Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Just double checking my forage fish recipe

Happy Spring!
Here are my stats: 5 Ac, max of 14' deep average of 6', lots of structure. SE Illinois. Stocked w fat heads and golden shiners last summer and it is packed w them now. The goals are big largemouth. I aim to throw in a few walleye as an experiment/bonus and maybe some HSB in a year or two. No catfish. Not planning to feed, but might aerate in time. Within a couple years I aim to build 1 acre forage pond 75' up stream from pond. Getting 2" F1's in June. Over the last year I've got tons of different opinions on what to do so I am kind of going to average them all out and go with something like this unless convinced otherwise:
Forage fish will be delivered in two weeks, but not placed order yet:
April '13'
2" Hybrid sunfish: 100/ac
2" Redear: 200/ac
2" Bluegill 700/ac

June '13'
50 2" F1's/Ac

October '14'
6" Walleye 20/ac

Is my forage plan way off or close enough? I can still change it. Thanks a million!

Since the goals are big LMB, I would skip the Hybrid BG and double the BG stocking rate. RES rate is o.k. The HBG will act as LMB and eat a lot of small fish due to their gape size, and don't have a high fucundity rate, so they won't add much to the forage base.

Your goals are large LMB, so you want to concentrate on providing as much forage for them as possible.

Are you sure that F1's will flourish in your water temps?

Agree with Scott, HBG are superfluous considering your goals - just taking up biomass for little return. I'd consider reinvesting that $ into aeration or other projects.

Keep your mind open to feeding. Fish grow 3x faster and a stronger, healthier BG population will directly impact your LMB fishery quality, too.

Love the WE addition as bonus fish...get the WE in ASAP to get ahead of the LMB. Remember supplemental stocking will need to be decent sized fish to survive LMB predation in later years - 12-15" fish. Hard to come by probably unless you cage and grow them out on a diet of BG - which could be a lot of fun!

HSB perform best with pellet program, just something to keep in mind.

Sounds like a great project, you really did well allowing your forage base to establish and flourish. Good job, that took a lot of patience, huh?

I second the feeding. By establishing a feeding schedule with good food, you'll be catching fish in 2 years that would take 3-4 years to grow without it.

I think of an aeration system as a cheap insurance policy for the fish in the pond. You might not need it 350 days of the year, but you could lose a couple years of fish in a few short days without one. To replace those fish might not be a large investment in terms of money, but in terms of time, that's huge. Look into what it'd cost to restock the pond with all adult fish and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I have a client that had his dad watch over the house while they were in Florida on vacation. His dad thought "Why is he spending the $$ on electricity to keep the pond open during the winter? I'll shut it off and save him some $$"


Guess what happened? Yup. He spent almost $10K replacing the fish that died in the pond with adult fish come spring.......

Thanks for the responses. Even though my goal is big bass I guess I was thinking it would not break my heart to catch a nice sized hbg on occasion just for something different, so maybe I could back their numbers way back or just take them out completely if they will really harm my bass that much. I suppose I was also thinking a few of the larger hbg might be good food for some of the larger bass in a couple years, but I admit I have no idea.
As far as the WE, the guy that has them told me to wait a year to let the bass get big enough to prevent the walleye from hammering them. If I put in a 2" bass in June and a 6" WE in October will that work out ok or should I wait another year?
F1 wise... I don't really know how they will do but I'm going to try it. I have talked to a guy exactly 48 miles south of me who has them and is extremely happy with them. I know there are lots of variables between him and I, but I'm going to roll the dice and try it.
And yes it took a lot of patience to wait a whole year on the fatheads but hopefully it will be worth it. My non-pondboss kin gave me a hard time, but hopefully they will back off when they start catching some nice fish and we gain that year back and then some.
As far as aeration I don't have electricity there yet and don't think I want to mess w a windmill, but aim to build house there in couple years and might add something to it then if I'm not broke. It is a siphon pipe system with the intake at 9', I have read where that might help a little w preventing ponds from turning over but I'm not banking on it.
I will stay open minded about feeding. Not living there yet makes it harder to mess w stuff like that and frankly I don't want to spend the money even though its probably not that much. Thanks again guys!

Depending on the size feeder you get, you could go a couple of months between filling it if you get the larger Texas Hunter feeder. Solar powered charger for the battery.

Regular BG, in an environment where the fish are fed, will usually catch up to HBG by year 2. Regular BG in ponds where they are fed can easily exceed 10" and a pound.