Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Northern Redbelly Dace..where & how much

Have a small pond just north of Portland (in WA). Id like to get hold of some Northern Redbelly Dace. Can anyone recommend where I can get some?
Equally a few RBT as all the local places either seem to only cater to large requirements or have taken a big hit in the recent hot summer and are not enthusiastic to sell any...
cheers
Beardy

Beardy,
Your best bet is to find a stream near you where there is a native population of northern redbelly dace. I have found many different species of minnows locally including mountain redbelly dace, rosyside dace and after more than a year Satinfin shiners. The minnows are difficult to buy unless they are fatheads, golden shiners, etc … I can only speak from my experience with a flow through pond. It has had excellent reproduction from the daces. I had the best results trapping them using the silver minnow traps using dog food to catch them in local creeks. I hope this information helps but you really should find out if they reproduce in a pond without constant water flow if that is the case.

The best place in Western US to find Redbelly dace for sale would be a bait shop that collects their own bait minnows. IMO it will be hard to find a bait shop that collects their own minnows. Probably the best way to get some redbelly dace in your area would be as Heppy suggests. Go out and collect them from streams in your part of the state assuming redbelly dace occur in WA. USGS says they do not occur west of Montana. I think you will have to find an alternate forage minnow and one that lives in western US states.

Many thanks,