I am getting ready to stock my newly dug 1/2 acre pond with minnows and I was considering Zett's in WV as the source. With it being so early in the season, I thought the quality should be OK. Has anyone had problems with them as far as minnow sourcing? I was thinking 1000 FH to start, but Zett's also sells "Silver Shiners" and "Bull" minnows if anyone thinks I should put some of those in as well. My ultimate goal is a YP & HSB pond with maybe a few male BCP for some dinner plate variety.

Wait for Catmandoo and CJBS2003 to respond. They are in your area.

I would hand sort any "minnows" you get to make sure each and every one is the species of "minnow" you want to put in your pond.

Types of "minnows" that can hitchike with FHM are: Common Carp, bullheads, spiny sticklebacks, etc., etc.

Zett's has a past history of contaminated fish. So I would carefully hand sort any fish bought from them and be sure you are getting the actual species you pay for...

You could also get fry from anderson minnow farms since it is a new stocking.

Don't forget green sunfish. I found some of those mixed in with my fatheads along with sticklebacks.

Uncle E, you first need to decide what your final game fish are going to be, to decide what and how many forage fish and when you will stock them.

CJBS, I'm sure I'm not ready to stock anything just yet; I'm just "fishing" for options!

Thanks to everyone for replying, my pond is brand new & I want to do it right the first time!

Good advice so far. You are much better off in the long run if you stock fewer minnows that are hand sorted rather than stocking to get lots of unsorted fish for immediate high volume forage. A few forage fish (several lbs/ac) stocked before they spawn will provide many more same species of forage than you could readily and economically buy.

'Silver shiners' will be your golden shiner (GS or GSH) and 'bull minnows' will be banded killifish. Both are suitable forage species for almost all sport fish ponds. Note that golden shiners are known to be bait stealers and a nuisance for anglers fishing with small hooks and live bait such as worms. But GSH can be a valuable forage fish in certain fish combinations. It depends on your goals.

Good luck getting Zett's to actually sell you a "bull minnow." They have a few ponds with banded killifish but seigning for killifish is time consuming and they never do it. I waited months for them to get my order of 100 killifish and then they finally called and said "we can't get you those bull minnows but we have plenty of fathead minnows and silver shiners." I have never been back.