Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Two fold question When to add perch and SMB and Where do the Fatheads go in Summer

Thank you for the advice guys. I like the idea of stocking the LMB this fall. The bass being offered by the county are in the 2-4 inch range. How many would you recommend for the half acre pond? Also, I'm going to try and find some BG instead of the YP.

Want to manage for large bass? I'd stock about 50 2"-4" LMB.

Interested in large panfish? Stock 100 LMB.

NOTE ON THEO'S HIGH BASS NUMBERS: Other PM's LMB stocking number recommendations will probably be lower. If you were down South, I would recommend 1/2 to 2/3 those numbers.

Outdoors - Note that if you are interested in getting and keeping mostly larger sized panfish(bgill) then make an effort to maintain high numbers of smaller bass (8"-12") and harvest larger bass i.e. mostly those larger than 16". Theo's stocking numbers are good but maybe slighly high at 100 per 0.5 acre since you don't have any BG in the pond yet. Consider stocking around 40-50 fingerling LMB this fall and then adding some more next late spring or fall 2008 once the BG have spawned. Your 2007 fall stocked fingerling LMB will not spawn in your NY pond until spring 2009. If you stock 4"-6" BG this fall they will spawn for you in summer of 2008, thus a small stocking of fingerling LMB in fall '08' would help "thin" the new hatchling'08' BG.

Thanks for all the great info everybody. What an informative, friendly site! I subscribed to Pond Boss Magazine today.

I've decided to stock a couple of these in my 1/2 acre pond. I put 10 lbs of FH in last month. Will this be sufficient, or should I also stock BG? Thanks in advance.

I estimated that your 0.5 acre has about 600,000 gallons of water. If you want these to live in your pond you better also stock about 154,000 lbs of salt to bring your dissolved solids (3.2%) up to near that in the ocean.

Can you please tell me what that would be in PPT? I'll bring my refractometer home from work and check it. (I inspect ballast water on ships)

Outdoor. My post about adding salt was a joke similar to your post about adding squid (photo) to your pond. As you probably know, PPT of salt water (ocean) is 30-40 ppt.

Darn. I was going to ask how to manage for big calamari.

I knew you were joking....you don't know me yet, so you don't know my sense of humor. That's the problem with typing! Very good on the 30-40, that's right on.

Man ohhh Man can I see that the thread I started a long time ago has taken a very strange turn. It would be interesting to see sucker marks on the YP and SMB sides with those bad boys in the pond!!!!

BTW: Here are the current stats for the YP and SMB

YP average 9-11 inches. Seen one or two around 13-14 inches.
SMB average 10-12 inches with a second population in the 14 inch range.
Almost no FHM. Its due to a combination of the fish and the drought we are having here that has shrunk the pond by about 3 ft in depth and about 5% as it relates to surface area.

Eric,

Even in the driest summer, the water level in my ponds has never dropped that much. We've been getting sporadic rains throughout the summer here. With last nights storm, the BG pond is up to the top of the dam again.

BTW, are you still considering adding scuds this coming winter??

We havent had rtain inover 2 months. I lose more than average due to some of the trees at the side of the pond. We have had rain all around us but nothing touching us at all. Life sucks here and I am praying for a huricane or something to give us a few days of saolid rain. But in the mean time since I am low, time to expand the pond again!!

I am still looking to add scuds, however withthe pond going so low, my plant life in the pond has been hurt and as such there is not much for the scuds to hide in.

Eric I feel your pondpain, I am down about 4 feet. My fish are doing well at this point but bring on the fall water!
Maki

mines down about a foot. i'm not happy. good thing i went 10' deep.