Hello to all of you! Have a few questions on the new pond we have built.
A little info on the pond: It's approx 1.5 acres with an average depth of 6-7'. Located in NE Kansas. Deepest available depth of 12'. We have installed (2) 20 x 20 and (2) 10 x 10 spawning zones for the BG. Pond is primarily clay bottom with some large rock outcroppings, 30ish concrete blocks with pvc tube, a hump covered with riprap, 90% riprap shoreline and a few ledge drop-offs or cut ledges from 4-6' of water. We are still working on some pvc tree type structures and possibly a little pvc eel grass addition in a couple of the 4-6' depth ranges.
Our goals for the pond are 100% based on fishing/wildlife and lean more to quality LMB (F1's if we can get them). Not sure if we will see double digit fish here or not but would love to see some 7-9 lbs range.
Have read several of the forum posts here and I'm trying to sort out a couple of bits of info. Pond was just finished late fall and will be fed 100% by watershed. There are no upstream ponds. First stocking in spring would be FHM, BG, and Redear. Planning to have a bit of brood stock on the BG and Redear if they are available to jump start the spawning.
I could use some help on GS vs YP. Both of these fish seem to have some predatory and prey characteristics. I like the idea of potential harvest of YP for eating. I think the YP also offer an easier profile to swallow vs adult BG/Redear. Anybody experience with YP vs GS as a supplemental or additional forage base?
A few pics of the project attached for your viewing.
On the crayfish absolutely will be an add. There's a creek 1/4 mile downstream of us that I will likely trap from and they will be the first stocking to the pond this spring (if we can get a little depth of 3-4'). Supplemental stocking of crayfish should be easy to work through should there be a need as the pond is fully stocked and matures.
On the feeding we will be using 1 bank mounted feeder. Likely the Texas Hunter I've seen and read so much about. It's a little tough to see in the pic but from the peninsula there is a slightly deeper pool on the other side of the cut in trench in the attached pics. We'll be feeding off the left side of the peninsula (West).
Aeration will be added at some point as well. I'm thinking this will come in before we complete the final stocking of the pond.
