Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose On Mutt Pond

Good to hear from you !

Well my bride slipped off to the pond for a couple hours yesterday with a can of crawlers. I'm happy to report she brought back 10 BG 1 to 1.3 pounds and a nice 3 pound CC. She also culled a 13 inch skinny LMB. I'm very happy with the sample but I know I need to improve the forage base. No more fishing now until after the second BG spawn. I want to build up the forage. I added several brush piles to give the coming newbies some cover.

Way to go, Bill! Any time you raise a 1 lb plus BG it's a cause for celebration!

Yeah, 1+ pound BG is still a dream of mine...it's harder than I thought! Congrats!

Bill one way to help the BG pre-spawn is to start feeding as soon as they become active after ice-out. It helps improve the RC (relative condition) of the soon to be spawning BG which improves spawn numbers and BG health in general.

Thanks for the suggestion Eric! I'll start throwing Optimal pellets as soon as the current cold snap is over.

My BG have been eating voraciously for almost a month now here in central MO, caught a few that were fat as a tick, threw them back in and so didn't check on what they were eating, I have a feeder throwing food once a day but it doesn't go very far, all cleaned up in under a minute, they just boil the water for a minute while trying to get their share of food.

My BG are eating and spawning like crazy. A lot more little BG showing up to dine while the big ones are involved in love making! We always have a HUGE FA problem so this year I broadcast copper sulfate in April when I could see FA on the bottom 3 to 6 inches tall. Knocked it back and now have a nice bloom just in time for the newbie BG. NO massive FA mats choking the pond! I'll stay on top of the FA with spot treatments when I see it getting out of control. I like a little FA; just not a massive amount!

Read up on Copper sulfate. You need very good alkalinity before you use CUSO4. Also never just trough it in. Dilute it in water and spray it near the FA (stick the spray wand down near the FA).

Ewest, As always, thanks for the input and I appreciate the words of caution. A few words of explanation and rationale....The alkalinity of the pond is 300+ so I felt there was no concern from that aspect. The last two years, I dissolved the CUSO4 in hot water and sprayed. Getting the wand down to the FA is only possible relatively close to shore so most of the spray has to be surface sprayed. I found that the sprayed CUSO4 took a heavy toll on the food chain as the solution slowly dropped to the bottom and treated the entire water column. My pond is a water table pond and is down about 5 feet right now. As I treated earlier this year than in the past, when the FA was just getting started, I decided to try broadcasting so the granules would drop quickly to the bottom and dissolve there, instead of treating the entire water column with dilute spray, in an effort to only treat near the bottom of the pond where the FA was growing.

Additional info: Treatments with Cutrine Plus and Cutrine granular in past years at max concentration per label seemed to lack the punch to handle our massive FA infestation.

Disclaimer: I am not recommending Copper Sulfate to other pond owners, just sharing my experiences. As Ewest rightly pointed out, CUSO4 should be used with extreme caution.

All ponds are different. Sounds like you have a good plan for yours. Watch for copper build up in your pond bottom soils over time. Correct on your very good alkalinity.

We usually don't let many people fish our pond but a very nice and polite young neighbor came by and asked to fish. How could I refuse! He caught a bunch of bass but was really proud of this perch. Bill Cody you are the expert. She measured 13.5 inches. Good YP for a July catch?

Where have you been!!?????

That yellow perch is awesome!!!!

Three years of drought left my little puddle even tinier so not really much to post about. I'll be dropping by every once and awhile going forward to harass you guys!

Bill so good to hear from you! Not the same without you

Bill, I’m going through a drought now. I’ve had almost no rain this year.

Good to hear from you.

Sweet YP!

Dandy yellow perch that your visitor caught. Enjoy those yellow perch, however they may become few and far between. With bass commonly present they will eat lots of the young YP even to the point of eating more YP than sunfish due mainly to the slender versus wide body shape of sunfishes. To keep YP present long term in the pond you may have to periodically stock several larger 6" to 8"+ perch. Bass love to eat easy to catch yellow perch.

Yep, that's the situation we have now. YP are few and far between. Same goes for the WE. I stocked a few more WE 6 to 8 a year or two ago but I suspect only a couple survived. We caught a 16 this year so I know at least one made it past the LMB gauntlet. We really need to harvest some bass. It takes a big perch to avoid the mouth gap of a 20 inch LMB.

Always nice to see the younger generation without an I-pad in their face. Nice yp, think that smile says thanks for letting me fish your pond. Congrats on both accomplishments