Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Hello, my name is Ed

Looks like the RBT is out. Getting these out before July is a no go here.

Currently thinking about the ODNR recommendations using fingerlings in the link below.
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/Home/fishing/pond/stocking/tabid/6233/Default.aspx

Ohio Pond Management: Stocking the Pond

Most Popular Pond Fish How Many & What Sizes of Fish to Stock When & How to Stock Fish Stocking Other Types of Fish

Some of the finest fishing in Ohio for largemouth bass, bluegills, and channel catfish can be found in farm ponds that have been properly stocked and managed. New ponds are usually stocked with fingerling largemouth bass, bluegills, and channel catfish, whereas ponds with established fish populations may periodically be supplemented by stocking larger fishes. Successful stocking is as easy as determining the type of fishing a pond owner desires and the current condition of the pond.

A properly stocked and managed pond will provide years of quality fishing. Stocking the proper kinds, sizes, and numbers of fishes will start a pond in the right direction. Most Ohio ponds are ideal for largemouth bass, bluegills, and channel catfish, and all three provide excellent fishing and fine eating. An initial stocking of a combination of these fishes is usually recommended for new or renovated ponds. Properly managed largemouth bass and bluegills will produce self-sustaining populations, whereas channel catfish usually require periodic restocking.

Stocking: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/Home...zesofishtostock

Thinking about fingerlings as follows: 10 LMG, 35 HBG or BG, and 15 Redear. Thoughts?

The advice from the ODNR is good but it is generalized and generic for most all situations in Ohio and similar climatic eco-regions. There are two very key points in this advice. 1. properly stocked and managed, both are very important not just the stocking. Management is actually more important and a key component to long term fish balance and good angling. It is very similar to having a successful vegetable garden. One just doesn't stock or plant the garden and expect it to take care of itself. Success involves nurturing and "working" that garden. A pond is very similar and probably even more dynamic and complex than a garden. Thus it probably takes more work than a garden to get the most benefit from that resource. If for nothing else the pond fishery is perennial and not in most instances an annual garden habitat.

The big problem for almost all new and older pond owners is what are the proper management methods. Those management methods and what species to stock are dependent on ones goals. A person's goals are big unknowns until they understand what all the possibilities are for a pond fishery. The possibilities for a good or trophy fishery in a pond are numerous and many more than the bluegill, largemouth bass and catfish combination. Here at Pond Boss forum we try to provide personalized help to educate one to all the possibilities.

I think that too many people decide what fish species to stock based on too little homework.

Fish n Chips,

Very kind of you to offer a visit if it works for you. The RBT idea sound like a whole lot of fun. My wife is concerned about the fact that they will all need to be harvested before they die in July. Frankly, I myself am not sure how big if an issue this will be. What if only stocked a half a dozen this fall?

Bill Cody,

Thank you for your reply. You are certainly correct that I do not have a well defined plan for my 1/10 pond. That said, I believe I am trying to start off doing some things correctly. I installed a quality aerator (vertex), hand raking my pond, hired Aqua Doc for bi-weekly applications, install habitat (pallet), and I have stocked a few dozen FHM. And, I am getting great advise from you and the many other folks on this forum.

I am trying to solicit ideas if stocking of fingerlings as mentioned would work, or is that a really bad idea.

I don't see much of a problem with it. It would let you try it with out much investment or setback of time. Lets play out the scenario;

You buy 6 RBT at 11" in October for 30.00 total. You buy a bag of feed for 35-50.00. The trout eat all the minnows you have stocked plus you need to feed them daily. There is a commitment by you to do that on a regular-time basis, but by doing this you also reap the enjoyment of watching them feed. You fish for them in spring. Perhaps you only catch half, or all. The size could be from 14-17" with the possibility of weight pushing 3#. Lots of factors can change all this. You have some trout dinners. You may get some algae issues in the spring that may be tougher to combat because you have trout. Trout and copper don't get along. However the trout will be gone in awhile, and then you can manage the algae anyway you like. Throw some more FHM in and begin the process all over again, or get it ready to stock in a more permanent fashion that you have done homework on.

From my personal experience, I think that the money put into the RBT is a pretty even wash with what you get back. Otherwise what I harvested in trout for meals, is probably close to what it would cost if I went out and bought trout at the grocery store. When I was trying to figure out what to stock originally, I didn't want to buy fish every year. So I was really apprehensive about the RBT. There were other circumstances that swayed me into needing them. Now, I can't wait to do it again. Never thought I would say that, and I have to say thank you PONDBOSS.

I am not pushing for you to go and stock your pond with trout. I am giving this info as only a stocking option. There are MANY other options. Like you said, do your homework, ask questions, never give up learning....it's a journey.

Big question is, what single fish do you like the best?

In that small of a pond, I'd lean to stocking Hybrid fish instead of LMB/RES/CC.

1) RES won't produce enough offspring to feed the LMB.
2) LMB might spawn next year, further contributing to the predator heavy pond.

