Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Where Do I Place Pallets?

We finished excavating a .75 acre pond last summer. We put together four large plastic pipes and attached cement blocks to them for habitat. We supplemented natural precipitation by borrowing some water from our adjacent old, large pond. We are now just two feet from full pool. On May 18th we added 125 yellow perch, 200 LMB, 400 BG, 30 pounds of GS minnows, and 40 pounds of FHM. We got the Jones Fish Hatchery "accelerated" package so that the YP, LMB and BG, are larger than the company's normal stock.

However, the good people from Jones Fish Hatchery were not that impressed with our pipe structure. We went ahead and placed them in about four feet of water anyway, and the pipes are now covered by 2" to 8" of water. The hatchery people did suggest that we get wooden pallets to foster the spawning of the FHM. Therefore we constructed two sets of pallets, stacking each set four pallets high. Now we aren't sure where to place them. My thinking is to put them in water that isn't too deep so that some of each pallet set will stick out of the water. That should allow for the pond to fill the last two feet and still provide some habitat for the FHM to spawn. Here are photos of the pipe habitat we sunk, the two sets of pallets we are looking to place, the pump hose from the old pond to fill the new one, and last, the pond as it now looks. I read somewhere that the shallower the pallets are placed the better. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Stacking pallets like that is not really aimed to FHM spawning but rather general fish structure. If you really want to create FHM spawning habitat, you would use single pallets and place them in 6"-18" or water. Even just a couple of inches of water is good. FHM need very shallow water to escape predation. If you force them to utilize deeper water areas to spawn, they'll be eaten before the eggs hatch. Plus, single pallets spread out over the pond enable more FHM to spawn as they are territorial.

Thanks, CBJ! Those pallets in the photo are actually TWO sets. I was not intending to have them stacked one on top of the other (as they are now in the photo) but separated. They would be only half as high as they appear here. Still, it sounds like even that would be too high. Guess I'll have to break them apart. So the shallower the better, huh? Thanks again.

If your goal is to get FHM to spawn under predation, yup... SHALLOW