Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Minnows or straight to SMB?

We dug a new two acre pond in the north east. I had a whole stocking plan ready, but turns out there aren’t many places around here that stock fish (I’m near Toronto Ontario).

I am ultimately hoping to have Walleye and SMB as the top predators. I found a minnow supplier but all they supply is a “grab bag” from the local creeks, so I am a bit worried about what species we might get. I also did find a SMB hatchery, but they suggest the minnows wouldn’t last, even with structure and a year head start, so they suggested I just wait a year and then just do SMB next spring once the pond has naturalized further and frogs/insects/ etc can be the forage food. They also suggest that their SMB are pellet trained, and suggested I could even do the SMB this year if I fed them. The SMB are 1” long and they want $3 a piece, which seems pricey,

I’m not quite sure what to do. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there are any other sources of minnows around here, so I’m tempted to say “screw it”, and just add the minnows now and see what happens. But maybe I’ll end up regretting that. What do you all think?

I started with an MNRF aquaculture license and fourteen 5" SMB from Lake Manitou 8 years ago, I sell all sizes of SMB, I have a thousand 280 gram and five hundred 100 gram SMB in the recirculation tanks at 20C this winter, I'm doing some feed delivery and food conversion testing on the SMB. I have a few thousand 6" in the floating raceways at 0.5C, and the brood stock are in a few different ponds on the property. It's interesting to see how they behave at that temp, I modified some POE surveillance cameras that I use under the ice to monitor the fish in the raceways and ponds. SMB are an awesome fish, very hardy, best pound for pound freshwater fighting fish... and they taste great!

I can haul fish back to my place from any state as long as nothing is dropped anywhere on the way home.
Getting fish from Canada requires different paperwork and for what I'm told, it may require a request from within my state agency.
The reason I am interested is I have a friend that has been there and I want to see this in action, I'm more interested in the process than bringing fish home. My geno is as good as can be found for the northern strain but there is always room to improve the culture process.

Red flag here for me...SMB are not pellet trained at 1". You pull them from their fry growouts once they reach 1-1.25" and begin to train via ground up krill shrimp, then transition to specialty pellets. At 3" they could be considered "feed trained".
Cody has notes on SMB as a sole species, SMB with soft ray minnow species and with other species. SMB will eat their own, but what will maximize growth to get them up to spawning age? Also, I don't believe SMB will produce enough to feed WAE and themselves.
Sorting the minnows, buying from a bait shop or adding YP would have to be done, IMHO.

Stocking your 2 acres with a minnow “grab bag” from local Toronto creeks is a feasible method PROVIDING you CAREFULLY sort the small fish to remove: all sunfish types - especially green sunfish, bullheads, common carp, suckers and redhorse. Carefully avoid them. Know the body features of common fishes in your Toronto local area. General rule is when in doubt, toss it out. SMB do not live real well and grow big bass with the northern sunfishes as the main forage fish. All those previously named species can cause various types of long term problems for your SMB-walleye(WE) fishery.

I have done lots of minnow creek trapping some of it in Canada. I spent one entire summer on a Canada lake for my MS thesis. I have the very good book Freshwater Fishes of Canada (Scott & Crossman). Extensive studying about the common small fishes has shown me a lot of the common minnows/shiners that occur in your local creeks will not reproduce in the still water pond conditions. A lot of those are stream species and need moving stream water and gravel substrate conditions for completing a spawn and egg hatching. Some to numerous of those in the ‘grab bag’ that are stocked will not breed when put into your pond; they will live, grow to adult size, and then die in usually several years.

All of the chub species, including the very common creek chub, will NOT reproduce in your pond; yes,,,, live okay, but won’t reproduce. The very common creek chubs can grow to 8”-10” long in the pond before they die of old age. The only local "grab bag" species that could cause some water clarity problems would be the suckers and redhorses when they grow large because too many would tend to roil the sediments when searching the sediments for food that create unwanted turbidity. Several suckers would be okay but with lots of them,,,, I see as potential problems.

Those several stocked minnows/shiners species that do manage to recruit new youngsters will provide a type of good forage base. Although many of those reproducer species will be small adults such as red belly dace, and will not grow very large and may not perpetuate very long in the pond with predators of SMB and WE unless extensive dense habitat is present. The typical several local Toronto stream species most likely to thrive in your pond habitat would be the native fathead minnow, common bluntnose minnows, golden shiner and spotfiin shiner. Our Forum member Donno did manage to get common shiner and emerald shiner to reproduce successfully in his yellow perch pond by providing special moving water conditions from a fairly large waterfalls. The common lake shiner as spottail shiner, has a remote but very doubtful success of spawning well in your pond.


I suggest that you ALSO go to some local small lake habitats and set a baited (old bread) minnow trap in some of the remote shoreline areas for minnows that thrive live in that lake. Those species present "suggest” that they are successful pond/lake dwellers and able to spawn in still water conditions, although some may have been hatched in feeder streams and live their life in the lake. Those lake minnows present are VERY likely to be the ones to reproduce in your pond. Beaver ponds in Canada are also good places to collect pond dwelling minnow species. Golden shiners are a common successful shiner in many Canada lakes.

In my long pond management experience, your stocking plan IMO for best success, needs a panfish such as the yellow perch(YP) that serves as a very good compatible forge fish with SMB & WE and is very good table fare. Well balanced YP numbers can easily grow to 10"-12" long. Well balanced YP numbers is key to growing 12" long YP.
The YP feeds well on invertebrates and small fish and will provide lots of small forage for SMB and WE... I would use WE as a bonus fish and not stock more than 5-7/ ac unless the pond has a dense minnow population. Maybe omit the WE until you see and abundance of small YP and or minnows. WE as 15”-16" individuals eat up to 5” perch. WE in ponds struggle to grow beyond 3 lbs. Perch are common in lots of lakes in Canada. There is a good natural reason for this common northern fishery combination.

Perch and some of the young SMB will also pellet train fairly well with good conscious effort and encouragement to eat high protein pellets. Pellets grow fish faster and more of them per acre. Although YP do not need to be fed pellets. But without pellets fewer total pounds of fish will be raised per acre. Quite a few harvestable fish can be raised on all natural foods in a 2 ac pond. A natural fed fishery with a good balanced proper harvest and population management in 2 ac can grow a very nice harvestable fishery. Fertility and clarity of the pond water determines quantity of the fish that can be raised per acre. Very clear water ponds grow notably fewer fish per acre. If you decide to add YP to the pond, I would first allow the minnows to reproduce one summer along with maybe several added mature 5”-7”+ YP. Then after or just before the first YP spawn add the predators to help control the 1st reproduction from the YP so you do not have an early overpopulation of YP and a better chance of fishery balance of prey fish and predator.

I agree with Snipe's wise comment that 1" SMB are not well pellet trained and at that size will very likely not continue eating pellets in a pond with lots of natural foods. Best stocker pellet trained SMB are 4"-6" long and have a $ value of $10-$15 each! Smaller ones may not eat pellets well when placed in a food rich pond. Snipe also wisely says that SMB will not reproduce enough small fish to feed even several WE per acre. I wholly agree. Plan on EACH WE and adult SMB to eat at least 300-400 small fish per year

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