Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - YP Progress

Stocked 100 YP April 2019. 1/2 acre in Central Ohio. Bottom Aeration.

Just took my first fish survey measurements. It appears I have two class of fish that I'm currently catching by hook and line.

Those in the 9.75 - 10.25" range and those in the 7.5" range.

I'm at around 85% RW across the 10 YP I sampled.

I have no idea what this means other than feed more pellets... I guess?

Ok, Cody can correct me if I get off track but I've found my YP began to suffer at 10-11", or that's where WR dropped below 100%.
The determination was my SMB were consuming forage that was also needed for the same general size of YP. At first I thought maybe I needed to thin my YP but the opposite was the case... I needed to thin the SMB to leave more forage available. I culled about 70 SMB from 7-10" last summer and the results have been positive in the changes I see this summer with 13-14" YP with 100-105 WR.
The remaining SMB are faster growing as well so I believe some selective harvest is needed there removing all but the heaviest, healthiest specimens.
I think with the reproductive possibilities of YP, continued effort to remove the mid sizes will be important, and I think I would focus my efforts on removing 7-9" YP. Leave a few of the 5-7" to help with keeping male numbers sufficient for proper fertilization-which in hind-sight, may be best if only 1/3 to 1/2 of the ribbons were actually fertile. A lot depends on how well your YP reproduce so that's something you'll have to monitor and manage accordingly. Some ponds have very high reproduction, others have very little-same with SMB- that can go either way but in 3-1/2 yrs i've found my SMB reproduction has been fairly stable, always have YOY showing up.
I'm going to take a piece from an article Cody wrote because I believe in his substance...Remove any SMB caught that is skinny or sub-par health-wise, it has suffered a lack of food and will never reach it's potential. I believe the same for YP-if they are not staying above 97-98% WR, I don't think these fish will achieve large, healthy condition. If they start dropping below 95%+/- WR, it's time to make some changes. Just like any forage fish, some have to make it through to satisfy the larger sizes of predators. In this case, to get larger YP you may have to remove more SMB AND mid-size YP to get some giants.

They are fairly easy to catch, fight hard, take pellets really well and they taste great! What is not to like?

And they spawn only one time per year, which in my mind makes them easier to manage than say BG that spawn almost constantly during warm months.

FishinRod, no need to stress about extra deep pond, the YP will do fine where you are at. It must be a myth that they need deep and cold water, as long as you have don't aerate to mix all the water to 80 degrees or warmer they will be fine. I have a shallow pond with a little bit of stratification of temps so that at the 8-10' mark there still is a bit of temp change and they do fine. I try to aerate at night in the warm summer months to try to keep surface temps down a bit.

Go for it!

Canyoncreek - I like that you have 55 degree well water as a safety net. If you get a crushing heat wave, you should still be able to safely get your fish through it by supplementing with well water and then aerating your water column.

Heppy - Now you are just making me jealous! Spring fed pond with no aeration required. You should probably make your fish pay rent to live in such nice accommodations.

I am hoping to buy YP from Snipe when I can get the pond going, since his conditions are similar to mine. I figure he might have the YP so well trained that they will also mow the grass around the pond and cut and stack firewood at the cabin.

They draw the line at the firewood Rod..

Like everything in the world of ponds, it all depends. Although you are correct it is nice to have the 55 degree well water as an option to inject cold water into the pond, then the other side of the equation is this. I'm injecting water that has very little oxygen in it directly to the part of the pond where the water might be a little less likely to exposed to the air. If I can continue to take that cold and low oxygen well water and mix it up to the top to get exposed to the air and pick up some oxygen that might be OK, and then we have to get it all the way back to the bottom without warming it up too much so that the benefit becomes a new supply of cold water that is carrying all the oxygen it can. Cold water carries more dissolved oxygen but it has to get the oxygen dissolved first!

Some can run the well water over some rocks or a waterfall to pre-oxygenate but my discharge line is buried under the frost line from the house out to the pond and comes out straight into the pond at about 4-5' of depth and about 30' out from shore. I notice when the plume from that outflow is going that it doesn't stay injected at depth, there is a little disturbance in the water at the surface too so some of that water must be going straight out, some up as well.

Adding some blue dye to the inflowing water and watching how it distributes would be neat.

Having a DO meter would also be nice

Rod, when the time comes for your YP, I believe mine are doing well and I'm 2.6 miles N of I-40, 61 miles from Tx Panhandle.
so far no issues with temp , way south of you and picked up my fish 20 miles from Iowa border, so not acclimated to the local weather. . Since switching to Optimal,
they've started feeding on Jr. Just wanted to give some encouragement at your Latitude , when time comes for you. Never heard of them before stocking , have fallen in love with the little beauties over last 3 years they've been in my pond.

Original stocking 300 4-6" 450 2", original intent was food base for my SMB and Walleye in 1.8-2.0 A pond . Feel confident of SMB
recruitment , biggest 15-16", catching 5" to 10", guessing 2 years recruitment. Need to cull I think. Walleye from 13" to 15" but solid for
length. Need to start culling WE I'm sure. In need of traps for YP so I can confirm recruitment, once confirmed, then they are invited to
dinner.