I have a tiny pond - .25 acres or so - and have BG's, a few YP, and a few LMB's in it now. I stocked 5 pounds of fatheads a month ago and they've been pretty much decimated. I would like to try some more and am thinking of creating a safety zone for my minnows.
I just read the post about blocking off a small bay with a net to protect the minnows and that sounds intriguing to me. Problem is, I don't have a small bay. I do have a shallow beach area that I'm thinking of building a few circle pens and adding cement blocks for the minnows to lay eggs on. I can't help but think that once the pen becomes very crowded that some of the minnows will wonder outside and be nabbed by the BG's, YP's and LMB's. Is something like this feasible?
Thanks and good fishing,
Dan
I have the same question. my pond is small and my FHM stocking doesn't last long. I was told use pallets 4' deep for them to find shelter to breed.
Is been my experience you are just fighting a lossing battle. FHM are generally a usefull tool in starting a new pond, kinda holding everybody over till your BG can spawn.Your BG feed your fish a reproduce much faster and better then the FHM. If you think you are low on forage I would recomend stocking more adult BG.
Is there any disadvantage to adding golden shiners along with FHM in a new pond where SMB will hopefully be the preditor in the future?
Sounds like GSH would be good for my SMB pond since I only fish with artificial bait.
build yourself a small pond about the size of a living room and raise fatheads and golden shiners in that pond and once a week or so net a few hunded of them and put them in your bass pond. My good freinds grandparents have a series of 3 ponds on their property,, the smallest first pond they raise fatheads, the second and slightly bigger pond they raise shiners and the third and by far the biggest pond they have bass bluegills and channel cats along with some sort of giant fish they call "chinese amora" not sure if thats the real name for them but that is what they call them. this system worked great for 50 years while his grandfather was alive and now that he's gone no one nets the minnows to put in the big pond but its been 5 years and the small ponds are still so full of shiners and fatheads you can't even see to the bottom in some spots.
I just put 50lbs of FHM in my new lake. There are no LMB or BG in it. It has been a a week now and when I go out on the dock or walk around the lake I don't see any minnows. Can someone tell me where they are?
With Waldo
. If you put that many minnows in (with no predators), they're still in there. They may be scattered and out of the bait ball they get into but they are still there.
FHM in a water body without predators will usually stay in deeper water for security from over head predators (mostly birds). When swimming predators are present, the predators "push" the FHM into the shallows where the FHM and many other species of small fish instinctively seek the shallowest water and larger predators have a little more difficult time catching small fish. This security doesn't last very long for the FHM.