Thinking ahead on pond project 1.5-2 acre pond with fairly steep slopes from bank 10-12'. 5-7 bluegill spawning areas in shallow water. FHM/Shiners population. After first stock of 2.5k CNBG, it will follow with the only predators being 150-175 HSB. No fishing for first year, 2nd year will follow with moderate to heavy fishing on both BG and HSB.
My question is what restocking patterns for the HSB should be used? I figure if HSB are fished, a balance of HSB will need to be replaced to keep BG population in check. What about adult HSB preying upon HSB fingerlings.

Thanks much.

HSB aren't the best predators for BG. Are you going to feed pellets?

Will feed both BG & HSB on pellets, till the bass get of size.

Seems pretty straight forward. You will have to restock sizes that won't become prey. That means buying large enough or growing them out yourself till they're ready.

Others that have first hand experience will need to weigh in, but it seems like you are walking a thin line. If you harvest even some of the HSB what will eat the CNBG? The ones that get harvested will most likely be the bigger ones and only those are the ones that have a chance to eat the BG.

I think I would be leery of relying solely on HSB as a means to control CNBG recruitment.

Agree, might try this with hybrid Bream but not CNBG, and then you would have to have a continuous feeding program

The HSB will not , at normal #s , control the BG. You will need a stocking ladder using 6 inch and bigger HSB adding some every year or two.

See this from the archives on HSB

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92629#Post92629

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=11180&page=1


Via Bruce -- "I'd estimate risk of predation from largemouth as follows:

5 inch wiper--80% over one year in presence of LMB
6 inch wiper--65% over one year in presence of LMB
7 inch wiper--45% over one year in presence of LMB
8 inch wiper--15% over one year in presence of LMB
9 inch wiper--negligible mortality.

No scientific data to back this up. Just knowledge about existing ponds in which I've seen fish such as this stocked in ponds around here."

I would provide that those sizes could be reduced 25% for stocking into HSB as the pond predator and not LMB. Example - 3.75 inch wiper -- 80% over one year period in presence of adult HSB.

As noted above it is doubtful that HSB by themselves at regular stock density of under 60-100/ac will control normal BG recruitment. As planned your chances of succeeding are marginal. Type of habitat will have a big influence on the ability of HSB to prey on BG.

IMO your chances of succeeding will improve if you initially stock HSB at higher densities of maybe 130-200/ac. This will put excess pressure on the first year class of BG - an important item for the initial plan IMO. Note that overstocking of predator is likely to result in slower than optimum growth of predator. This assumes at least a couple things: 1. you will regularly monitor the BG recruitment and have the ability to manually make adjustments of strong year class BG recruitment. Over abundant BG fingerling (0.5"-2.0") will lead to over population, poor growth, and food shortages that can strongly affect adult BG growth rates. 2. You use a stocking ladder where HSB are added annually or regularly to achieve or maintain proper recruitment of small BG. This normal size distribution of predators (fingerling to old adult) is a feature of balanced fisheries. Small HSB are primarily the ones responsible for consuming the 0.7"-1.7" BG. Larger HSB generally ignore smallest sizes of forage.

The number of new HSB stocked will be dependent on several features such as number harvested, natural mortality, and size of current or pervious year's BG year class. It is important to adequately control or reduce YOY panfish because they, as an overpopulated group or year class grow, put undue pressure on the food chain that detracts from the entire fishery. Thus the whole fishery or portions thereof become unbalanced and grow poorly. Then in these instances, this is where manual management is required - population adjustment - seining, trapping, electroshocking, harvesting. When it is needed and when to stop adjusting are key components that determine the degree of success. It is not generally a simple technique for managing specialized stockings of unique fishery combinations.

It has been posted here that pellet fed SMB can be manipulated to consume small BG (Shawn Banks - Midwest Lake Management). When SMB are fed pellets and overabundant fingerling BG occur, stopping the pellet feeding until excess small BG disappear due to SMB reverting to predation on small fish is a management option that has had some success. This technique may (?) work for HSB-BG populations. SMB are definitely not the same behaving fish as HSB which has to be taken into account. This may not be as simple as it sounds. IMO for this to succeed it requires that one has the ability to fairly accurately and intuitively evaluate fish numbers and recognize when pellet feeding needs to be stopped and resumed. We have to remember that S.Banks is a professional experienced fishery biologist with the ability to properly monitor and evaluate fish populations.
Reference post where Shawn Banks explains this technique:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post320750

Wow, that was some great reading right there. Thanks for the outflow of great info. To go on what I`ve got cooking up in my head. I have a FLB pond, with 3rd year bass in it. I could annually net a % of CNBG out of the soon to be pond and feed the bass injured bluegill.
Along with a high stock of HSB continuing with the ladder stocks annually. I live in southern TN, where it`s muggy and all out hot sometimes. How do SMB and HSB do together ? would they help curb the BG? Maybe help recruit SMB by adding rock gravel in areas. Just running through processes.

