Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking stocking south dakota lake

my dad just purchased a 250ac lake in south dakota. we would like to stalk it with perch and walleye. is there any info out there or does anyone have any suggestions. similar lakes in the area have good populations of perch and walleye. do we need pike too? would bg hinder perch growth. lake is 12-14' deep with shallow bays. crystal clear water. cormorants in the area. we have fished it with no success. underwater camera shows it has carp present otherwise little is known about current fish population. thanks for any suggestions.

Wow, a 250 acre lake?!? Man I'd hate to see the stocking bill for a lake that large. If it were me and I had the funds I would hire one of our resident pond experts (Bob Lusk, Greg Grimes, Nate Herman just to mention three off the top of my head) to electrofish the lake, find out how much of what is in it and then develop a stocking plan. I'm very serious (imagine that) about that. A 250 acre lake is one big body of water. You could throw a lot of money at it, and if not properly planned, you might not improve the situation. IMHO the cost of a professional would pale in comparison to the final cost of stocking such a large body of water.

But that's just this pond jockey's opinion. Wait for one of the experts here at Pond Boss to give you some feedback.

Yes - call Dave Willis at SDSU. He is the best person to talk to about SD lakes. After all he studied them all and then wrote the book on their management and now teaches Fisheries Science students how to manage them. You might even get some of the students to help you while they learn.

David W. Willis

Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences

South Dakota State University

605-688-6121

250 acre private lake? Now I'm jealous!

I would say yes you will need Pike, no way you can cull enough fish from a 250 acre body of water without freshwater gator lips swimming around, plus I love to catch pike, so I am biased.

Heck, why not musky? Oh to be able to own a 250 acre lake of your own!

If you can't get a bonafide fish expert out there, I would be available for a reasonable price to rod and reel sample your lake .

On a serious note, I think you would be very hard pressed to find a lake that size in South Dakota that hasn't been stocked in one way or another with walleye, yellow perch, and northern pike. Bullheads, crappie, largemouth and smallmouth bass tend to be in most lakes in SD too. White bass could be present also. I guess it all depends on what the previous owners stocked and how able they were to prevent stocking by helpful neighbors and other bait bucket biologists.

Stocking fish when you don't know what is already in there is a waste of money. Most likely the fish you are wanting (yellow perch and walleye) have been stocked. If they are not doing well, I would find out why before spending money just dumping more in.

In all likelihood if the lake has been around for a while, you already have a well established fish community that is self reproducing... In a lake that size, you're going to have to use some different methods than one would use in a small pond; some methods will be the same to evaluate your lake's fish community and its health.

The use of trap nets, gill nets and night electrofishing should give you a good idea of different species and the population dynamics of your lake. As I said, most species will be seft reproducing in your lake. However, in all likelihood, the walleye will not even in a lake of that size. There may be some natural reproduction but not enough to maintain a quality fishery. This may also be the case for northern pike as well. Only a survey of your lake will give you the answers to your questions... Then you can decide on a management plan and if stocking certain species would be involved in that...

Outdoorsmanhc -- a couple of thoughts for you.

Where is the lake - at least roughly? The winters in the northeastern corner of the state are much more harsh than further south.

It is a little hard to believe that there are carp and nothing else. Contrary to most people's impressions, carp are only moderately resistant to winterkill. For example, yellow perch and especially northern pike can handle a lot lower dissolved oxygen levels during the winter. Of course, the carp may have gotten there by themselves during some high-runoff spring weather, so you could be right.

The lake is located around Webster, SD. Like I said we have no idea what is in the lake. We bought it mainly for the waterfowl hunting and the pheasant hunting around it as we guide hunters in the area. Sounds like it use to be mostly dry like a lot of bodies of water in the area. It has had good water since early 90's. i believe the lake is about 250 ac but i'll get back to you on the exact acreage. we own roughly half the shoreline and half the land underneath the water... actually i'm not really even sure how all that works, i'm just going by what i've heard from around the state. we'd like to actually get it paid for, and figure out all the laws before we do any drastic stocking, but i am very curious to see what is actually in the lake!

a few corrections. lake is actually 400ac split between 3 landowners. dad claims he's seen some kind of suckers near surface of water and bluegill nests... supposedly...

WOW! 400 acres!!! Only minor downside, potentially, is the joint ownership, but that all depends on the character of the other two owners.

If you don't have one, I would try to get first right of refusal to purchase the other interests if any of the other two owners eventually want to sell.

Now, I think it will be important to make your share of the lake more desirable to fish by doing things with structure and cover.

Like others have already said, it is going to be a labor of love to figure out what all you have in the lake, fish-wise, and stocking of the lake has to be thought out carefully.

If embarking on a stocking plan, I would like to do as much as possible to keep the stocked fish in your share of the lake (if that is even possible). You'll have to keep the fish happy!

With that much water your would have to spend a lot of time fishing to even get a glimpse of the fish populations that exist. I know a quite few guys you could hire to do the job!

I am assuming that this lake is pretty much devoid of structure since it is a prairie basin lake (at least that's what I call them). If you have the time you may want to fish the warm side of the bays immediately after ice out. That will tell you if there are Northern Pike. After the water warms, you should still stick to the bays to see if you have Largemouth Bass, Crappie, Bluegill, Yellow Perch. They will be in the warmer shallow water in the spring. I am betting that you have all of the above since the lake has been there since the 1990s.

A man could make a lake that size his life's work!

HC - the Webster area lakes certainly fall into the category of dry-wet cycle waters, as you already knew. We got plenty of snow this winter, so you'll certainly have water this year!

It would be nice to know if there are yellow perch in the lake. If not, a stocking of pre-spawn adults might be the cheapest way to get some fishing pretty darn quickly. In newly expanded waters, perch hatched this year will be 8-9 inches by the fall of 2010 and 10-12+ inches by the fall of 2011.

For Forum readers who wonder "what about the predators?" -- when the lakes are shallow and go up and down with the wet and dry cycles, they often winterkill once per 3-5 years. If so, the perch don't have time to overpopulate between winterkills. Our state agency manages a lot of these winterkill-prone lakes, and perch growth rates are amazing. Nothing against stocking predators (northern pike in these lakes usually reach 20 inches by the end of their second growing season), but just looking for a less-expensive alternative.

Dave, in the dry cycle years, how much shrinkage can be expected?

Well, Dave -- the answer is easy: it all depends. I should stop there.

Seriously, it does depend. Some of the smaller lakes (the 400 acre ones are smaller) can be gone as a fishery in just a few dry years. However, I always hate to generalize, as I call this the "land of extremes." Lake Thompson is one of the bigger lakes to the west of me. It's probably about 13-14,000 acres right now, and probably 22 feet maximum depth. In the early 1980's, my now-retired boss shot a white-tailed deer in cattails of what is now 22 feet depth. In the mid-90s, I had a student working over there, and the max depth got down to about 16 feet. We figured we were heading toward the end of the fish community. However, we hit another wet cycle and it filled right back to 22 feet. So, for outdoorsmanhc and his dad, the lake could stay filled for decades, or we could hit a dry spell next year, and they might only have a few years of fishable waters. He told me that they do a lot of hunting, so during the dry times, they'll be glad to have a shallow marsh for ducks with cattails around the edge for pheasant habitat. The land of extremes.

Hmmm... Sounds interesting but I like the idea of my pond or lake not drying up.

Hey Dave, something like Texas.