Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Is this a good mix for a new pond?

Hi PB Community! First time poster. I just built a .75 acre pond on my property, and have decided to use a reputable pond and lake management company here in Georgia to stock it, just to make sure I get it right. My goal is to have a fishery that provides fast fishing action for my kids and their friends and family, and get bass in the 4-5 pound range, eventually.

I'm curious what everyone thinks of the mix and numbers they have suggested, as it somewhat resembles what I'm seeing on the boards here, but includes a couple more species.

Here's what they suggested and when to stock:

1,000 CNB - Feb
150 RES - Feb
2,000 FHM - Feb
2,000 GS - Feb
25 LMB - late summer
50 CC - Feb
60 lbs of crayfish - May

Total cost is $2250.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

This plan will work with good population mgt. ! With feeding and those #s of LMB the first 3 years should be good. It will be managing the population from 3 yr out which will take some effort but is doable. This 3 yr on mgt. aspect is true of all LMB/BG stocking methods.
I would make one suggestion on initial stocking. I would find and stock 30 4-6 inch CNBG (50/50 male/female) along with the initial CNBG stocking (1000).

If you FIRST start with establishing a strong forage fish and crayfish community, I think in your 0.75 ac you could easily stock 65 to 75 LMB and get great growth rates for the first 3 years with some bass 4lb and maybe a few 5 lbs. Stock your minnows/BG early in the spring then in the fall try and find Young Of Year bass that are at least 7"-10" from Georgia which shows they have been fed well and will have good growth rates. Also try to find pellet trained LMB which will greatly enhance the fishery. After the first bass spawn, then be observant and harvest at least some bass based on the numbers of small bass you are seeing and catching. This could easily be 15-30 small bass out per year. Small bass will be eager to bite on anglers bobber fishing methods. Use this forum thread and the members to help you with information to manage the fish numbers to achieve and MAINTAIN your goals.

Everything QA said.

Especially the part about holding off on crayfish until your bass are big enough to eat them.

The Red Swamp Crayfish are what are typically used for "crawfish boils" and are available in 50#-60# sacks. They will burrow into the pond banks.

What Bill is alluding to when he talks about cover is 110% correct, typically you want to have 25% of the surface area of the pond in cover for the fish. Once you start doing the math for artificial cover, that gets either very expensive or very time intensive very quickly. For your pond you would need to add approximately 7,600 sq. ft. of cover for the fish. A single stack of pallets is only 16 sq. ft. Cover needs to be of different sizes and at varying depths, large fish will utilize cover with more open spaces in it vs. small fish that will utilize dense cover with small spaces.

Further most of the low LMB stocking #s are for southern waters where reproduction is sooner and LMB overcrowding is more prevalent. Northern LMB stocking is substantially different for the opposite reasons.

Cody Note: At least in the smaller ponds in northern midwest and probably in most of the midwest, it is common to have various degrees of overcrowding of LMB. Four of the most common things I think cause this to occur: 1. no bass are removed (Harvested), 2. poor survival of the originally stocked BG. 3. State agency stocking recommendation is stock a ratio of 100LMB to 500BG at the same time. This often results in the bass quickly growing and over powering the first year class of BG. 4. BG only spawn once maybe some twice a year and too many LMB are present for the limited number of BG produced each year. Some well fed LMB in the midwest can spawn at one year old.

There are several concepts for the initial stocking of LMBass (LMB) for numbers per acre. This depends on ones goals. The three main goals are 1. general fishing, 2. mostly large panfish and 3. a focus on producing large bass. The most common stocking densities of LMB range from 25 to 100+ bass per acre. Generally the lower numbers of 25-40 per acre are for producing large bass quickly, mid-range numbers of 50-80/ac are for general fishing and higher numbers of 90-140 LMB/ac are for growing trophy panfish.

The most common stocking method suggested on this PBoss forum prefers that the forage fish of minnows and or bluegill(BG) are stocked first and allowed to spawn and produce large numbers of forage fish. Then later in 5 to 12 months the LMB are stocked to eat and grow fast to sizes of 2 to 3 pounds in usually around 2-3 years. Variations of timing for stocking are often suggested for different pond goals. After 2-3 years, fish management as mainly proper harvest numbers of sizes and species, is needed to keep the bass and or panfish from becoming over abundant. There are different numbers of fish to harvest depending on one of the three main goals mentioned above.

When the predator bass become larger and have reproduced once, twice or three times they are often overabundant and over eat the available numbers of forage fish. Then the LMB have slower growth rates unless some bass are removed. Over abundant LMB cause the development of lots of larger BG because large numbers of bass are eating almost all the small BG and remaining BG have lots of food to grow big. How you harvest your fish determines the quality of the overall sizes of fish in the pond.

There are lots of discussions and posts for growing LMB and bluegill (BG) in our Archives Section.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=22&page=1

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255372#Post255372

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189988#Post189988