Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose brand new hole in the ground

We haven't had any poaching problems, yet. And we do have the posts up for a gate, which would mean that poachers would need to park on the road running in front of the house and walk down to the lake. We have chewed out some tresspassers but they were only 4 wheelers.
One thing is we haven't mentioned to many of the locals how good the fishing is. And hopefully it will stay that way.

Ty - I am most impressed by the 10-12 inch bluegills! Most of our gravel pits are less productive, and if we produce 8 inchers, I think we're doing pretty well. In the more productive hill ponds, I expect 10 inchers. My best guess is that you will get plenty of reproduction from the bluegills, and feed a lot of walleyes that way. If you maintain high walleye density, which obviously will be an aquaculture goal, then expect them to keep the bluegills sufficiently thinned to produce the lower density, big bluegill scenario. I assume the gravel pit is relatively steep sided, and the submergent aquatic plants are not overly abundant?

Norm -- in answer to an older question, I'm not sure that I would take the risk of fertilizing here, simply based on the ability to produce those big bluegills. This must be a relatively productive water body, and even though gravel pits are far less likely to winterkill, why risk it by fertilizing? That's my conservative thought for the day, anyway.

The reason I am concerned is that those large BG were stocked in the pond at that size. We have only had one spawn in our pond. So if we start with large BG, how long untill we can harvest those large BG?
The size of these BG has nothing to do with our fertility, which makes me wonder if we can maintain it.

thanks
ty

Ah-ha!! Now I understand your concern, Ty. I believe you can expect annual spawns of bluegills, so I think that should not concern you. However, I believe you are right to wait to harvest your "brood stock."

I have an old (1970) report from the MN DNR (W.J. Scidmore, Section of Fisheries, Special Publication No. 1) that has Minnesota statewide average growth rates for various fish species. Now, the DNR certainly has newer information than this; however, it's nice to use this for comparison purposes for situations such as yours. Bluegills in the North Country tend to get off to a slow start.

Scidmore's report says that the Minnesota average bluegill lengths (inches) at ages 1-10 are 1.9, 3.4, 4.9, 6.1, 7.1, 7.8, 8.3, 8.6, 9.1, and 9.6 inches. So, even if your 10-12 inch bluegill broodstock came from a more fertile water body, you can bet they are pretty darn old.

Now, newly stocked waters (i.e., less intraspecific competition) often have faster growth rates than "average." However, you and I both obviously have some concern over fertility in a gravel pit. Lower fertility probably means slower than average growth. This summary also contains northern MN populations as well as southern populations, and "stunted" populations as well as high quality populations. So, the range in lengths at age is lost by the use of averages.

In your case, your first spawn of bluegills may not be able to spawn themselves for another year or two, which is a good reason to keep your adults in the pond and not on the table. I would not harvest bluegills for at least another couple of years [I'm pretty conservative on these things ]. If you really want to eat some bluegills, could you find some intermediate bluegills to add this year, and bolster your brood stock with a little diveristy in size?

Hope this helps.

I think I read the same paper on BG growth. And the highest avg growth rate was 10" in 8 years. The same paper said that abundant young walleye seem to increase BG growth rates. One thing I am not worried about is BG over populating. I am worried about us and the walleyes cropping down the BG untill we don't grow any large ones.

The pond seems to be relatively fertile, the water is green in color, with 4'-5' water clarity on most days. Also we already seen good mayfly hatches. Weed beds are patchy and restricted to shallow water. I think I will try to build a secchi disk this weekend.

Thanks for the advice,
ty

Your description of the pond seems good. Those southern boys will think 4-5 foot of water clarity is too high, but compared to some gravel pits, you must have a moderate level of productivity. Patchy vegetation is great!

TyW33 can we have an update?

So far so good. I went ice fishing last weekend and managed to catch one walleye, which tasted great despite its small size . Not much has changed, but we do have a pile of Christmas trees to sink in the lake. I think the plan this year is to cut holes in the ice with a chain saw and sink the trees exactly where we want them. Last spring our brush piles ended up all over kingdom come.

ty