growing from April to late June because I don't want to trample my hay. Not sure it's worth the effort for them to just burn out

I wouldn't worry about a bowfin biting me, the fish are more scared of you than you think. Now Bluegill/Hybrid Bluegill? If they had teeth like a Bowfin, I'd have some concerns.

Hybrid Striped Bass don't need any sort of water flow. They will not reproduce in a normal pond, so they are strictly a put and take fishery.

Grass Carp? I wouldn't add them unless you have an underwater weed problem and you don't want to control the weeds manually or with herbicides.

Catfish? I wouldn't want to take a chance of stocking a male and female. Reproduction would be problematic for your pond.

Reach out to Snipe here on the forum for Saugeye. He produced them last year, but he sold his hatchery last year after getting it pretty much washed away in a flood. I haven't heard anything about them being available this year and he's the only one aside from state agencies that hatched them.