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Hello,

Great forum here. I now have a .2 acre pond in NY stocked with SMB. That is all I know of that is in there. I am sure I will have questions in the future and look forward to everyone's expert advice.

Now off to reading up on already covered topics!

Welcome to PB animal.

Hopefully you have a bit more than just SMB, or they might get hungry! Might they be feed trained?

Lots of good threads here for SMB ponds.

Welcome to Pond Boss, animal!

I added 5lbs of fathead minnow in Oct. In the spring I plan on adding more. The SMB were stocked 10 years ago and the population is doing quite well.

Any suggestions on getting fathead minnows established with the SMB in the pond already?

Absolutely no idea.

It is highly unlikely. The only things you can do are:
1. Knock down the SMB to such low numbers that they cannot eat all of the FHM you introduce. This means to zero.
2. Introduce another fish species that is too large for them to eat, Yellow Perch for example. Their offspring could stimulate the food chain a bit andmin general are a fun fish.
3. Same goes with pumpkin seed sunfish, or even both.
4. Have tons of cover such as heavy plant growth that the FHM can hide in, and a lot of items like pallets and other structure they can breed on. However I think that would result in skinny bass that could no longer efficiently catch food.

Feeding FHM is a sure way to an empty bank account. I started with FHM in my pond a few years ago, and thanks to perch, walleye, and black crappie introduced later, they are almost gone already. They were established, but not any more.

See this thread
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=343725&gonew=1#UNREAD

Thanks for the suggestions. I have quite a few of the other threads and thought about adding another variety of fish to help (for instance shiners or YP). The problem is (as I am sure you know) in the great state of NY the licensing is very strict and my farm fish license is only for FHM, SMB, and LMB. I requested other varieties, but this is what they gave me. The only feeding schedule right now is 5lbs FHM in the spring and fall every year.

I have two different plans I am thinking about implementing.
1) Dig the pond out and make it bigger. In the process of pumping water out and digging, I figure I will loose quite a few SMB. This was one of your suggestions. Although I hope to not go to zero. Then I can stock the FHM in the spring with added cover.

2) Try to add a lot of removable cover in the spring and add FHM. Then through the summer I can get the population up to a reasonable level then remove some of the cover.

It has been interesting that the fish have been in there so long far outliving the original stocked FHM. I guess they find stuff to eat like each other.

This will be an experiment if I can get a FHM population established with SMB already present. I am planning for the spring...

Waste of money planting fatheads in an established fish population. The SMB will wipe them out. It's an on going practice by some unscrupulous fish farms to tell people they need to plant fatheads in an established fish population.

Why?

Fatheads are slow moving and easy to capture

It takes 10 lbs. of forage fish to produce 1 lb. of predator fish.

I don't know about you, but if I planted as many as 100 lbs. of fatheads and ended up with only 10 lbs. of weight gain in my predator fish population, I'd think that was a waste of money.

However planting fatheads in a new pond --allowing them to reproduce exponentially before predator fish are planted -- isn't a bad idea. Then once the predator fish are planted they get a jump start before another forage fish species (such as bluegill) can take up the slack when the fatheads are wiped out. The bluegills spawn more than once a year and in a balanced pond will keep up with predation.

With smallmouth bass you would be better off with yellow perch as your forage base but will want to do some culling of yellow perch.

It is the NY DEC suggesting the FHM stocking. They are also the one's limiting my stocking to just FHM, SMB, or LMB. My hands are tied on this one by the state.

I agree that it is a waste of money to keep stocking FHM. I will have to do more thinking on this one. Maybe a redo on the fish population starting with FHM might be the course to follow. Just sad for the 24" SMB in the pond (I have only caught 2 this size).

Any other non-fish stocking suggestions to help feed the hungry SMB?

WTH?

The DEC didn't limit my selections as long as I purchased them from a licensed fish farm which follows viral checking procedures. We have many choices in NY, so I am guessing someone is giving you a load of bunk, or you are in some weird restrictive zone. Can you explain why the DEC is restricting you?

I am in the Fingerlakes region, and for example this is the place I get my fish:

http://www.fingerlakesaquaculture.com/

Oh, another option is to stock some crayfish as long as they have some cover.

Yes it does suck. The fish farm license specifically calls out which species of fish that I can stock. It goes on to explain that I cannot stock any other species of fish besides what is listed (unless I like fines). This is the newest 5 year license I just received. Maybe this is the new way they are doing licenses?

Crawfish is a good idea. I think there is already some in there, but I should help to boost the numbers with structure. There is also plenty of frogs in the spring, that should help also.

I'll throw an idea out there...How about digging a small hole next to your pond to raise FHM every year. You were talking about expanding the pond, but possibly do this instead.

I wonder what would happen if a "mysterious" bird dropped in a GSH, or something else. You wouldn't know about it, and would they fine you for an act of nature? Just saying

Oh great, now I have to worry about attracting a mysterious bird and hope it brings the right species!?! j/k

This is a pretty good idea. Need to think more about this one. And get the blessing of the USACE, NYDEC, county, and the local town. They all think (and pretty much do) have jurisdiction over my pond area.

BTW, how long ago did you get your most recent farm fish license? There was no species of fish listed for stocking? I am curious now.

What happens if a "neighbor" puts fish in your pond? Act of vandalism. How are you to know exactly what is in your pond. NY has some pretty odd laws that don't account for unintentional stockings.
There are lots of ways of unintended stocking of fish that have been discussed here. What happens if you buy lots of FHM and several fingerling bass, perch, sunfish, stickleback, mosquito fish, mudminnow or bullhead are in the mix and not seen when dumping fish into the pond? This happens all too often. Numerous ponds get contaminated this way. Lawmakers are not very practical nor blessed with common sense.

Bill,

Just the fact that New Yorker's have to buy a fishing license to fish their own pond is too much for me. Don't even get me started on the fact that trout have to be tested for LMB virus and largemouth bass for Whirling disease.

Yes, I am not so keen on the supposed tight control where much doesn't even make sense to do. I have no idea how they can identify accidental introduction versus intentional. At time of purchase?

My planning to expand the pond will require permits/permission from US ACE, NY DEC, county and local town. 3 of these are just within the state. Hah!

For now I have to play within these strange state set limits.

From what I was told by the DEC, all I had to do was register my pond, and in return I was given the right to fish any time I wanted, and stock any fish I wanted from a registered fish dealer. My only restriction was to only stock fish from a licensed dealer of fish in NY.

I did not register as a fish farm, only as a private owner. Perhaps that is the difference? Are they assuming you are raising fish for sale at stores and not for personal use? Maybe it is a pond size restriction? I know that if I went over a 1 acre pond, I would have had to jump through hoops, but I thought that was mostly for design concerns on the dam and overflow structures.

NYS may be a pain in the rear end for its nannying, but I don't think it is that bad. I would call the department and get some clarification, as I think you are getting the wrong licenses for your pond.

Your pond, that you paid for, and you need permission from the state to toss a line in?

I just checked my farm fish pond license. Indeed it only allows for stocking of LMB, SMB, and FHM. They have to have the fish health inspection report etc. Additionally it is stated "Do not release any species of fish into this pond except as permitted by this license". This is the appropriate license for this pond in NY, I called the DEC to confirm.

One additional point on the license: The fish can only be removed by angling.

What is the name of the license you have?