Currently I have SMB / YP stocked in a two year old pond. SMB are 10.5-11" in length. I also have what I call a ridiculous (pushing disgusting) number of bull frog tadpoles that are now rather large (over wintered).

I'm curious if these tadpoles provide any forage base for my SMB? I suspect the SMB are not large enough to consume the stage of tadpoles. Being that we enjoy swimming in the pond during warm weather I have concerns that anyone is going to want to swim with this number of tadpoles. I'm considering catching and culling them. But, if they are a good forage base for my SMB, then I will leave them.

Your SMB are unlikely to find the BF tadpoles palatable until they transition into little bullfrogs, at that point it will be game on.

Like Shorty - in my personal experience NO fish in my fisheries will consume BF tadpoles [SMB, HSB, WE, YP, BCP, BG, RES] until they transition into BF - per Lusk they have an enzyme on their skin rendering them unpalatable. This has been the subject of debate, but I have performed experiments feeding fish with tadpoles and on every occasion they were ignored or spit out immediately. Further, I find the MILLIONS of BF tadpoles in my ponds as proof they are not utilized as forage - otherwise my fish would all be over 150 WR. Maybe it's a species oriented situation - LMB and CC may consume them, but in my personal experience they are invulnerable to predation.

I have thousands of BF tadpoles in my retention pond but don’t see any in the main pond . Is that normal?
If anyone want any come get all you want

Pat in my experience with several new ponds the bullfrogs go gangbusters for the first year or two. Then when predators like LMB get some size, they get a lot more scarce.
I had a bunch last year in my RES/SMB pond. This will be year 3 for it and I am curious if they go by the wayside with the SMB as predator as compared to LMB in my other ponds.

I will still see a half dozen bullfrogs in my main pond that is going on 7 years. But not the loads of bullfrog tadpoles like I did when the pond was younger. One 6# LMB caught this spring so that would eat a pretty big bullfrog. (I don't manage for large bass as I am more of a pan fish angler).

Our 5 yr old primarily SMB and YP pond has had thousands of BF tadpoles every year. This year is no exception. As has been stated by the pros, the fish won’t touch them. Ours are just getting legs. The kingfisher won’t eat them either. I’ve seen a few that were chomped, and then spit out on the dock. They seem protected. I took this yesterday.

Pat,

I didn't know you have a retention pond full of tadpoles. Are there any fish in it? How big is it?

It’s very small (25x50) and is overflow from the lake. Handful of fatheads and now escaped BG young and now probably baby bass since had a 3” rain yesterday. Was trying to get the fatheads to reproduce but when the pond overflows all kinds of youngsters sneak into it

I'm going to start trapping and using as fertilizer if they have no use as a forage base.

Like others have mentioned...the forage base comes when the TP's turn to frogs. Like many others, my pond is chock-full of TP's, but I never see it choked with frogs. The fresh tail-less frogs must be leaving and/or becoming snacks. Although, my pond always seems to have hords of TP's and I can relate with you, bcraley, that the numbers can get to a disturbing level. I can catch TP's with my cloverleaf trap. I don't know if the fish food pellets that I use in the trap are attraching the TP's or if they are just wondering in. I am actually trying to trap small gills, but I get the TP's too. I know TP's like uncooked oatmeal...maybe some of that in a sock in a trap would draw them in.

Really good repurposing idea...I bet they would be great nitrogen in a compost bin, too.

Pat this is interesting - I'm GUESSING why you have few TPs in your main pond is because your adult BF are getting hammered before they can reproduce, thus no TPs. Or, perhaps your fishery has a predator mine lacks, like CC or LMB....perhaps one of those species is hammering the TPs? If so your predator fish should be astronomically huge - TPs swim slowly, have zero defense mechanisms, and should be consumed by the thousands.

Bullfrogs never would have made it through evolution unless the TPs [which can remain TPs for 3 years] had some adaptation for survival - they are slow, they lack any fins, zero defense whatsoever. That's why Lusk's enzyme explanation made so much sense, and also explained why I have millions in all my ponds. Their one defense is palatability...

When my pond was new with small and few lmb/hsb in it I had lots and lots of Bf's along with alot of Tpoles. Today I have a couple of B frogs and they don't stay long in the big pond. I will see a lot of them in my sediment pond when raising FHM's in it. Another thing I don't see in the big pond is snakes and prior to my lmb/hsb getting to be nice sized I had quite a few snakes that would show up at the pond. Today I very rarely see a snake in the big pond. I have seen one or two in the sediment pond when it has Bf's in it when their feeding on the FHM's.

When BF's first come out of the water. They have many things that eat them. One thing most people don't realise is the larger bf's eat anything that moves that is smaller than their mouth, small bf's. I once caught a 5 inch CC that a large bullfrog ate while it flopped around next to bank. At my lake they start out lining the bank a foot apart, by end of summer they are very large and 20 feet apart.

Prior to adding LMB, there were bullfrog tadpoles numbering in what seemed like Millions, everywhere, and as mentioned above, snakes cruising the shoreline. I once watched an otter corralling and stuffing them in his mouth like a fat kid at a candy store.
Now, I would have to search for the BFTPs, then only find a few, snakes have moved on as well.

I think a lot of Gods animals etc are smarter than we think. Like said here after the lmb get larger the snakes and Bull frogs for the most part will avoid those waters. It's like "Ha Bro don't go there sharks in the water"

Just keep in mind that elimination of 1 element can drastically change another..
Large numbers of BF Tadpoles also consume a fair amount of algae.