Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat pike habitat

after i build my 4 acre lake im planning on stocking it with some northern pike what kind of structures should i give them?what should there spawning area look like?

Good morning, Josh.

I want to try and word this carefully: are you really set on having northern pike in your pond?? In my opinion, they are not the best fish for pond management.

Here are my two primary concern. In most cases, a pond can support perhaps 10 pounds per acre of northern pike. So, I suspect that at most, your pond can support 40 pounds of pike. Do you want those as four 10 pound pike, or eight 5 pound pike?? See my point? That's not very many fish in a pond, either for catching or for eating.

My second concern is that northern pike are "eating machines." Did you plan to include a prey species for them to eat? Let's say you decide on yellow perch. What you can expect is a low density population of small perch. They pike will crop off everything that reaches 6 inches or more. You certainly will not have any numbers or sizes of panfish to harvest and eat from your pond.

Is it possible that you already know this, and have thought it through?? If so, pardon me. Pike can have a place in some pond management strategies. If not, then hopefully I at least gave you a little food for thought. I don't mean to be so negative, but I thought you might need to know this information.

Dave

thanx for your opinion dave and i learned a lot so i have desided on stocking my pond with a different type of fish....do you have any opinions on what type of fish i should stock?

Josh - After reading several of your posts the first thing you should do is go to a MSU extension office and get "Managing Michigan Ponds For Sport Fishing". Read it, understand the basics of pond and pond fish management and then come back and ask questions based on what you've read in the booklet. The booklet has excellent advice for northern pond sport fish raising written by those very familiar with situations in MI.

Hi Josh. Sorry for the delay (I was off on a turkey hunt).

Bill is right -- the best thing you can do is read a little. I thought that someone had once posted a web site for the Michigan pond management booklet. However, I could not find the booklet online. I did, however, find a web site that tells you how to order it.

http://www.msue.msu.edu/oakland/ManagingMichPonds.html

Also, I did find the Indiana DNR pond management booklet at the following web address.

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/publications/fsmgt/fishmgt.pdf

We do have a South Dakota booklet as well. If you want to give me a mailing address, I can send you a copy.

In general, most people tend toward largemouth bass and a panfish species for most pond management. This isn't the only thing you can do, but it is an easy, fun, and safe strategy. We've developed quite a few smallmouth bass pond fisheries around here. They are a very fun sport fish. We'll have an article in the July/August issue of Pond Boss magazine that covers smallmouth bass in ponds. If you can't wait that long, send me an e-mail address, and I'll send you a copy of that article in a Word file.

Dave

Dave,
How big was your turkey?

Hi Ric.

I didn't weigh it. However, it was a Merriam's subspecies, and I don't think they weigh quite as much. I'd guess 19-20 pounds. It had a 9-inch beard, but the spurs weren't very large, so I suspect it was a 2-year-old bird. Sure was glad to see him! :-)

Dave

Congratulations on a nice bird! Thank goodness for 2 yr olds!! ;-)
I hope to come out there & try for a Merriams some day!