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

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.