Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Let's EXPERIMENT - Design my stocking 2 new ponds

Pondmeisters,

The dozers are running and my excitement is building! Here is what I’m looking for help on:

Location: NE Ohio, 33-35” precip. annually

Water Source: runoff (less than half of runoff source from ag fields subject to minimum tilling, and remainder from woods) I intend to buffer with native grasses and utilize swimming pool sized sediment/settling pond to flow into main pond.

Depth: Projected to be 8-12’ at the “deep third of the pond” (S end) and maybe 4-6’ at (N end)

Size: 1.5-2.0 acres depending on how much dirt I can push off on the neighbors and construction budget, my short side N-S will be 50-75yds wide and the length E-W will be 100-125yds wide with some shape to the shore.
Construction Type: Combo embankment/excavated, planned 3:1 slopes on sides (except for swimming area).

Goals: I’d like to have a beach/swimming area on the W end as this will be closest to the house and the easiest to get utilities to. Also, since I never do things the easy mindless way and tend to over plan and over complicate everything… I want to stock something different than the LMB / BG /CC that occupy every other farm pond within 150 miles of me. I realize that is the recommended or most common stocking but I (and friends/family) really enjoy the “table value” of the YP and WE and I think stocking / feeding / management costs would be offset by the fact that I could walk outside to shop for a fish dinner rather than spending 3 hours and a couple hundred dollars of fuel for a trip to Lake Erie. (Not that I will stop going there, just that I won’t have to go there every time I want to have a fish fry).
I’ve read perfect pond, pondboss for the last year, and spend countless hours on this forum but I wondering out loud and hoping for some other views / advice / opinions.


Questions:
1. I would love to try BCP or hybrid crappie but from the days spent reading all threads related it seems that success will not last forever in a pond of this size but… One idea is didn’t see discussed, what if you electrofished each spring/summer and rid the pond of excess YOY crappies to combat overpopulation? I have no idea how much this would cost or if it would even work? Trying to think outside the box here.

2. Assuming I really don’t care about fighting/catching LMB (in this pond) what other species would work with WE & YP in my area and in what proportion would you stock them?

3. Assuming I change my mind about what types of fish I would like to stock or try, is there a different way that you would build the bottom or slopes of the pond for a particular species? Just for sake of variety and to reduce the size of the “privacy mountain” that will be pushed up on the north property border, I was going to leave some submerged underwater islands/humps. I was also going to cut in a channel near the dam to provide some deeper water but not sure if that is necessary or not? Should I have flats at various depths for different species to spawn?

4. Test holes (near dam) revealed about 9’ deep we hit sand and gravel, if this is consistent leaving a foot of clay + 6 ft dam on orig grade will mean I have the potential to go approx. 15’ deep max without losing water via sand gravel bottom. Reading some WE posts it seems member 19dave68 had some luck with spawning in a small NY pond so I was thinking about having the contractor dig up some of that gravel and stockpile for later use on the NE shore for spawning habitat since the wind blows predominately from the SW. Is that a good idea (any cons to doing so if the borrow area is re-sealed/compacted with clay)?

5. I planned on using 15-20% structure and have lined up lots of pallets, an abundance of 5 gallon buckets and some culvert/pvc pipes. I understand Christmas trees are best but if I were going to add submerged timber/treetops would the fresh cut silver maples release tannins and poison my new stocking or should I wait for the wood to season and dry before dragging/sinking back into the pond?

PS. As a bonus, while they had equipment on site I had them push around some dirt for a “small wetland area” on the back side of my property but ended up with the attached photo (duck pond with flats that should hold fish rather than dry out each year as a seasonal wetland).

The main bowl is about 6-8ft deep @ .4 acres and the back bowl is same @ .25 acres, everything in between 12-18” depth that I hope to drain plant and re-flood each year. The shallow flats are planted in millet right now, just waiting to grow and fill. The point is, I can do my experimenting there by stocking with BCP and CC or just go the traditional route of LMB, BG, etc. in the duck pond and do my experimenting in the larger pond.
I’m open to any thoughts and suggestions.
Thanks.

not sure how to insert an image but here's a link to the duck pond

[img][IMG]http://i736.photobucket.com/albums/xx2/uplandhunting/20130920_121043.jpg[/img][/img]

This is will be great. I will let the northern guys chime in on stocking suggestions.

Based on some of the information in your post, I think the YP/WE combination is an excellent start. On top of that I would stock RES as well. As far as additional predators, HSB woulld be high on my list. They too are good eating, they will not naturally reproduce in a pond such as yours, so managing their numbers is very easy. Because they take to pellets, they have excellent growth rates but will also feed on YOY perch to help keep their numbers in check. SMB would be another option. They would have to managed more closely, but could also be a good addition to your set up.

As far as forage, well that is where you need to step outside the box. Particularly if you do not stock the SMB. Look at BNM, SFS, LCS and BKF. All would be fantastic additions to your planned stocking. FHM can be stocked as well and GSH can be added about the same time the predators go in, but I wouldn't stock them early on with the other species. I would also stock grass shrimp. They will be an excellent forage for the YP, RES and smaller WE and HSB and SMB if stocked.

CJ has covered the basics for stocking. If it were mine I would use the wetland area to grow forage minnows mentioned by CJ: BNM,SFS, BKF and or LCS, and grass shrimp - crayfish.

I would not want WE spawning in a pond. In optimum conditions you could easily have too many to over eat the forage and not get WE larger than 10"-13" - a bad thing IMO. Buy the replacement stocker WE when you need them.

I don't think electroshocking is a good way to remove excess BCP. Small crappie tend to inhabit open water areas and electroshocking does not work well in open water areas. If you want crappie use over-abundant small LMB as the predator or lots of over stocked HSB.

