Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species paddle fish"

I have a large pond in central Indiana.
I just stocked twenty, 10" to 15" inch paddle fish
My pond is 50 years old, Maby 8 feet deep at the most.
Any advice I would like to hear from anyone.
Thanks Jerry

Welcome to Pond Boss! I would subscribe to the magazine and purchase B
ob Lusk's books for Christmas. None of these sources are specific to raising paddle fish,but the knowledge you,ll gain will be of immense help to managing your pond for all of the fish species you have.

What is the surface area of your pond? What is the visibility in the summer?

I stocked about 50 paddle fish in my 2.6acre pond in early Dec.07. After the first few months,I never saw them again until this October.

mine look to be 20 to 35 lbs. and 3feet long. So I think they are doing ok. In 2014,I'm going to gill net some and weigh/measure them.

According to my sources,they will need to be in the pond for 8-12 years to be sexually mature before harvesting. I fertilize starting in the spring (with a liquid fertilizer) to maintain a plankton bloom between 18-24 inches.

These fish are filter feeders ,eating the zooplankton. I've not seen them affect my other species in any negative way.My pond is deeper than yours,so I don,t know how your shallower waters will work.

I'm in northern KY and I get a lot of information from,Kentucky State University,Aquaculture Dept. Attn; Dr.Steve Mims. I've recently met some very knowledgeable people that have had paddle fish for quite a few years,and I will be asking them questions that I come up with.

Did your supplier tell you this would be a long term project?
Jerry, you may want to restock more in a few years so that you can extend the harvest over a period of years.

I'm not on the forum that often,but if you have any questions,I'll be glad to help .PM me if you like.

Don't let snow accumulate on ice this winter. I have only had one fish kill, and it occurred the winter after I added my paddle fish. I did not see any dead paddle fish, but I had dead LMB, BG, and CC, so I doubt they survived. An expensive experiment for me!

Bernie thanks for your good advice.
The surface area of my pond is 8 acres. The visibility in summer is poor, I live in central Indiana farm country so I get some run off from the fields and a lot of fertilizer from the fields this is why my water is green from early summer until late fall. I hope the paddle fish will help with this.
I have lived here for 30 years and I have never had a winter fish kill. I think this is because of the large surface area???. I also get a lot of wind so this keeps the oxygen level up and the ice levels down.

Rah you didn't say when you put the paddle fish in your pond, Bernie said he didn't see his fish for several years after stocking. So don't give up on them yet. I understand they are very tough fish kinda like a cat fish,?????????

There are two types of plankton that I'm always concerned about in the pond:phytoplankton is the plant form that produces the pea green color,and zooplankton ,the animal form which feeds on the phytoplankton. Zooplankton will color the water brown and its this form that the paddlefish thrive on.

I'm not a biologist so hopefully one of our members will chime in with a more accurate description for you. By the way,I wasn't trying to be a salesman for Bob Lusk,but the books he wrote have been of great help to me and he explains plankton "bloom" in them.

Typically,I will find floating in spring a grass carp but never a PF.My GC seem to survive for approx.15-17 years. I know that PF will live a lot longer than that. Also,you may not see them float because many fish will sink to the bottom at death.

I am curious about the mortality rate through the years.Thus far I've not found a good answer.

RAH,I hope at least some of them survived for you. When I did see them they were not skittish at all. One big ole girl (hopefully) swam under my 15 ft.flat bottom boat even with my trolling mtr. on!

That has never happened with my GC. They spook very easily.

BTW.Years ago,a couple buddies and I were invited to fish a large pond near Batesville,Ind. with a guy by the name of Jack Doll. Seems his relations owned the farm with the pond in the middle of their fields.

I still hold out hope that there are a couple left, but I even lost large CC in the fish kill. I thought paddle fish needed high oxygen?

Depending on the size sourced and where they were obtained, paddlefish are pellet trained. I suspect it would be possible to keep them on pellets once released to a pond, especially if the pond doesn't have a large plankton bloom.