I'm looking for some suggestions on how to stock Threadfins into a lake I just acquired.

- 35 acres, up to 22 feet deep
- healthy population of bass, previously overmanaged (owner took out all bass caught 3 lbs and under), so bass population may be a little low. Bass that have been surveyed are all overweight.
- crappie population is unknown but will be working towards removing as many as possible
- great bluegill and sunfish population
- lots of standing timber in middle of lake with large areas of open water

The biologist suggested stocking threadfins as an additional food source for the bass and to occupy the open water niche to increase carrying capacity of the lake. I want to go about it in the best way possible to establish a long term population the first stocking.

Fish farm is recommending the following options:
option 1) stock 250 adult TFS per acre in March after fertilization and assume that there are plenty to get through spawning a time or two without heavy predation
option 2) stock 500 juvenile TFS per acre in July and hope that they can reproduce a time or two before winter and that they can make it through to the next spring
option 3) stock 10 lbs an acre of tilapia to take the pressure off of the TFS, then stock 500 juvenile TFS per acre in July. This method assumes there will be more TFS that make it through spawning in the warm months.

Does anyone have any advice or knowledge on how these three options would play out in reality?

Good idea to wait until spring before stocking TFS, they cannot tolerate very cold water. They are excellent for fattening up LMB in the 8 to 16 inch class, though too small to be very effective for lunker diet.

I'd be careful taking advice from a fish farmer, after all, they're a business and want your money. I'm not saying that his plan is wrong, I don't know much about TFS stocking, but his plan seems very expensive. When stocking new forage into a BoW with established predators, it will be quite difficult and costly to get it to work.

Since you have a 35 acre lake, he wants you to stock 8750 adult TFS in March, 17,500 juvenile TFS in July, 350 pounds of Tilapia, and another 17,500 juvenile TFS the following July, for a total of 43,750 shad. One load of Threadfin Shad (5,000 to 7,000) or about 25 pounds of fish can cost as much as $1800.00 or $2.57-$3.60 for each fish. Using the average of $3.08 per fish, that's over $134,000, before figuring in the cost of the Tilapia.

I'm interested in stocking some TFS in my pond as well, so I did some research and came across this site: http://www.suttlefish.com/Threadfin_Shad.html

Their recommendation for stocking TFS into a pond/lake with Bass already in it is 100 per acre (3500 in your case). I'm no expert, I just like to research stuff and crunch numbers. Hopefully someone with shad experience can chime in shortly.

Also, if your goal is to find a forage to occupy the open water niche, I'm pretty golden shiners (GSH) fill that role, are cheaper, reproduce abundantly, and can get to sizes to feed larger bass.

Steve, thanks for the reply. I should have made it more clear that my numbered recommendations were options, not an order of action. Yes, I agree that would be overkill there. My gut is telling me that option 1 would be the most cost efficient and likely to work, at 50 cents per fish and all adult fish from 3"-6". They would have the entire season to spawn.

Steve - I was also interested in golden shiners as well. They have cold tolerance that TFS don't, and would be a good option as well, as long as they are open water schoolers.

50 cents per fish, ok, so that one site I found was way off, lol. Granted, that was a fish farm in Kansas, not TX. Another option would be enclosing a roped off section of your lake dedicated to TFS spawning. One female can lay up to 24,000 eggs, so you wouldn't need a lot to reach your goals.

Interesting, how is this done?

You can create a makeshift barricade with a seine. Basically a fine mesh netting with floats at the top and weights at the bottom. I know someone on here on has done that for their fathead minnows. I'll try to find the link.

Have done TFS stocking many times into fully inhabited ponds (adult predators). Bob has a post on it and I will find you the link. My opinion - you need a good plankton bloom/base. Stock in spring - adult TFS so they will spawn soon thereafter. LMB will not eat all the millions of new TFS fry. Be ready to supplement stock a few adult TFS (non-spawned out) in late summer to early fall to ensure a solid yoy base going into winter.

See

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthre...mp;Words=shad&Search=true#Post119912

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthre...sk&topic=0&Search=true#Post88121


archive - https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=106122#Post106122

ewest, thanks for all this information. All good stuff there and I think I'm going to shoot for Spring stocking adult threadfins at about 200-250 an acre.