Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Raising BG

I've got a 1/2 acre pond that I'm going to raise BG in. I'm using them to stock into an existing pond, so I need to get them to an decent size before I move them. If I stock 500 bg into this pond that has not other fish, and if I feed them and fertalize the pond, how many BG should I expect to produce?
I also have another 1/2 acre pond that I want to do the same thing with golden shiners. I'm thinking about starting with 250 thousand fry. How many pounds a year could it produce?
Both of these are going to supplement a 37 acre pond. These may be some vague questions, so if I forgot something just let me know. I just found this site two days ago and already I love it.
Thanks

Hi Cheyenne, welcome to PB. You have come to the right place. Hold tight and one of our resident experts will give you an answer.

A 37 acre pond??? That's a full blown lake. Post photos if ya got 'em and once again welcome to PB.

As Jeff said, welcome aboard.

If you go with stocking BG fry, it will be at least a year before you get any spawn.

Is it possible to catch a few larger bluegill from the main lake and use them in the BG grow-out pond?

You would get spawning & reproduction much quicker.

Thanks for the welcome guys. I'm eagerly awaiting for my subscription.
I don't have a problem buying some larger BG to get started with. The pond now has a lot of GSF in it. I'm trying to get them cleaned up, and then introduce more BG.

The pond is the main body of water in the pic. The rest is flooded fields for ducks. The small area inside the peninsula is where I'm going to raise BG. I can flow water out of it into the rest of the pond with a pipe that I can close off. We farm and this pond is used for irrigation. I'm having the state game and fish come out and electrofish it next Friday.

That is awesome!

Is there a risk of the two bodies of water combining during a high water event?

No there is not. There is no watershed to shed to this pond. Only rain, and what we pump into it. I have rip rap all around the bank. I'm thinking, based on my reading here that shad might be a good idea, to use the open water. There are some shad in it now. And we have never put them there.

Cheyenne:

It sounds like wrt the BG at least, the purpose is not so much a forage pond, but rather a recruiting center to come up with large numbers of BG to help ovewhelm the GSF.

A hatcheries guy would be able to give the best answer to your question, since it is basically a single-species production pond. IMHO, the answer will be on the order of 500 pounds of BG per year. That's a WAG and I will not be real surprised if I am off as much as an order of 10 either way.

Are you planning on hammering the GSF in the main lake simultaneously with replacement fish development?

Welcome to the PB forum. Take a look at the forage and BG fact sheets from this list. They will give you some ideas on what to do and expect.

http://srac.tamu.edu/fulllist.cfm

ewest may I ask where you live? I'm and MSU man myself.

In Jackson.

Theo

My plans are to raise enough BG to ease the expense of having to restock often. What is the best way to overwhelm the GSF? We have a healthy pop. of CC and I've about 25 HSB per acre that are in 12"-18". I'm not sure of the LMB pop, but I think it's pretty low, soon to be fixed.

Raising the number of LMB is probably the best way to reduce GSF numbers; it's certainly proven effective.

Welcome to the forum cheyenne. I am a fisheries and wildlife biology major at Arkansas Tech. Here are some links on raising golden shiners that my Aquaculture class used. If they dont work I can copy and paste them over to here.

http://pls.atu.edu/biology/fw/aquaculture/SpawningBaitfish.pdf

http://pls.atu.edu/biology/fw/aquaculture/FeedingBaitfish1.PDF


I am guessing you are going to try the 250,000 fry that Andersons sells. If you are close to them I would suggest going to thier farm and buying brooders. That would be a lot cheaper. The 250,000 fry are $250 and the brooders are $10 or less per pound. For a half acre pond you would only need 10-15 pounds.

Cheyenne, I tossed 100 2 inch bluegills and a pound of fatheads into a 1/4 acre pond. It's about 3/4 of a mile from the house and only got fed when I showed up on an occasional weekend. Within one year, we seined huge amounts of forage to stock a neighboring one acre pond. We came back a couple of months later and did it again.

Then, I couldn't get any help on the other end of the seine. By the next year, they had overspawned and so fouled the water that I had an oxygen crash and a subsequent die off.

My point is that both species are tremendous spawners and create an ongoing forage base without predation.

Thanks guys, you've all been helpful.