I am thinking about getting a pond built in the next year. My main goal of it will be recreational fishing for the family.
With the property I could only have a 1/4 acre to 3/4 acre pond.
The fish species I want the most is LMB.
How many would you get and what fish would you add with them.
I am open to other ideas as I read LMB and smaller ponds are difficult to manage.
I just want to go out with some lures and soft plastics, have a good time with friends and family without have to pack up the kayaks every time I want to fish.
I might add I live in the Gulf coast area of Texas, I'm not sure if that adds any other challenges.
tidwellchad15,
Welcome to the forum. Usually, LMB are stocked at 50 to 100 per acre. LMB are great fish for ponds but to meet your goals you may need to think outside the box. The small size of your planned pond will present challenges. Usually when combined with BG they attain standing weights between 40 and 80 lbs per acre. It may interest you to know, a pond can usually support a similar weight of LMB even if they are the only fish there. To find more about standing weight potential of LMB check out page 60 of this link.
http://www.fao.org/3/ap918e/ap918e.pdfSo you will notice that minnows are very effective at lifting standing weights. I will mention that LMB will tend to extirpate minnow species in ponds so combination of management efforts might be required to make a minnow combination viable long term. I will list them below.
1. Beginning the 2nd fall. Harvest 1/3 the estimated weight of LMB annually.
2. Provide cover in the form of brush to cover 10% to 20% of the area.
3. Use minnow species that reproduce without parental care (GSH - Gambusia - RSH).
4. Have a small sediment pond for forage supplementation. Don't stock LMB in this pond. It should be around 1/20 the size of main bow for forage (for a 1/4 acre main pond about 500 sq ft). Remove all the forage you can by trapping or dip netting during their reproductive season and release in the main pond. You can't trap them out. Removing especially juvenile sizes will increase the effect which would require a finer mesh.
5. Accept that the situation provides a high standing weight of LMB that should be harvested at weights well below their potential. It would be like trading 3 or 4 very large LMB for dozens of a 8" to 14" LMB in 1/4 acre pond. Minnow forage has been shown to grow 115 to 350 lbs/acre of LMB in 1.5 years. So I think a goal of maximum standing weight of 120 with annual fall harvest of 40 lbs/acre would probably be sustainable with the forage supplementation I mentioned. It may possibly do better with the brush. If your harvest is unable to keep the LMB in good condition ... it should be increased.
I like a pond like this for fast action with small lures. Especially as a fly fishing pond using bugs, streamers, leaches, wooly buggers, etc. If something like this would work with your goals (size of the fish wasn't clear to me).
I think PK Shrimp would also be a good forage addition. Get all your habitat and forage established before you add the LMB. If you were to do the scenario above ... I would go with 100 LMB/acre
