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Thread Like Summary
4CornersPuddle, FishinRod, LANGSTER
Total Likes: 5
Original Post (Thread Starter)
by LANGSTER
LANGSTER
This land/lake was bought 1 year ago. Previous owner used it to duck and goose hunt in the winter. He said it was stocked with bass 7 years ago. We could not find any fish period. But it was and is full of frogs. So we killed the pond over a year ago and saw no fish.

In April I used pond perfect plus and treated it twice. Pond is 7.5 foot deep in center and 4 foot on shallow end well built, not much if any algae. It has thousands of tadpoles in it everywhere. Lots of frogs, has several wood ducks and couple of geese daily.

I had tremendous outcome with a 1/2 acre pond in mid 1990's that I stocked with 200 RES 100 BG and 50 LMB in stages. To this day it has 10-12 inch RES and BG and lots of 12-14 inch bass. I am a big fan of RES shellcracker are great to eat.

So I would like to have Big Bream and lots of Bass. Redear shellcracker have been hard to find this year here. Monday May 2 I stocked 10lbs of fat head minnows and 300 RES. Got them from fish wagon, they were to be 2-3 inches, but they were 1.5 to 2 inches. I was going to stock HBG and Coppernose until I started reading this forum. So stocking rest in June. Do I get 300 Copper nose ( by the way thank you pond boss didn't know what they were!) and another 100 RES? I want to stock 100 LMB as well, I was told to wait until october to stock the bass. My goal is big bream. I would like any input you guys have. Was just wondering since bass and copper nose 2-3 inches, if I could stock in June? I am fine doing it in stages it worked before, but I think RES are more of 50/50 stock if you want to have enough to catch, since they do not reproduce as much. I know I am new here but I would really like any help I can get, I want to do it right.
Liked Replies
by SherWood
SherWood
This is good news to my ears. I have RES around those sizes I stocked in April. I am hoping they and some of the bluegill will spawn this year. I wasn't planning on it and haven't seen any beds yet but this gives me hope at least. My FHMs have turned from thousands into what looks like millions now in that short of time.
1 member likes this
by Bill Cody
Bill Cody
Langster - What state are you in??
Okay GOALS are very important . if you are trying to grow trophy panfish as in CNBG & RES then you really need to stock more LMB not fewer. If it were my pond and BG & RES have spawned I would stock more than 100 LMB in 1.1ac, maybe up to 150/ac. To get best "BG" growth long term one needs heavy predation of always the current year class of panfish to keep their numbers low density so they always have plenty of excess food for optimum growth. Feeding pellets helps with maintaining abundant food, however too many BG without proper harvest results in less than an optimum trophy fishery. Too many fish and in limited water area with excess pellet feeding eventually results in decreased water quality and a less than optimum fishery.

Another option rather than 100+ LMB per acre would be to manually by trapping and or seining shallows to thin the current year class of sunfish in their first 1-2 years of life.

Once pond is stocked with bass, then it becomes your management task to properly harvest the "BG" crop to optimize "BG" growth in terms of long term rapid growth. Proper Harvest of BG involves best numbers to remove,,. best sizes to remove,, and focus harvest on removing a higher percentage of females compared to males. Bull male BG influence how well and how fast the younger males or each year class grow. It is a bullying affect of biggest males suppressing maturity of the young males that enables them to achieve the best growth rate.

See this lengthy discussion about growing the biggest and best BG from our Archives. IMO the information also applies to RES.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=286872#Post286872
1 member likes this
by LANGSTER
LANGSTER
You will not find better people and service than the folks at Optimal Fish Food. I ordered Optimal Jr. and got Optimal Bluegill. Which I was going to get some of that soon to mix with Optimal Jr. E-mailed them and ordered another bag of Optimal Jr. Within 30 minutes the owner of the company called me and offered me free replacement bag. I told him it was not a big deal because soon I was going to be ordering the Optimal Bluegill anyway. So I would just keep it and buy another bag of Optimal Jr.

Yesterday I got my Optimal Jr. and a nice Optimal hat and Optimal coaster. Not only is the product the best on the market but the customer service is awesome.
1 member likes this
by esshup
esshup
Originally Posted by LANGSTER
Fat head minnows and they are plenty in there, and coppernose offspring. Plenty of cover water is up, got grass now, and several pallets in pond with concrete blocks and some pipe and a nice brush pile. Why are the bream growing ( yes I feed everyday) and the bass look like I got them out of a creek? Now they are pounding minnows in the evening now, did not see any for 6 months, maybe it is weather but they got plenty to eat. Growing 3 to 4 inches in 7 months has disappointed me. I was hoping for 8 to 9 inch and thicker

It is how thin they are that concerns me. I wanted 6 to 8 inch bass but I did not want to pay 6 dollars a bass.

If there isn't enough cover in the pond for the LMB to hide in and ambush their prey, they will miss a lot of attacks. Like you trying to sneak up on a whitetail in a picked rice or corn field with a bow. Ain't gonna happen easily. The bass need cover in there to ambush their prey from. Think of tree tops, etc. that have holes in the cover that are 12" dia to 24+" dia for them to loaf in and dart out of to get their prey. With minimal cover they are like marathon runners - eating a lot of calories but burning most of them off swimming around. In your pond you want about 1/4 acre minimum of cover for the fish. Do you have that of the correct sized cover? Don't stock any more minnows, let the bass eat them and start working on the baby bluegills.
1 member likes this
by LANGSTER
LANGSTER
No problem with bass growth now, they are really growing females are 10 inches or better and males smaller but they are really healthy now and very aggressive. I caught my first 2 hybrid speckle belly this week. Got to be the best looking bream I have ever seen and growing nicely. Stocked 2 inchers in Febuary and they are 4 to 5 inch already. But nothing grows like CNBG, if you feed them every day good food. I got 10 inch fish already and wider than your hand in one year!


Thank you guys for all the help on this forum. Hooking up my aerator at my new 3/8 acre pond saturday. Very excited! It just got delivered Pro Lake 1.1 1/2 motor with 9 inch Duraplate diffuser 1/2 motor with built in timer.

The only thing that I would have done different is stocked minnows redear and speckle belly first wait. Then add the bass when I added the coppernose. They grow great but they sure spawn alot already having to cull lots of small ones. CNBG need a predator quicker than I did it. But it is all good!
1 member likes this
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