I would try both SMB and HSB together. They would have a better chance of controlling the BG than either species alone.

how do SMB do in ponds in the south?

OK... I'll ask, what is a FLB pond?

And it sounds by what you are saying is that you have LMB (Florida strain?) in the pond all ready? If so, that's a big difference in management and stocking plans. They would keep your BG in check.

Edit- my apologies. I read it too fast and I see now that it looks like you have two ponds.

A PB Forum Member has/had SMB from KS growing in a pond near Phoenix AZ and they do well. It doesn't get a lot hotter than that for small pond management. IMO water quality is more important for SMB survival than cool water temperature. If your smallies don't survive in TN it is definitely not because of temperature, look for other reasons, like competition from LMB or water quality.

I agree with Bill. SMB can take the TN temps but you need good water quality.

As to FIC's question it is very difficult to successfully stock any small fish into a pond with 3 yr old LMB. I assume that is not the plan in question but a different pond from scratch with FH and GShiners and BG.

I have a thriving population of smb in north Carolina. They are up to 4 pounds and are fantastic fish to catch. They can handle the heat in my pond with aeration and good water quality. I also have them in a smaller one acre pond with no aeration and they are doing well there also.

That`s great news. I had never heard of smallies in warm water before. The pond will be well fed with aeration through out most parts. Any other advice or tips to help me succeed?

If you want SMB and HSB to have a chance to successfully control BG, give the SMB and HSB a big head start. I would wait to stock BG until your originally stocked SMB are at least 15" and the HSB are pushing 20"+. That should take 3-4 years after they are stocked, depending on how large they were were initially stocked...

FIRST & MAIN RULE - If you want smallies to thrive with reproduction in warm water DO NOT put LMB in with them. All other factors are secondary.

Depends on location and food supply. My HSB went from 10-12 inches to 22 inches and 3 lbs in 9 mths ( total age 18 mths)

I was originally planning on releasing 2.5k of CNBG in the two acre pond. Should I stagger that number throughout a year or 2, or should I rethink the actual numbers?

Have we established yet if you want high quality BG angling, general BG angling or very little if any BG angling? Are BG for numerous trophy (9"-11") fish or just present as forage items with many in the 2.5"-7" category? I know as often wished, you want it both ways which is why you are adding CNBG and not regular strain BG. It is often very difficult to have it both ways depending on the degree or amount of high quality BG desired. Lots of extra effort is required to get it both ways and I doubt it can be done and still get rapid growth from the HSB. It is a fine narrow line to achieve it both ways and close management - monitoring will be necessary for long term success. Pellet feeding can be the wild card if the fish game is "played" wisely.

IF you want good predation control of BG, I suggest you heed CJBS's advice. Although other options could work depending amount of management. None of this non-traditional fish stocking is well researched and a lot of it is new fish management territory. CJBS suggests - Allow predators to establish, at least to lengths of 10"-15" or more, then add BG as large juveniles or young adults (3"-5"). As HSB decrease the minnows, 1st BG spawn will then fill in the forage gap. Others should weigh in with the stocking rate for BG, but I think 1250/ac (2.5K/2ac) is too many BG for predation pressure only from HSB. Size of HSB and timing have influence on stocked numbers. This option of initial growth of HSB to increased sizes (pre-BG) would be with FHM-shiners or pellets. I prefer the minnow route since it will focus the HSB predation behavior on fish instead of pellets.

Hello Neighbor-
IMHO, CJBS advice is right on the mark, WRT having a very well established population of predators BEFORE you add BG/CNBG. I stocked SMB and BG in a 3 acre pond in the same year, following what was then the standard "forage first, then predators" consensus. I have had to function as an additional apex predator for some time to maintain the fishery I want [good SMB, large BG], but now the smallies have grown and recruited to the point that they're doing the vast majority of heavy lifting when it comes to control. I actually culled about 50 8-12" SMB last spring to allow more recruitment of bg into the 3-4" range, as there are a good number of 3-4lb smallies present, and at least a couple pushing 6lbs.
I wouldn't stress over stocking numbers for CNBG, but do put in fish above the predation threshold.
As Bill notes, your challenge going forward will be to balance everything, and keep it balanced. Again, IMHO, feeding can really play an important role in this. Once you've got a good predator population, if you see a surge in numbers of smaller BG, cut your feeding way back, put the predators to work; if it swings the other way, start feeding more heavily.
Hope this helps. Don't hesitate to PM me if you have any Tennessee specific questions I might be able to help with....

