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13 hours ago
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| by bronco |
| bronco |
Just built our new pond in Jan and expecting it to be full by May. I plan to stock LMB, CNBG, and Mosquitofish as soon as I can. I'm getting mixed signals from suppliers as to whether i can stock all at once or just stock the baitfish this year and wait until next year for the bass. Any advice would be appreciated.
The pond is 3.5 acres and is located in NE Georgia.
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| by Pat Williamson |
| Pat Williamson |
I’m not in Georgia and not an expert in stocking strategies BUT….
I stocked FHM, in your case mosquito fish early May ‘23, LMB and CNBG fingerlings together in Sept. ‘23
In my experience it has worked out. There are tons of YOY BG and the LMB are growing well.
There is zero chance of the LMB outgrowing and eating the BG that were stocked together
Unless you can grow 5lb bass in under 2 years.
The attached are photos of original stocked BG. We can catch these all day long
Side note: CNBG aren’t supposed to grow very well in Kansas The first year LMB can really grow fast, not sure about 5# but if food is there even that is possible from what I had happen in my pond when it was young
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| by Pat Williamson |
| Pat Williamson |
Pat,
You've been very successful growing trophy LMB. I've been wanting to ask you how long it took you to grow the first example over 10 lbs. Running through the climate model, growth of females could average 2.36 lbs per year (DFW climate). Since this is an average, individuals could have surpassed 2.5 lbs/year. So 5 lbs in 2 years or 10 lbs in 4 or 5 years is doable. IIRC, you have northern LMB? I don’t remember exactly when I caught the first 10# but seems like just a few years after filling…. Amazing since I didn’t want LMB…..and didn’t stock them … they are native to this area what ever they are. All neighbors have 10+# also. I’m still trying to rid of them so I can have BCP…. Not having much luck with that so far….. the LMB have spawned as I’m seeing pods of them on the surface
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| by Bill Cody |
| Bill Cody |
Timing of fish stocking can be important. Best answers to you will be dependent on your goals for the fishery. Primarily big class panfish; general bass and CNBG fishing in a good generalized fishing pond, high catch rates with regular sized bluegill and bass mostly 2 lb to 4lb with a few 5lb sizes OR are you wanting primarily trophy class bass of 6lb-10lb. . Be informed it is very difficult to have together trophy CNBG and trophy bass mostly 6lbs to 8lbs. Different types of management are needed for having mainly each of trophy big panfish and trophy bass. Trophy CNBG need lots of smaller 1lb to 3 lb bass and trophy bass need lots of small panfish to properly feed the lower numbers of oversized bass. Note that trophy bass means you can't grow very many per acre and bass catch rates are low per hour of fishing due to only a few exist per acre.
Along with the mosquito fish you can also now stock some fathead minnows to help enhance the small fish forages. If the pond were mine I would allow the pond to get full. While this is happening Nature is producing an abundance of invertebrate foods to enhance the food chain. Too early of stocking when pond is murky due to high mud silt turbidity this suppresses the light limitation for production of the important bottom of the food chain - primarily phytoplankton and zooplankton that are necessary for fast fish grow of the stocker sportfish.
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