(one LMB needs to eat 10# of fish to gain one pound of weight. Multiply that by however many LMB you have in the pond and you'll see where I'm going.)

If you don't enjoy eating CC, don't stock them. Catch them once or twice and you won't catch them again.

Look into the following fish - Bill Cody can tell me if I"m off base or not because he knows the climate and water over there better than I do.

This is with you feeding the fish.
In no particular order:
Yellow Perch (YP)
Hybrid Striped Bass (HSB)
Redear Sunfish (RES)
Hybrid Bluegills (HSB)
Channel Catfish (CC)
FHM

Possibilities:
1. You don't have to get all or any trout out of the pond before they die, but if you don't take any out the potential fish meal is wasted. When they die, most will likely float some may not eventually float, but sink, remain on the bottom and decompose on the bottom to release / recycle all those bound accumulated nutrients into the pond which will "feed" plants probably mostly filamentous algae which will cause AquaDoc to use more chemicals in the pond killing all those extra plants. It is a chain reaction. Building the pond started the reaction. Tilling a portion of your yard for a garden also starts a similar reaction of work.

2. You can add a few bass (SMB or LMB) fingerlings to your pond and not feed them anything - nothing. Just don't expect them to grow larger than 8" without some sort of abundant food chain to make them grow as in 10 lb of minnows to grow 1 lb of bass. If bass only eat a few bugs and their offspring each year they don't grow much, if any, but they don't starve and die either until they reach the end of their life span. Offspring then replace the natural or induced (angler) mortality. There are a lot of successful ponds near me with only bass 8"-10"long.

3. A few single sex fish species, because they wont spawn to produce an overpopulation problem, are another possibility. Examples: yellow perch, bass, bluegill are a few common examples. You will probably need a very good, smart, experienced angler or better yet a fishery biologist to help with doing this single sex fish option.

4. The hybrid fish and other species that esshup mentioned are a good option to consider.

Whichever option you choose I suggest you return and ask us about the pros and cons of your selection for your 0.1 ac pond.

We welcome all stocking suggestions for this small pond in NE Ohio. Here is a last resort option. If you or your do good friendly neighbor or a relative stocks something into your small pond that ends up causing problems,, it will be relatively inexpensive to chemically "kill it off" and restart anew. I calculated your 0.1 pond contains about 98,000 gallons of water and it will cost about $25 to $30 wholesale for the necessary chemical - rotenone to eliminate all the fish in the pond. Retail cost may be more depending on the retailer - licensed applicator.

And would cost even less if he'd pump water out of the pond first to reduce the gallons of water. But, a licensed applicator would probably have a minimum charge too.....

I recently drained a 1 ac pond that was about 5' low with a 16,000gph semi-trash pump. It ran 24/7 to drain the pond, but there's only 12" or so of water in it. It's a LOT easier to dig in a relatively dry pond than to dig in 8' of water.....

I would like to bring up two questions that may be beneficial to Ed.

1) Is his pond deep enough for YP? I believe he said it was 7'.

2) Is it to cold for RES in his pond?

I have RES in my pond, and they survived last winter. Ed is about an hour north of me. It puts him about as far north in Ohio as you can get. I would think RES would be a good thing to get into his pond for the parasite control as soon as possible.

Bill, esshup and Fish n Chips, thanks for the suggestions and recommendations.

I have to realize I do not have complete control over all the fish that end up in my pond over time. Mother nature can add additional stock from our creek that over flows into our pond once every 5 years or so, also causing our pond to over flow as well. The creek currently bypasses the pond during the normal rainy times. That said, I need to recognize that these very heavy rain events will occur every so often and remove/add fish to my pond. Not looking to invest in altering the path of mother nature.

We are looking forward to the daily feeding of our fish. This gives both of us a lot of enjoyment. We are certainly used to doing this daily activity with the rest of the animals on the farm (the pond is fenced off from them).

I originally proposed in this thread the following stocking of fingerlings.
10 LMG
35 HBG
15 RES Redear

Based on the feed back here, I am now proposing the following stocking of our .1 ac pond of fingerlings this fall. Daily hand feeding. I will hold off a year or two on stocking LMB or RBT. Holding off on the CC.

10 Yellow Perch (YP)
10 Hybrid Striped Bass (HSB)
20 Redear Sunfish (RES)
30 Hybrid Bluegills (HSB)
FHM

Does this look like a good initial plan?
Since these are fingerlings, can these be shipped to me?

Ed

Fish n Chips, Aqua Doc told me my pond was 6'8" deep, and will get deeper with the use of our installed aerator over time.

It will be interesting to see how accurate AquaDoc's statement is about increasing the depth of your pond. Please keep us advised or your current pond depth.

Might have to step back for a minute and address a possible concern. Have you set any kind of minnow trap to see what is in the pond? With the creek flooding the pond, why isn't there some kind of fish in there already? Is it a new pond? If there is any kind of fish in there, it might change your whole stocking plan, especially sizes of stockers.

If it has flooded in the past with fish brought into it, where are they? A possibility is that it may have had fish kills every year.

