H2Ofowlr
I’ve talked with three different fish hatcheries and they are saying that the SM will not breed in my pond, even with the size depth and structure I have?
Be very suspect of the advice coming from those 3 fish hatcheries. Those are uninformed workers.
Once you put smallmouth in a pond and NO largemouth bass in the pond and with any sort of sand and or gravel beach materials it is difficult to keep the SMB from spawning. Now what happens to the newly hatched smallie fry is another topic.
The spawning nest site structure developed by TJ (member and moderator) and shown by esshup (member /moderator) is an excellent piece of structure to facilitate spawning of SMB.
Our esteemed fishy professor Dr Dave Willis from South Dakota State Univ always said that SMB will often overpopulate in northern ponds if the SMB are the only predator. Every pond where I've stocked smallmouth bass in Ohio we see reproduction and recruitment. Dr Willis and I wrote an article in Pond Boss magazine Jan-Feb 2013 titled "TALKING POINTS: Smallmouth Bass" where we discussed 19 topics about growing smallmouth bass in ponds. Here are a few highlights from the article:
In northern ponds, smallmouth bass reproduction and survival rate of young bass tends to be quite high. In southern ponds, smallmouth bass year class production is much less consistent and less reliable.
Largemouth bass and smallmouth bass in the same pond typically results in a disappearance of the smallies. The largemouth bass seem to be better competitors in ponds. However, this disappearance does not happen overnight.
Smallmouth bass simply are not as effective of predators as largemouth bass so do not consider them pond equivalents.
A smallmouth bass -- bluegill combination will not be a good idea.
In a pond with smallies alone several research studies have shown more SMB can be raised per acre compared to LMB alone in the pond.
