Been a few years since I’ve been on the forums. We unfortunately had to sell our last pond, but managed to land on our feet. We are currently having a new 0.5 acre pond built. The new speckle belly hybrid seems like a good fit. I was curious if anyone has had any luck with them. I was thinking of doing straight speckle belly and maybe a few HSB or LMB for offspring control. It would be interesting to hear some opinions.
We will be close to the pond with power so feeding and aeration will be available and utilized.
I stocked them 2 years ago. They do start off slow but once they get to 6 inches they take off! When they get really big, some of them get really black looking, like a black perch with a bright red ear. They do love pellets and are very aggressive. I have them stocked with Res and have seen no problems yet. I highly recommend over reg hybrids.
Here's a pic of a Specklebelly we caught yesterday evening from our 1/3 acre pond. They were stocked at 3-4" in October 2024. We're happy with them so far.
Here are the sex ratios (percent male) that Childers got with various hybrid crosses. The male parent is listed first. There is some variation in the numbers from other studies
Redear X Bluegill 97 (3) Bluegill X Redear 97 Redear X Green 69 Green X Redear 48 Bluegill X Green 97 Green X Bluegill 68 (2) Redear X Warmouth 55 Bluegill X Warmouth 69 (2) Green X Warmouth 16 Warmouth X Green 84
It would be very beneficial if more PBoss Forum members tried specklebelly sunfish and regularly reported to our Forum the progress of their SBS. We want to hear all about your fish growing adventures. I think that one could stock SBS and smallmouth bass as a successful fishery especially if the fish received a high quality fish food because the SMB should be able to adequately control the limited reproduction from the specklebelly sunfish. I think the specklebellies would grow as good as or even better as the ones grown by our Forum member Theo Gallus in the link provided above. As an alternative to using smallmouth with SBS one could use hybrid striped bass (HSB) or both SMB and a few HSB to whatever density needed to eat the annual reproduction of SBS. Add HSB as needed. Hopefully we can see someone here to have bragging rights of growing some 2 lb-3 lb specklebelly sunfish.
ozark - Malone Fish Farm suggests using SBS at 200-300 per ACRE. If it were my 0.5 ac pond I would start with NO more than 120 in 1/2 ac unless you use SMB (24-35 in 1/2ac) AND some HSB (as 10-14) to help control any SBS reproduction that might escape what the smallmouth can locate and eat for the fishery. If you add some 10+ HSB then you could IMO add 150 SBS into 0.5 ac. A 12" SMB & HSB weigh about one pound. 2 lb SMB & HSB are around 15" long and 2-3 years old. Plan for the predators to grow and add weight to the total fish poundage capacity of the pond. See more about pond carrying capacity later.
In my experience the fewer SBS that you stock the faster and larger they will grow. This all relates to the fish weight carrying capacity of the pond. The more one pushes the limits of a pond ecosystem the more fish health stressors that become involved. Everything grows better when less stress is involved and water quality is better. There are repercussuions and trade offs when one pushes the limits of a pond ecosystem and this usually starts with and involves reduced water quality. Every living thing in the pond depends on good water quality. High water quality is very important when trying to grow big healthy fish. If you are just trying to grow quantity and not necessarily QUALITY then stock the pond above the suggested limit.
If it were mine I would stock the lower density that allows for good healthy fast growth of the fish. Remember when 100 SBS grow to 1.5 lbs (12") this equates to 300 lbs of SBS per acre PLUS the collective weight of the predators. Likely 50-70 lbs or more of bass type predators. Now the pond is at close to 400 lbs of fish per acre - a limit that is pushed IMO TOO high. REMEMBER when using hybrid sunfish,,,, wise management suggests periodically supplimental stocking every 1-3 years some more hybrid sunfish as replacements of those ocassionlly lost.
Remember SBS have a life span and do not live much longer than 5-8 years depending on conditions. Consider yourself fortunate if the original stockers live 9-10 years. If you feed high protein / high carbohydrate pellets IMO the SBS hybrids will not live much longer than 6-7 years. Have a management plan as the original stockers age out and exhibit mortality.
Carrying capacity is the animal load a system can support. This, in turn, directly results in the production capacity, which is the amount (usually numbers and pounds) of animals that a system can produce for the final usage or current standing crop. Standing crop does change as fish die, reproduce and get harvested. When the carrying capacity is reached, fish growth will slow down until some fish die or are removed. Removing fish allows remaining fish to grow or become more numerous. In your case,, I think you want fish to continue growing larger instead of becoming more numerous.
I would save this post to help you wifh fish management as the pond ages. Please do us a favor and periodically return here and update us on your adventures with using SBS.
We only had about 15 minutes to fish today. Caught 2 specklebelly sunfish. One weighed 0.46# and was 8", the other weighed 0.66# and was 9". That's 109.4% and 106.2% relative weights. However, neither was as big as the one I shared the photo of.
