Derek,
1. Try to find out how big your spring stocked fish are.
2. I think you are a little high on SMB to stock. I would conservatively initially stock around 60/ac (total of 90-100).
3. Use wire minnow traps baited with a small amount of bread to attract minnows which attract YOY fish to check spawn of YP, RES, SMB in July 2008 and 2009. Make adjustments if catching noticably more of one species - RES, YP or SMB.
4. After 3-4 yrs, I would try to achieve an 8:1 to 12:1 ratio of YP-RES:SMB. Mix of RES to YP can be your choice but it will likely be dominated by YP.
5. Once YP and SMB reach 8"-10" fathead numbers will be in danger of extinction depending the weed community of the pond. If growth of YP or SMB plateau, reduce predators rather than trying to supplimentally add FHM to maintain good growth rates.
6. If your fish that you initially stock are not initially pellet trained, and if you do not continually feed them pellets, the combination that you are stocking will not adapt well to eating pellets and will only marginally accept pellets in the future.
7. Your biggest concern will be loss of FHM or "minnow" stock and growth of SMB and YP will plateau at a less than big or trophy size.
8. Dr. Dave Willis in South Dakota finds that SMB usualy overpopulate in ponds. I find this also to be true in certain ponds. This may be a definate concern for you. Based on your goals, don't be hesitant to harvest some SMB after 2011-12 to reduce predation pressure.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 10/03/07 09:23 PM.
