Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - SMB for NOVA pond?

Anyone know where I can locate 50 to 100 SMB fingerlings for a pond in Northern VA. Bluegill and Perch have been getting established over last two years and getting desperate as local hatchery Zetts hasn't had SMB in stock both years. Will to pay a good price if someone with a local pond has some available!

SMB have proven numerous times to not control bluegill density. As predatory behavior, SMB will focus their main predation efforts on the more slender bodied yellow perch and tend to neglect the wider body BG to the point of prolific BG becoming over abundant and stunting can/will occur.

Reconsider instead of SMB, using LMB as a predator and then focus on removing appropriate sizes of LMB that produce the size of BG and YP for your goal. IMO it will be a real challenge to produce a high quality pan fishery using reproducing populations of both YP and BG without focused predation on the small 2"-3.5" BG. I think you may need to add hybrid striped bass with the SMB to try and control too many BG. As a result too few YP will end up as an occasional bonus fish will likely be the result. If the SMB-HSB combo does not do well at controlling the BG start adding 10" LMB to get the too many small BG numbers reduced and back to growing into 8"+ size categories. Eventually after several generations LMB will then be the dominant predator resulting in fewer and fewer SMB.

Pellet feeding too many over abundant small BG without adequate predation pressure and a focused small fish harvest often results in producing even more too many undersized BG due to more BG being reproduced and not eliminated from the community.

Great fisheries result from having the niches of predator and prey fishes matched or paired toward optimum feeding behaviors.

You can have SMB and LMB together. What has to happen is you periodically supplementally stock SMB at 7"-9" every 2-3 years. In small ponds LMB bully SMB and for the most part keep the SMB from providing recruitment.

Let me share the Kansas state record perch just came from a 1/2ac (going on 5yr old) pond that was stocked with 3-5" BG and RES, 4-6" YP, 2.5" SMB. Year 2 in went Saugeye in a very low number to help control small BG. Year 3 I stocked a half dozen WAE to be ready to replace a few SAE that I have now taken out, and I stocked 6 HSB at 9".
I regularly catch 12-16" YP, SMB up to right at 17" now and I am constantly culling 8-12" SMB and YP. I have 2 year classes of BG that are 9-11" and some 13" RES. It's very unique, it requires some hands-on, but make no mistake, it can be done.

Ken77 - By all means keep returning here to up date up on the progress of your VA pond with SMB and BG. Your results will be very helpful for all those interested in Smallmouth bass.