Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Speckle Belly sunfish pond

Been a few years since I’ve been on the forums. We unfortunately had to sell our last pond, but managed to land on our feet. We are currently having a new 0.5 acre pond built. The new speckle belly hybrid seems like a good fit. I was curious if anyone has had any luck with them. I was thinking of doing straight speckle belly and maybe a few HSB or LMB for offspring control. It would be interesting to hear some opinions.

We will be close to the pond with power so feeding and aeration will be available and utilized.

speckle belly hybrid ??

The BG / RES cross I believe , maybe from Malone's in Ar. My guess at least.

That is why I ask. The details matter.

Here are the sex ratios (percent male) that Childers got with various hybrid crosses. The male parent is listed first. There is some variation in the numbers from other studies

Redear X Bluegill 97 (3)
Bluegill X Redear 97
Redear X Green 69
Green X Redear 48
Bluegill X Green 97
Green X Bluegill 68 (2)
Redear X Warmouth 55
Bluegill X Warmouth 69 (2)
Green X Warmouth 16
Warmouth X Green 84

See this thread fyi

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthrea...ords=childers&Search=true#Post150932

Yes they would be the BGxRES cross from Malone.

https://malonelake.com/specklebelly-bream-%E2%84%A2

SpeckleBelly (SBS) as hybrid sunfish of the BG X RES cross can grow to large sizes. This is a link to some naturally produced and well fed specklebelly sunfish from Ohio. There are claims the SBS can grow to 3 lbs.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showgallery&Number=570913

IMO ultimate size and ferilty of the speckle belly IMO does depend on which gender parent was the BGill and which one was the REar. Malone Fish Farm will probably not tell you this information. Some but not all of this information would be available in the Childers hybrid sunfish paper link provided above by ewest.

This From Malone's farm "Populations of Specklebelly Bream™ are 95 to 100% males, readily take fish food, grow to large sizes and are easy to catch."

Looks like Childers have both BGxRES and RESxBG at 97% male. So I guess the real question is how much will they reproduce? Should I stock regular RES also to help with snails? I don’t want excess predator fish in pond if not needed.

I would not add more RES (male or female) as the back cross (RES X F-1 BGxRES) could cause issues. See the numbers below.

HYBRID SUNFISH FOR STOCKING SMALL PONDS
WILLIAM E. RICKER
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

Wawasee Hatchery. Area--0.32 acre. This pond
was stocked in April 1942 with 10-15 male bluegills and an equal
number of female redears. There were apparently two principal
spawning times, which produced fish of two size groups distinct
enough to be followed through the season.

Male bluegills and female redears were put into a pond in early
spring, and the resulting spawning was at least. reasonably successful.
The number of fingerlings obtained (46,000) was said, however, to be
less than what is usually recovered from the reproduction of either of
the parent species, by itself, in a similar pond. These fish were subsequently
distributed into a number of waters.

It would be very beneficial if more PBoss Forum members tried specklebelly sunfish and regularly reported to our Forum the progress of their SBS. We want to hear all about your fish growing adventures.
I think that one could stock SBS and smallmouth bass as a successful fishery especially if the fish received a high quality fish food because the SMB should be able to adequately control the limited reproduction from the specklebelly sunfish. I think the specklebellies would grow as good as or even better as the ones grown by our Forum member Theo Gallus in the link provided above. As an alternative to using smallmouth with SBS one could use hybrid striped bass (HSB) or both SMB and a few HSB to whatever density needed to eat the annual reproduction of SBS. Add HSB as needed. Hopefully we can see someone here to have bragging rights of growing some 2 lb-3 lb specklebelly sunfish.

Thanks for the replies gentlemen. I like the idea of using SMB or HSB better than LMB. We will be starting pond construction this weekend, and I hope to give the forum as much information as I can moving forward. Pond should be roughly 1/2 acre and 12 foot deep in center. I plan to utilize feed and aeration also. What would be an appropriate stocking number for the SBS? Would 200-300 be doable in a pond this size? I’m not afraid to push the limits a little.

Bill, I agree seeing Theo’s 2 pound plus SBS was impressive. It definitely helped steer me towards using them.

Ewest, that sounds like a decent amount of reproduction. I know RES don’t normally overpopulate on their own, but I wonder if it becomes more prevalent with the added BG genetics?

ozark - Malone Fish Farm suggests using SBS at 200-300 per ACRE. If it were my 0.5 ac pond I would start with NO more than 120 in 1/2 ac unless you use SMB (24-35 in 1/2ac) AND some HSB (as 10-14) to help control any SBS reproduction that might escape what the smallmouth can locate and eat for the fishery. If you add some 10+ HSB then you could IMO add 150 SBS into 0.5 ac. A 12" SMB & HSB weigh about one pound. 2 lb SMB & HSB are around 15" long and 2-3 years old. Plan for the predators to grow and add weight to the total fish poundage capacity of the pond. See more about pond carrying capacity later.

