Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - New build

I'm in the process of building a .4-.5 acre pond with a max depth of 10-12'. My goal is to raise eating sized bluegill, and some decent 2-3# large mouth bass. Mainly just a fun place for the kiddos to fish and to be able to support a fish fry a couple times a year. When it comes to habitat I was thinking of doing a few pallet structures, some rock piles, and a pea gravel section of a bank. Then a couple tree tops stacked on top of each other. Am i missing anything? also, i'd love some suggestions on stocking.
Thanks!

I'm not sure on temps yet due to pond not being finished yet. But i know some rivers/lakes south of me have yellow perch populations so i wouldn't think it'd be completely out of the question.

Augie used the wisest method to get grass shrimp established.

Going back and reading your fishery goals: "I'm in the process of building a .4-.5 acre pond with a max depth of 10-12'. My goal is to raise eating sized bluegill, and some decent 2-3# large mouth bass."
Then IMO You really do not need grass shrimp to achieve growing high quality fish for your stated goals. Your primary 1st concern is to stock proven high quality fish from a reputable grower or supplier and not something bought off a traveling fish truck. Ask where the stocker fish came from and what is known about the genetic background of the fish.

2nd concern is seek and find pellet raised fish that you buy. The larger the stockers are the more habituated they are to eat pellets.

3rd is to buy the appropriate sized stocker fish for the time when you stock them. Do not by the smallest size of the species available as those are likely to be the runts and slower growers which is usually the small size available in spring. Also smallest fish have the least time trained to eat pellets which means they may not resume eating pellets very well - poorly habituated to pellets. Pellets grow fish better compared eating grass shrimp.

4th is feed the fish a high quality fish food such as Optimal Bluegill or Purina sport fish food. Best first year plan is to buy some (1/2 bag) high protein food from the supplier of the fish. For your small pond I would not buy a whole 40-50 lb bag because you will only need 12 to 20 lbs of food for the rest of the year of feeding for the 0.4ac new small fish pond. It is best to not store and use fish food for over a year old.

Because you are somewhere in TN and if your really care about getting your pond started off very good, I would at least contact this TN pond company for an opinion and an estimate for getting your fish; even if you have to drive 3 hrs to pick them up. I agree with his stocking strategy and pond start-up philosophy. He is reputable for quality fish and concerned about his reputation for growing quality fish.
https://www.trophypond.com/pond-stocking-tennessee-fish-stocking

See his referenced article near the page bottom about grass shrimp – note in the article they are usually associated with abundant vegetation. Vegetation is a key item for grass shrimp success.
https://www.trophypond.com/resources
Article Quotes -
"They reproduce and survive best in the weedy habitat found in many ponds. They do not become abundant when stocked in larger lakes and reservoirs-or in ponds containing sport fish and few aquatic weeds. adults can be caught in May and June by seining or dip-netting in weedy areas of ponds, ditches and streams. They are not common, however….. In August 1973 we collected 81 bluegill from a pond filled with aquatic vegetation. Most were less than 5 inches long, but some were as long as 8 inches. Shrimp were present in the stomachs of 64% of the fish,"

IMO you are best spending your money on better quality fish and high quality fish food to produce quality fish compared to trying to establish grass shrimp in a new bare bottom pond.

Keep us updated as to the progress of your pond.

Small sample size anecdotal information follows:

I gave my pond a year to develop vegetation before I added grass shrimp. I bought 20 of them from the ebay guy.
A year later there were thousands of them swimming in the pond.

Patience is your friend when starting a new pond.

I am going to read back on your project Bob. Sounds fun!

As with most things, you can have too much of a good thing. Including pallets. First, pallets are usually treated. Not usually enough to do any damage, but the potential is there. They will gradually degrade, but not for years. Second, pallets catch hooks. Snags. A lot of folks like PVC structures instead. An array of pallets in different shapes and sizes will be fun to put together and place. Try to mark them so they're easy to find when the pond fills up. Concrete and rocks are great! I don't know if you can have too much rocky substrate. But it's definitely labor intensive. I encourage you to check out the structure thread that Bill Cody posted earlier. Great ideas there.

Edit - With regard to the concrete and rocks. As the pond silts in, as they all do (Lusk says every pond wants to be dry land), a large majority of your rocky intentions will be covered in mud/silt. So on the bottom of the pond, unless it's a pile, kind of defeats the purpose. But on the shoreline, like the first 4-6 feet deep or so, is wonderful habitat for an array of species. Bouncing jigs off rocks is serious fun too. All depends on how much work you want to put into it.

Still digging away. Some of the deeper holes will be right around 15-17’ deep with total surface acreage right over 1/2 acre.

I'm adding a bunch of busted concrete and some more rock as well. .then sprinkling in some pallet structures. . The stumps are just what I required the excavators for. They're BIG stumps too, from 24" wide oak trees.

While I love crayfish in a pond, I'd wait to put them in until you have the underwater plants established. Adding the crayfish first will make adding plants later difficult.

Rod, test it with some fish in a tub, bucket or… I won’t try it again.

If there isn't enough habitat for the panfish to hide from the SMB, then the SMB will also control some of them. I have a customer that has YP, RES, SMB in a pond along with some HSB that someone bucket stocked. VERY little cover in the pond for the fish to hide in. The SMB are stunted and there are very little other species that grow to adulthood. The SMB control all the other species, and actually they do too good of a job. More SMB need to be harvested, and if I can convince the owner to put the correct amount of cover in the pond it would be a good fishery in a few years. Right now not enough SMB harvest is going on.

Remember you need roughly 20%-25% of the surface area of the pond in cover for the fish, from shallow water to deep water. Small openings in the cover for small fish, larger openings for larger fish and predators.