So can we have too many shiners in our pond? I would have to say they are not all just common shiners but a cross with creek chub. We seem to be catching more shiners than yellow perch. The shiners beat the perch to the bait.

At this point the shiners are way larger than the perch can eat. Some in the 10" range. We have added a couple walleye but not near as many as I would have like to add.

Should we add a couple trout to our pond. I do have better access to trout than walleye. The perch are not at all over populating the pond as much as these shiners are.

Thoughts?

Dono,

That shiner-chub is among the stranger things I have seen. Have you been playing Frankenstein?

I couldn't help but wonder how it would taste if it were scaled, gutted, and deep fried.

Dono - You have found a way to successfully spawn chubs. Picture is a chub. You should publish your method for growing creek spawning shiners and chubs. Shiners and chubs should not hybridize because each belongs to a separate taxonomic genus. Different genera rarely if ever will hybridize. If they did we could cross a bass with a bluegill (sunfish).

I would try trout and see what happens. You might grow some really big trout if the water stays cool enough for summer trout survival.

Donno, if you stock trout, I'd look at Brown Trout, vs. Brookies or Rainbows.

Or maybe a cool trout hybrid like a Tiger!

Ok so added are pictures of these creek chub. In our pond we have a shallow ridge that is between two deep bowls. This shallow area was shot with pea stone and stone chips before we filled the pond. The water fall maybe another reason for the creek chub spawning in our pond. There has been a few we have caught that have their scales on their back half all rasped up like they have been making a bed.

I am confident that these creek chub also have trained them self's to take to the pellet feeder as well. They take the feed differently than the yellow perch. The perch will turn on their side to take the pellet then the creek chub will jump clear out of the water at it.

So can anyone give me some if any cons to adding Brown trout to our perch pond. The only predators in the pond is yellow perch and 1 walleye (18" 3 years ago), that we know of and have never seen after original stocking of 5. Four died the very next day. I am certain there is as many creek chub as perch in our pond. I am sure the creek chub are also eating the small young perch.

My hand is stretched to about 8"s and we are catching right now about 10 of these before we catch a yellow perch. It could be early and I could be just worrying for nothing, but normally we can catch the yellow perch non stop after they spawn. Our first ribbon was April 3rd this year and last was April 10th. Removed all the ribbons we could.

Cheers Don.

I understand if you swim in the pond you don't want Tiger trout. I have been told they are nuts and will bite you.

Wow, I had not heard that before. For me, a con of Brown Trout is they can be hard to catch - especially the bigger they get.

I have my own theory about the hybrid trout. I THINK they are more durable than a pure trout due to hybrid vigor. If you have borderline conditions for a month or so in the summer that would kill a pure trout a hybrid trout could possibly push through and survive.

Winter 2018/2019 my Brook Trout all died and my Splake survived and I had much worse than just "borderline" conditions. I am planning on stocking more Brookies and some Tigers so still ongoing testing.

This picture is one that is not bait. Really this chub tried to take this jig with grub on it. We can catch them from 10" all the way down to this size on a hook.

Your chubs grow big eating pellets. When I set wire mesh traps in the creek for minnows I always catch lots of those creek chubs. I would try setting some baited traps with openings big enough the large chubs can get into the trap to see how many chubs you can remove. Maybe build yourself one of those clover leaf traps shown on YouTube. Trout should grow big eating chubs in your pond if they survive your summers.

Build the trap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLyhZ0x1dx0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5DNd0ubSGE&t=39s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52qMDXo1dhg&t=2s

Fish in the trap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQUsdAR7N6Q&t=169s

Dono - Since I am planning on stocking some Tigers at some point I did some Google searching to see if I could find anything about Tigers biting swimmers. I couldn't find a single thing on Google about it. Not saying it's not correct, just saying I couldn't find anything.

Our tigers do not bite! They survived this past winter; the several rainbows we had last fall have disappeared. I'd heartily recommend tiger trout for eating chubs. But, will they negatively impact your perch? They certainly can catch anything they want in the pond.

Three of our TT feed in close to the dock with the GSF and BG when I'm hand tossing meal worms and Optimal. The trout will take an occasional meal worm, but decidedly prefer the floating pellets. Smaller sunfish move out of the way as the trout cruise through. The biggest TT (approximately 20") is a humpbacked fellow. When the pellets are gone, it will nip at the tails of the largest BG (8" to 10"). They just move to the side. That part of feeding is really entertaining, as you can imagine.

I did hook a buddy up with a connection to get some tiger trout here in Ontario. The supplier said that if they swam in the pond they didn't want tiger trout. The supplier said they were crazy like the splake and not a good fit if you swim in the pond.

Cheers Don

I just can't imagine swimming in water that is colder than 70 degrees for any length of time.

Once the water temp is at 55 I only run the air at night. This cools the pond very nicely. In the day then the top 18-30"s is nice to swim in as long as you don't mix up the water from below with jumping in off the dock a bunch of times.

Right now the water is just getting to 50 so I am still running it in the day time to warm the pond and it is off at night. We had snow here yesterday.

The pond is an acre at full pool and I am thinking of adding 20 rainbow trout to the pond. I do understand they will need to be 18" or more to harvest the chub.

Cheers Don.