Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Oregon Pond Initial Stocking

After a couple of years I was able to get the permit approval and the pond build completed and now have a .75 acre pond on my 150 acre property in western Oregon. Pond build went great. We have heavy clay soils and the pond filled quickly with the fall and winter rains and runoff from a season creek. I will post more on the structures placed in the appropriate forum but I wanted to ask a question specific to stocking. Because of the regulations out here getting a pond built is very difficult with lots of hoops to jump through. Reflecting this there are only 2 (really 1) authorized warmwater fish grower for stocking private ponds in Oregon (we need a permit to build a pond, stock fish and transport fish from an authorized hatchery). BOTH available stocking guys want to stock the same way which is WAY different than what I have seen recommended here and I wanted to run it by the experts:

They want to stock Qty 30 a 50/50 mix adult bluegill/pumpkinseed and 20 2-3" LMB

The reasoning is that the panfish adults will spawn this year and the LMB fingerling are not big enough and wont be numerous enough to overconsume the bluegill fry and allow for that population to establish quickly while delaying the first LMB spawn until next fall.

More about the pond:

Goals: Skew population to larger Bluegill sizes with healthy LMB presence but nothing approaching trophy size.

Pond:
Built pond with fish in mind, variable depths from 2-12 feet with benches at 3, 6, 8ft. Ave depth 6 ft .75 surface acres.
No established water plants or FA blooms
7 large 5-6 ft tall bolder piles spread out and have 14 sunken brush piles and trees (Scotch pine). Planted Duck potato and pickerel plant in shallows in clumps.
3 large (150-250 sqft pea gravel beds in 2ft, 4ft and 6 ft depths) variable to account for summer water loss.
Solar Aeration w/ AIR400 RPS system no battery backup (maybe someday)
No feeder

Water:
2-2.5ft visibility
pH: 7.2
Alkalinity: 180ppm
Hardness: 175ppm

I look forward to your responses to their recommendations.

Ross

Assuming you already have the state of Oregon's permission to stock fish right now, this might get you a BG spawn this year. I am not sure of the chance of a PS spawn this year, but I doubt it. I don't think you would get an LMB spawn until 2028.

Unless your stocking numbers are already fixed by permit, I think you should consider something different based on info from here.

Personally, if I felt the pond would currently support fingerling growth (your water clarity probably indicates that), I would stock something like 100 BG fingerlings, 100 PS fingerlings, and 100 LMB fingerlings. If you want larger BG you want more LMB predation, and you want it when the BG spawn.

Given the (wise) absence of political discussion here, I will just state that I think that is sad,

Yeah, they have very tight control over water storage (ponds, etc). Mostly this is due to potential impact to the cold water native salmon and trout fisheries.

romitch47, welcome to the PondBoss forum. Your new pond sounds potentially wonderful.

Initially, when we bought the property 17 years ago, our 1/4 acre pond seemed to only have largemouth bass LMB, yellow perch YP, and 2 triploid grass carp TGC in it. Previous owner claimed there were several other species, but a couple years of closely observing and fishing the pond led me to believe the listed 3 species were all that we had.

Following ewest's and other forum wise men's suggestions, I stocked 24 adult bluegill BG early in the 20 teens. There are gobs of BG now, and green sunfish GSF. Existing LMB were not able to limit BG recruitment.

My thoughts, and I am absolutely no fish expert, are that the 30 adult bluegills and pumpkinseed could very easily fill the pond with recruits by this time next summer. At that time it might be appropriate to stock the bass. My young of year LMB are about 1 1/4" long right now, and not much of a threat to small sunfish.

Warm water fish grow somewhat slowly in our cool water pond. With some scorching hot days with air temps in the upper 90s, our pond water at 3' down has only made it to 74 degrees. Cool irrigation water is flowing in 24/7.

Do you have an inkling what the temperature profile of your pond water may be? I realize you have no history of years' worth of data.

Personally I feel the BG/PS numbers that they want to stock are way low. 1) If you have any mortality on stocking, that really drops the numbers. 2) BG and PS will interbreed, and create hybrids.

If the LMB are stocked now, ask the hatchery what will they be eating? Ask the hatchery what length they will be in 12 months. Doing that will allow you to check to see how they are arriving at that low of a stocking rate. LMB need to eat 10# of fish to gain one pound, and that doesn't take into consideration that a fingerling bass needs to eat fish to just survive, then tack on 10 more pounds of fish to gain the pond of weight PER BASS.

Here, LMB don't spawn in the Fall, they spawn when water temps warm up to the upper 60's/low 70's in teh Spring, usually around the full moon in May.

You didn't say how big the BG/PS would be at stocking. You did say adults, but what size (length) are they considering adults? So , they are saying stock 15 BG and 15 PS.

Are there any minnow species available for stocking?

here in the midwest, our stocking rates are exponentially higher than that.

I second the question of what is your water temp going to be? How many days will it be between 65°F and 85°F per year?

Here are some answers to your questions:

They said the bass would eat bugs, tadpoles, larva until they get a bit bigger and would switch to fry . They expect the bass to be10-12 inches next summer and would maybe spawn next fall.

You didn't say how big the BG/PS would be at stocking. You did say adults, but what size (length) are they considering adults? They are saying stock 15 BG and 15 PS. Yes, 5-6 inch fish.

Are there any minnow species available for stocking? No (not allowed to stock minnows)

I second the question of what is your water temp going to be? How many days will it be between 65°F and 85°F per year? Current temp at 18 inches: 74. Should be between 65 and 85 from Mid June to Early October.

Thanks
Ross