Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Anybody tried Redfin Shiners for forage...

Deadwood good link to a supplier - thanks.

The issue is, even to a trained experienced ichthyologist, telling satinfin shiners from spotfin shiners is extremely difficult. They are distinct species, not one and the same. They are just very difficult to tell apart. I've been collecting them and keeping them in aquariums for years. They do make excellent aquarium fish. Even with all that experience with them, I struggle to tell them apart at times, particularly juveniles and females. The adult males are fairly easy to tell apart. When I collect in the Potomac drainage, which Fairfax County is in, I can collect either species. However, if I go one drainage further south the Rappahhanock drainage, only satinfins are found in it which makes it easier to separate.



I am not sure LCS have "gone out of vogue", I would say the verdict just isn't out on them yet. My LCS are still a year or two away from spawning. Until I get some spawns and see how they perform, I cannot make a full judgement of them yet. I think in the right ponds, they make good addition. Ponds with at least 25% vegetation cover and softer waters. The website you list is one of several places to located captive bred or sometimes wild collected species. They are expensive as you see from their website, but as I mentioned in a previous post, you buy a dozen or two and then raise them in a forage pond until they spawn and you can then build their numbers up for stocking into a main pond that way... http://zimmermansfish.com/ http://www.btdarters.com/index.htm http://www.jonahsaquarium.com/ and in the US Native Fish section http://www.aquabid.com/

Thanks CJBS2003! I'm going to try to talk my wife into putting a forage pond in while we work on the planning of the larger lake. We'll see how that goes...

What plant species would you recommend for lake chub sucker and golden shiners?

Spiral eel grass and American pondweed are my two favorite submerged aquatic species. Both should do well in Virginia.

We have Lake Chubs in the black hills. and with the low water of the past several years, the trout populations in the smaller creeks has dwindled and the Lake Chub population has sky rocketed, all of our bigger lakes have them to. I really stinks to cast spinners for trout and and catch 10 inch suckers.

At least you live in the black hills! One of my favorite vacations ever was a road trip with my future wife in the last summer off that I ever had. We went from Virginia to the badlands, to Custer State Park in the black hills, to Colorado Springs. Custer State Park is one of my favorite places in the world. Just gorgeous. We were camping the whole way, and at Custer, I caught some rainbow trout out of the pond by the campsite, and we grilled them up for dinner straight out of the water. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I'd love to go back sometime.