Fyke nets are IMO the best management tool for removing large numbers of small crappies. If you have a helping hand, two people can readily deploy a reasonably sized fyke net and hammer crappies. If you absolutely must have crappies, I would wait until all your other predators had substantial size to them. Probably 5-6 years after your WE, HSB, etc were stocked...

Thanks, Ill check the fish the abbrev. thread to be sure on the forage fish, can you please clarify the suggested timing? Are you saying to wait for all forage until time predators are stocked or just wait for the GSH?

P.s. would Jones Fish be the best source for fish and stocking ratios in my area or can find some per acre figures for above suggeted species here?

Bill, Thanks I wondered how the electrofishing worked, I have never seen it in action. This may be a dumb question but using the wetland area for forage sounds good... what is the best method to transfer said forage to main YP WE pond (cast net)? and how often would I time the transfers?

As a follow up:
Could I use the connected feeder/silt pond for forage fish and do something else in the wetland area?

Are you sayin only forage in the wetland area and do not stock CC or as suggested (overstock of HSB adding BCP later)?

Or are you saying use the shallow area of the wetland area for forage and go ahead and stock other fish also that would most likely occupy the deeper water?

I have used Jones, but would first defer to Fender's. They are not that far from you. They have WE and YP. I don't think they have the forage CJ mentioned. I don't think they even sell GSH. They do have FHM.

Stocking ratios is something I would compile here and not let that be up to the sole discretion of the fish supplier.

To add to CJ's comment on fyke nets. There is a really good thread in using them against crappie. I think the forum name is MNFISH.

Just a friendly reminder that the Trees left in the edge of the Dam will tend to have roots grow that may lead to potential leaks / failures in the future.

Bmrenn asks: "This may be a dumb question but using the wetland area for forage sounds good... 1. what is the best method to transfer said forage to main YP WE pond (cast net)? 2.and how often would I time the transfers? 3. Are you sayin only forage in the wetland area and do not stock CC or as suggested (overstock of HSB adding BC later)? 4. Or are you saying use the shallow area of the wetland area for forage and go ahead and stock other fish also that would most likely occupy the deeper water?

1.A pretty good way to capture fish in the wetland area is to use baited fish-minnow traps. A couple sizes helps the catching of different sized fish.
2. With traps you can catch fish any time you have the time and when you think you need extra forage.
3. I am saying only forage species in the wetland area. Once you get predator in the pond most everyone finds that there are never enough minnows in the predator pond. I would leave predators out of the forage pond and reserve the space for growing forage species. If you don't like the arrangement you can always add predators, but it is very difficult to get predators out of a pond to make it predator free for growing forage species.

If you really want some CC-HSB-BCP in the wetland area then just have the contractor dig a small pond about 60x60 adjacent to or part of the wetland for growing minnows/forage.

Thank you, I seemed to forget that I was worried about that, so thanks for the reminder. The dam is very thick where the maples are (20'+ width) but I was still going to drop them later.

There's also one oak that I specifically left standing and built the dam around as to drop acorns for the ducks, it's base is at the outside toe of the dam... do you think that would cause a problem?

Hey Bill, I am having that size pond dug (maybe slightly smaller) for the silt pond that will drain into the main larger pond. I appreciate the help so far and get what you are saying about forage only in the duck pond but now I'm thinking again...


I could(?) do forage in the silt pond that will fill the main larger pond if I'm able to design so that all minnows don't wash out into main pond. That would let me have another multi-species stocking in the smaller duck pond to have two distinct "fisheries".

P.S. While we are talking about it (forage pond), what is the advantage of raising separate and then catching and moving to larger pond to feed predators vs. just simply letting them live/spawn and be eaten in the larger pond without having to trap and move them?

P.P.S. I really like those fyke nets and am thinking I will try that for BC control years down the road after/if they are introduced

Also just noticed i have been using BC(blue cat) where i meant BCP(black crappie). I think you guys understood me and did not call attention to my error but I corrected to avoid confusion if someone reads this in the future, sorry for the mix-up.

I think you can go back in your posts using the "edit" tab and change the acronyms.

I seen that and thought that was a oak. Oaks have a large taproot that is very deep. This taproot can draw water from deep within the earth (50 gal per day if I remember correct) and is the reason why oaks can cope with a certain amount of drought.
A mature oak also starts to grow lateral roots, from which smaller, more fibrous roots emerge. These smaller, lateral roots grow beyond the tree's drip line. At times about one-third farther than where the tree branches end in a mature oak. As the oak ages, these horizontal roots serve to feed the tree for the rest of its life. During and after is life these roots present an avenue for water to follow and cause a problem.
A lot of people do not realize mature Oaks often have more volume in roots than branches.

I have a pond with a Large mature oak in the emergency run around undisturbed soil. After about 15 years root rot set in and killed the Oak. I find myself now hoping that it never becomes an issue. 20 years total since built and not any problems. So really it is hard to say if it will be a problem or not.
In the end I was just wanting make sure you are aware of what I seen in the photo.

BMRENN saw you read 1 of my threads. I am not sure how much reproduction I have from my WE. I would say a handful. My walleye are doing good. Not growing as fast as I would like but, I have a handfull of LMB, and CC in the pond. Still working on removing the LMB against some advise on here. I`m experimenting. Down to a couple.
Surprisingly I never saw my sunfish spawn for the first time. I also didn`t notice the YP spawn. I do see small fingerlings though. My BCP are getting 10-13 inches, and have not seen an overpopulation problem yet?? Maybe with the removal of LMB. The YP are outgrowing the WE it seems. I am getting fish 12-14 inches.
Use big rock for the spawning areas for the WE 3 - 8 inches. They call it oversize by me. Put on downwind side of pond. Hope that helps.