Bill, sorry for the confusion. Aqua Doc told me the pond depth of 6' 8". They did not tell me that using the aerator will deepen the pond. That was my comment. I worded the sentence poorly. It was my understanding from reading that aeration will help the get air to the muck to process it. Just clarifying.

Ed

Time will tell if the pond gets deeper due to aeration. At least you know a pre-aeration depth.
F-n-C has good comments about what are the existing fishes in the pond. Have you tried sampling by angling, seining or trapping????. The next time AquaDoc arrives they could easily do a simple fish sampling if they are asked before they arrive and can plan to bring a seine or fish traps. It is easy to get small hooks size 10 or 12 and use small pieces of worms with a slender bobber to check to see if any small fish are present. The methods works well to catch many species of fish as small as 3".

Fish n Chips and Bill Cody,

The pond was in bad shape. Haven't seen a fish in it in years. However, this year we had one of those 5 year rains (I think it was May/June). Huge flooding, pond over-flowed from the nearby creek overflowing and cleared all the algae. I have seen 2-3 in minnows in the creek, so it is certainly possible some of these may be in the pond now. I have not set a trap but will look into this option. Bill Cody made some suggestions I will also follow up on.

Thanks guys!

Will the RBT eat the uninvited?

The famous Bill Cody's quote, "it all depends".

It would depend on the size of the uninvited, and the size of the RBT...as it would go for any other type of predator-v-prey combination. RBT will most likely eat the pellet feed as a first choice, so you would have to discontinue a feeding program, and that still isn't a guarantee. In my scenario, I did not feed the trout when first stocked. They were forced to go after the smaller fish that I wanted to reduce numbers of.

Same could go for what you "might" have in there. If there is "something", it could be the predator and your stockers are nothing but a welcomed snack.

You might also consider setting a trap in the creek to see what's in there. Trap in several different areas. If you come up with a LMB, CC, etc that's not good. Perhaps it's only minnows, creek chubs, etc. Post some pictures if you aren't absolutely sure.

PS..I know about the flooding you write of. We had 7" of rain in 20 hrs. A few days later you guys got the same

I am considering the following plan and am asking the forum for pros and cons as Bill Cody suggested. Thanks to many for their responses and suggestions!

Plan: Stock a dozen or so RBT fall 2013 (now), and hand feed these through this fall/winter/early spring. Fish these for fun and good eats until spring. Harvest all RBT and stock with forage (3 lbs FHM and 3 lbs of GSH). Add no predator fish until fall 2014 and let the forage spawn. Stock fingerling predator fish LMB?/SMB?/HBG/RES/TGC)in the fall 2014. (Note: I read here last week about fish company that can mail next day 250,000 GHS fry for new ponds at a very low cost.) Thoughts?

Does this plan make sense?

I have asked that question about the bulk GSF before myself. It seems like the only advantage to them would be if you do not have any spawning structure for them in the water. If your lake has been there for 10 years you should be in good shape. If you don't have spawning structure they say you can use straw mats or old carpet. I put a few pounds of GSH in our lake this spring and now we have an enormous population. I read somewhere that 1 female lays like 125,000 eggs per season. They try to say that the price per fish is such a great deal, I just don't see it. A couple dozen decent size GSH should easily make 250,000 fry the first year without predators. I am amazed at numbers of minnows that have been produced in our lake in just 1 spring/summer. Next year will be ridiculous. If I am patient enough to wait three years, the FHM and GSH might black out the sun.

I agree with Jakeroo on the GSH, especially a pond of your size.

Question marks by LMB, SMB.... I assume you are not sure on either. I think that I would go with SMB. Two reasons; First, you can always add LMB later and they would take over and crowd out the SMB. Second, with HBG, they probably won't produce enough food to keep the LMB satisfied.

In regard to the TGC. Don't add them unless you need them. They are added when you have a vegetation problem, and they are something that can be added at any time, any year. They aren't the "cure all" to weed problems as some think. Depends on weed types.

-- Have you had any results from trapping/fishing the pond or creek?

Jake- Plan sounds like a good start. As F-n-C wisely noted, TGC are usually not added until you see what species of weed colonizes and how many weeds need to be controlled. IT is good to always have some vegetation (15%-25% coverage) as competition to FA algae and habitat for fish and many invertebrates that inhabit weed beds. Adding TGC right away prevents any vegetation from colonizing and most or all nutrients will be utilized by FA due to no other plant competition, thus the algae grows unchecked and abundantly. Then you are continuously fighting filamentous algae problems. TGC do not eat very much FA - not a preferred food.

Considering your forage base I like the SMB as initial predators and if they do not perform well then add the LMB who will soon become dominant after several spawns.

Thanks for the response Jackeroo on the bulk GSH.
Looks like raising my own GSH (as planned) is a good direction.

Fish n Chips, You are correct in your assumption that I am not sure about the LMB or SMB. Your comments help.

I will also hold off on the TGC for the points you mentioned. Makes sense. Thanks!