Newbie here, but been a lurker for a while!

As many of you know, the drought in South Texas has had a strong hold on all of us and just about brought us to our knees. After two good rains, all three of our ponds are now overflowing. Neither of these ponds have ever dried up since my wifes family bought the place back in the 70's.

All fish have died due to all ponds drying up. Now, we're back to square one. Nobody in the family (except me) wants to stock the pond again. I have a 20 mo old boy, and I see what the future holds.

The ponds max depth is only 9 ft or so, and the pond's avg depth is probably 7 foot, roughly 1 acre. We should have had a crew dig out the pond, but dont even get me started.

I decided to put some cinder blocks under the pier to give the baitfish a place to hide, and native brush had grown up around what used to be 4-5ft of water before it dried up. My point is, they should have sufficient shelter from birds of prey, etc.

Now- the question (sorry! haha) What do I start with, how many, and when?

I have been pondering normal bluegill, some hybrid bluegill (will be feeding pellets...they're fun for the lil ones to catch), would like some hybrid cats and LMB eventually once the forage fish have solidified. If it takes a year or two before I introduce the LMB and cats, so be it. I want the forage fish to take hold and do well.

I'd probably apply the same mix for the other two ponds, but keep in mind one of the other two ponds is much deeper, avg depth 10 ft, max depth 12-13.

Suggestions? Any idea what I'd be looking at (price wise) to do a stocking similar to this?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

2005 newbie huh? Well, welcome to the more of the posting portion of the forum!

What are the surface acres covered by the 3 ponds?

guess you could call me a closet pond boss. Truth be told, it's my dream career. Building/managing ponds. Kinda have to go to school for that stuff though. I chose business management in college...shoulda been a marine biologist or fisheries biologist, eh? haha

When full, Pond 1 (the original pond I inquired about) is right at an acre. Your basic drain into a main body of water being retained by a dam at the deeper portion of the pond, rather than a nice symmetrical bowl

Pond 2 (the deepest of the 3) is a man-made rectangle, all angles sloping at a rate of 1:1 to a max depth of 13ft or so. It doesnt encompass as much area, but I would have to say it's roughly 80'x50'

Pond 3 is the smallest, but likely has the most potential. It supported a healthy population of 2-4lb bass without any user input for over a decade. Heck, I lived there 2 years before I decided to give it a try, as her family thought it had been fished out...hahaha...my little secret until the drought took its toll. This pond is circular in shape, roughly 80' at it's widest spot. I can sling a senko a pretty good ways, and I've never reached the other side.


hope this helps!

What are your goals? Large bass? Large bluegill? Catfish? all/none of the above? Perhaps Todd Overton or Chad Fikes will jump in here to give you some expert texas stocking advice. What little I know of stocking pertains more to northern waters.

It's all about your goals but with 3 ponds you can have quite a bit of diversity. My first thought is to keep the 20 month old away from pond 2 with a 1:1 drop.

Is the land used for a cattle operation? What else is in the immediate environment(other than drought)?

The small ponds might make good HBG and CC ponds, but would need feeders. LMB and BG could probably create a problem.

I think I would use the larger pond as a BG/LMB pond but it still depends on your likes/dislikes.

Dave- Not to worry, my son is never alone around the ponds.

The land does have cattle, the true reason FOR the ponds. Aside from that, it's just her grandmother (lost her grandad in January) out there now, along with a depleting herd of commercial cows.

Ideally I would like to keep pond 2 as a bass/HBG fishery, as I know depth plays a vital role.

I would like to also do the same for pond 3, not bc of depth, but because of how much structure has grown up while the pond was down. It would be a prime habitat for bass/perch/fhm, etc.

I would be fine with pond 1 being a HBG and CC pond, as there is a small pier on it that we could sit and fish from. Perfect setting for teaching my son the sport.

Pond 1 had an outrageous population of perch, but they never grew to be very big. Not CBG's, RES, or HBG by any means. Just normal small perch. I took the liberty of stocking some bass and cats, not knowing what dry spell we had in store. Some of the larger bass were transported by a friend of mine, as I knew they would do well with the currenty base of forage fish.

I fed pellets and the cats were doing great...had a couple in the 4lb range. Rest were a little over a pound when the pond finally dried.

I am fortunate enough to have some extended family with ranches, both of which have managed ponds, so I've learned a little on the side. But, I also know the feed bill for just one of his ponds, and I'm nowhere near the same league that he's in.

Idealy I would like to go ahead and get FHM stocked in all of them now, or is that a bad idea?

From what I've seen in Coppernose BG growth, if I lived in a climate that would support them, that's what I'd stock, forget about the regular BG and really forget about the hybrid BG! I'd put in the forage fish ASAP.

I second Esshup's suggestion: CNBG grow as fast as HBG, with none of the drawbacks, i.e. their offspring aren't genetically inferior like HBG's are.

Are bluegill or bass the top priority, Chad? That makes a huge difference in how you manage the ponds. You could manage one for bass and another for bluegill, as Dave suggested, though I'd go with CNBG rather than HBG. You can have a great, self-sustaining population of big bluegill with common-strain (or CNBG) bluegill in a small pond; it's not necessary to use HBG; you just allow the bass to overpopulate and they keep the bluegill from overpopulating, the same as you would do with a larger pond; I've done it more than a couple times.

If you wanted to manage one of the ponds for big bass, you would want to think about stocking an additional forage source beyond the bluegill, either threadfin shad or golden shiners or both, and you would also want to harvest a certain number of smaller bass each year to keep them from overpopulating so the ones that remain have plenty to eat all the time. And, you would probably want to consider stocking F-1 LMB or Floridas, possibly in combination with some northern-strain for the long-term genetics.