Ok guys this is not an easy topic. Keep in mind that no matter what you stock initially they will try to fill the pond with their kind and will do so in 18 mths +-. So in that period in his location the pond will reach carrying capacity. Everything else is about mgt of the existing stock. State the goals first then we can go over the how to. In anything like normal stocking #s the SMB and HSB will not control BG #s. If you used 3-5 inch BG to stock just before the first BG spawn they will not be eaten by the under 12 inch predators. They will spawn and a good % of the BG offspring will survive to age 1 and certain reproductive fitness. But some of the early first spawn BG will in turn spawn the first summer. By then the pond will be full of fish. The biggest predator of those BG yoy will be the adult BG not the HSB and SMB. There are way to many variables in play to get the number just right and that is where the goals come in to play. Do you want to shade toward to few BG and a descending time curve toward trophy BG or shade toward to many BG and a descending time curve toward trophy SMB/HSB. Harvest mgt and food supply will have to do all the rest toward the goal. Its a #s game over time where you can only slightly stack the deck one way or the other with the initial stocking. The info on HSB/SMB ponds with BG is sparse and specific pond factors like water quality , weather , food availability , trophic state of the pond will play large rolls.

Toward Bill`s post the BG will be fished no doubt. On the quality side of the question. I don`t know about quality but I do know eating sized BG will be a priority 7"-8" with possibly a few trophy`s hiding out. I`m also really considering having a cove for the purpose of easy netting a few times of the year, to keep an eye on BG sizes and #`s.

Ewest and Yolk Sac it`s going to be definitely fine line to walk with the #`s game for both predation and food. I`m fore sure going to stock that pond well with FHM/Shiners before I drop off the predators to the pool for a head start. What age/size do I need to start really paying attention to when or if the SMB would spawn?

Ok - now SMB are in the stocking combination? If you have SMB there could often be or usually is a pre or previous year class of fingerling SMB (2.5"-4") to prey on the current YOY crop of BG, although the fingerling SMB numbers could be or are often too few to get good predation of the high number of new YOY BG hatchlings. As I see it, the main or primary problem with this current stocking plan of CNBG-HSB-SMB is adequate control of BG numbers. Thus the goal as noted above by Ewest is to strongly reduce the survival of hatching BG each year which will dependably occur in greatness. Or manually remove significant numbers of BG per acre when they reach 0.7"-2"-3". The task could be only partial, daunting and unsuccessful. Until one has to do it, I think most even experienced people do not realize how productive BG can be and how many small BG "fry" (0.5-1") per acre are consumed annually by each or every 100 fingerling largemouth bass who have evolved into very efficient predators of BG compared to other fish predators.

An option would be to annually stock fingerling SMB pre-BG spawn. Sounds easy, but it is not,,, because locating fingerling SMB in spring is very difficult and it is often moderately difficult to locate them in fall when they are most abundant; and availability depends of location of nearest good SMB farm. Fall stocking of fingerling SMB often has poor survival rates - depending on numerous variables, and I would not suggest the fall SMB fingerling stocking approach in this fishery; very risky and too undependable.

An easier option instead of fingerling SMB would be to stock small HSB (2"-4")in the spring which are readily available compared to SMB fingerlings. Opinions ?.?

As I mentioned earlier, these unproven stocking combinations are not well known, and should be considered 'experiments' in fish stocking. Be prepared with time and money for complications and challenges. I suggest that you do plenty of homework and contemplation before using this stocking combination.

As another option for this 'Snakebite plan' is, is it feasable to use hybrid BG instead of regular BG when predators of SMB-HSB are used? All fish could be pellet trained. Regularly buying HBG would be less expensive and easier in time, management, and money than regularly buying HSB or SMB to keep BG numbers at goal. I have used locally the HBG-SMB-HSB combination with limited pellet feeding in a few small ponds and it worked well in my opinion. Success in terms of fish growth rates would have been better if daily pellet feeding was used. HBG will provide basically everything the CNBG will provide for stated intended goals, except providing lots of offspring as forage. Extra effort would be in keeping feeders full and feed costs. I would strongly consider and try this option before stocking the CNBG. If you don't like the results of HBG, you could then add CNBG and deal with those challenges. Consensus here is when BG are added when HBG are established, eventually the BG outnumber & dominate the HBG population especially if restocking of HBG is stopped. If fish in this HBG-HSB-SMB are not fed pellets then do not expect rapid growth. If no feeding is used, stocking numbers should be fewer so fewer mouths need to be fed, more natural food is present, and growth rates are improved.

If you don't know much about how HBG perform first rate in well managed ponds see this impressive thread from the Common Q&A Archives with special emphasis on the work or results with HBG of 'Sprkplug'
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=256325#Post256325

Use HBG and RES instead of CNBG and go with GShiners and FH. TShad are an iffy alternative at his location. Feed the HSB , HBG and SMB.