In my experience the fewer SBS that you stock the faster and larger they will grow. This all relates to the fish weight carrying capacity of the pond. The more one pushes the limits of a pond ecosystem the more fish health stressors that become involved. Everything grows better when less stress is involved and water quality is better. There are repercussuions and trade offs when one pushes the limits of a pond ecosystem and this usually starts with and involves reduced water quality. Every living thing in the pond depends on good water quality. High water quality is very important when trying to grow big healthy fish. If you are just trying to grow quantity and not necessarily QUALITY then stock the pond above the suggested limit.

If it were mine I would stock the lower density that allows for good healthy fast growth of the fish. Remember when 100 SBS grow to 1.5 lbs (12") this equates to 300 lbs of SBS per acre PLUS the collective weight of the predators. Likely 50-70 lbs or more of bass type predators. Now the pond is at close to 400 lbs of fish per acre - a limit that is pushed IMO TOO high. REMEMBER when using hybrid sunfish,,,, wise management suggests periodically supplimental stocking every 1-3 years some more hybrid sunfish as replacements of those ocassionlly lost.

Remember SBS have a life span and do not live much longer than 5-8 years depending on conditions. Consider yourself fortunate if the original stockers live 9-10 years. If you feed high protein / high carbohydrate pellets IMO the SBS hybrids will not live much longer than 6-7 years. Have a management plan as the original stockers age out and exhibit mortality.


Carrying capacity is the animal load a system can support. This, in turn, directly results in the production capacity, which is the amount (usually numbers and pounds) of animals that a system can produce for the final usage or current standing crop. Standing crop does change as fish die, reproduce and get harvested. When the carrying capacity is reached, fish growth will slow down until some fish die or are removed. Removing fish allows remaining fish to grow or become more numerous. In your case,, I think you want fish to continue growing larger instead of becoming more numerous.

I would save this post to help you wifh fish management as the pond ages.
Please do us a favor and periodically return here and update us on your adventures with using SBS.

Post above was modified and updated 9:30pm of Sep 05 2025.

Here's a pic of a Specklebelly we caught yesterday evening from our 1/3 acre pond. They were stocked at 3-4" in October 2024. We're happy with them so far.

Nice fish, looks to be at least 1/2 # Did you happen to weigh and measure it?

No, we didn't, but should have. We'll try to remember scales when we go tomorrow.

When a fish lays extended beyond the dimensions of my hand like that, it is between 9 and 10 inches in length.

Jpsdad,

We only had about 15 minutes to fish today. Caught 2 specklebelly sunfish. One weighed 0.46# and was 8", the other weighed 0.66# and was 9". That's 109.4% and 106.2% relative weights. However, neither was as big as the one I shared the photo of.

Thats eating size

I stocked them 2 years ago. They do start off slow but once they get to 6 inches they take off! When they get really big, some of them get really black looking, like a black perch with a bright red ear. They do love pellets and are very aggressive. I have them stocked with Res and have seen no problems yet. I highly recommend over reg hybrids.

Lancaster - Excellent very informative testimony. Thank you!! What state do you live in?

We wish more members using specklebelly posted how SBS perform in their pond/s. Please, Please periodically (yearly) return to up date us about how those specklebelly sunfish are doing. Try and keep some good records of what they are doing in your pond. With some history details and pictures of them in your pond.

I will try to get PBoss magazine editor, or if not, then myself to write an article about SBS performance in your pond. My main interest in them is how long do they live and how BIG they become as old fish. Try to get some length measurements each year as they grow bigger. I don't really need body weights just annual length increases with some pictures. If you send me a private message (PM mail), we can stay in communication.

Postscript. FYI - If you get PBoss magazine I have a current article in PB mag: Largemouth Bass Talking Points Part 1. Part 2 will be in the Mar-Apr 2026 issue.

Bill, how big are the few that you have now?

esshup - The few(6) SBS that I had for testing their growth in cage culture did not tolerate transportation from a cage to wintering in as RES system 4 times a year. Gradually one or two would die after each transport. The ones that survived until all died grew to 9.2 " in 2.5 years. I had high hopes for them. It was a steep learning curve.

Thanks for all the great information. We have already added FHM and crayfish to the pond and intend to add grass shrimp also once some can be sourced. I do have one more idea that I’m curious to hear others opinions on. My son and I recently read through the HSB forum and really like the idea of a heavily stocked HSB only pond for put and take fishing. We do have a Texas hunter feeder and intend to aerate the pond. My question is what are the downsides? With adequate feed will the HSB still overpressure natural forage, or will they focus on pellets? Also if we decide later we want to proceed with the SBS style pond can we just catch out the majority of the HSB and stock the SBS, or will the HSB just mop up all the fingerlings?

You will probably not get predation from HSB like you would from LMB. They will certainly love eating pellets. But I would not stock HSB big enough to eat your BGxRES fingerlings.

The rule of thumb for LMB is that they will eat sunfish up to 1/3 their own length. HSB, having smaller mouths, might be able to eat sunfish 1/5 their own length (SWAG).