And, as Esshup noted, any pond you wanted to manage for big bass, would benefit from stocking the forage (FHM, bluegill, shad/shiners) a few or several months ahead of the bass.

One other thought: if you're thinking of devoting one of the ponds to big bluegill, I would advise not stocking that particular pond with catfish, as they'll hog the pellet food and keep the bluegill from getting much of it once the CC get decent-sized. They can completely wreck a feeding program for bluegill.

Most professionals will agree not to stock HBG in a bass pond or in combination with native or coppernose bluegill. They are competition for bass, don't produce significant offspring for baitfish, and will hybridize with bluegill to make inferior runts. They best way I see to stock HBG with LMB is to go with feedtrained LMB at least 50 adult or subadult fish per acre and adopt a supplemental feeding program with high protein fish food. If you implement this program with any of the ponds then you can also go with other feedtrained predators like catfish, HSBs, trout in winter, etc.

Another option is to stock with baitfish that have tremendous reproductive potential and predator fish that do not. This keeps things simple and promotes balance. Baitfish that fit this regime include bluegill, redear, fatheads, tilapia, shiners, shad. Predators include HSBs, catfish, trout. Implement put and take management for your predators in this case. This program allows for low maintenance plans to work well.

For baitfish stocking this time of year I'd recommend the basic mix of 800bluegill/200redear sunfish/10#fathead minnows per acre. Depending on your goals it might not benefit you to wait a full year to stock predators, might ought to wait months or not at all....just depends.

well, for Pond 2, big LMB would be nice to grow, obviously, but my main goal is to walk out there at any given time and be able to catch quality 3,4,and 5lb bass. Sure, having a 10lber or 12lber swimming around would be awesome, but I think fish of that size need to be in a much larger ecosystem (at least, I am under the impression that 2-3 of those big fish can actually hurt smaller fisheries) So yes, I can honestly say that this pond would be for growing LMB. So yes, I would like to stock something that would provide enough forage fish to help maintain growth. Remember, I'm not trying to do this in a matter of 10 months, I'm thinking 5 years down the road. Definately would go with the Floridas due to potential alone.

Pond 1 would be an awesome bluegill/CC pond. I would cherish the idea of being able to walk out there with my lil man and hook into a bluegill the size of a salad plate! Even I'd get spoiled at that point!

This forum is great...should chimed in a LONG time ago!

haha

It's very realistic in TX to have a pond with lots of bass from two to five pounds - you just need to load up the forage and keep the numbers of bass down and you should be able to accomplish that, with F-1s or Floridas, within two or three years. I would stock GSH and TFS both in addition to bluegill, and you could also think about stocking crayfish (but make sure not to stock the rusty crayfish which is bad about tunneling - some pond management companies sell crayfish, and you'd probably be fine buying from a reputable company). Stock really heavy on the forage - 1200 or more bluegill per acre, and lots of threadfin and shiners.

For the bluegill pond, you'll get much bigger bluegill if you stock them with bass rather than catfish for multiple reasons. The bass will do a far better job of controlling the bluegill numbers, and unless you stock pellet-trained bass (which you shouldn't for a bluegill pond), they won't touch the pellet food, which means the bluegill will be the only fish eating the pellets, which means they get all of them and grow exponentially faster than if they only get a small portion of them. I would go with CNBG; Overton has some great-looking CNBG that get very large, and they're in your state of course. If bluegill are the primary focus for a pond, you're much better off not stocking any other fish that will compete with the bluegill for the pellets; bluegill don't get as large as CC or LMB or GC, and they're always going to lose out when those bigger fish start bullying them to hog the food. The way around that is to not stock any other fish that will eat the pellets. Just my $.02.

"This forum is great...should chimed in a LONG time ago!"

Word to Big Bird on that.

Anytime you put LMB in a one acre pond with BG, You're going to have to manage it. After the 2nd year, you have to work at culling of LMB under 13 to 14 inches. Those guys are eating and spawning machines. I'm certainly not saying not to do it. Just be aware that you have some diligence to work at. Also, expect your fish to become conditioned and hook shy. Going out anytime and catching 2 to 5 lb. bass is a good trick.

Hey there Chad im from NB as well. First dont go with the HBG there a mess. Second CNBG are awsome Great fighters and really no side effects. Here is an idea for ya. how about one CNBG pond one CNBG/ Tiger bass Pond and one bait pond to really put some pounds on your CNBG/Bass pond.

Dave, I agree that he would have to harvest bass in the bass pond; but he wouldn't need to do so in the bluegill pond because an overpopulated bass population is desirable for growing big bluegill, and beyond that, once the bass get overcrowded they're going to eat a lot of their own offspring anyway - not enough to reverse the situation, but enough to create a stasis in which the bluegill get really big and the bass maintain at a level that keeps the bluegill thinned. But definitely in the bass pond, regimented harvest each year would be key to the bass achieving some size.

That may have been what you meant anyway so forgive me if I'm being dense and re-stating your point.

Walt, in Texiz, we make the assumption that all perch (pronounced puhch in East Texiz)are bait for catching catfish. Here, it's all about bass, baby, bass.

I gotcha. I just wanted to make sure he knew what to do with the pond he says he wants to designate for those copper-colored perch.

No sweat Walt, I have to correct and educate Theo on this quite often.

Great info...Wahoo-I see you on the TFF. Think I'll be starting out stocking FHM and CNBG's and let them take hold and feed pellets...then moving on to Bass once the baitfish are doing well

Should give them a great head start.