Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Additive Fish

I am strongly considering adding 200 6-8 inch Walleye and 200 6-8 inch Smallmouth Bass to the pond. I would consider these to be "bonus fish". If they reproduce, that is OK too. The stocking would occur in the fall when the water has cooled from summer highs.

Given (the large predators in the pond ((LMB and NP)), abundant plant life, structure and forage fish), how many would survive predation and grow to adulthood?

Dwight,
If you wait until late this fall to stock, a good portion would survive predation. Also I would consider removing some small to medium sized LMB this summer and next to make room for the new guys.

You may also want to consider removing the big northerns that you catch and starting over again with smaller ones. I like to remove the muskies and notherns from the ponds I manage once they reach 28 inches or so. They are very beneficial fish up to that size, but they are not quite so beneficial when they get BIG.

Nate

When you stock NP, do you make certain they are female? I worry about having a pond full of hammer handles!

Get the biggest stockers you can and habituate them .

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...true#Post127590

Take out some small LMB (equal in weight to what you are adding) in addition to your normal harvest. Add a bunch of FH to the habituation area.

Do you have golden shiners, Dwight? Can't recall.

Dwight,
I have never seen a bass/bluegill pond with natural pike reproduction. I am sure others have, but we just don't get much pike or walleye to reproduce at all in panfish infested ponds.

Also stocking yearling walleyes in our zone in November really hasn't seemed to lead to much mortality due to predation, and that is in predator heavy waters.

Bunches and bunches of yearling walleye to stock the entire midwest come out of Minnesota the last half of October to the first half of November.

If you could habituate them with a net and some fathead minnows I am sure that quick meal before entering the real world would help them out quite a bit, but we don't typically do that and have great success stocking them that time of year.

If you do go ahead and stock them, I can't wait to see the results. Do you have any YP in your pond? I know I have seen you catch some crappies, bass and NP along with BG, but can't recall seeing any other species.

I had the habituation technique in mind. Thanks for the Link.


I haven’t ever seen a Golden Shiner in the pond. Would they be a good additional forage fish for a pit type pond?


That is good to hear. The hammer handle syndrome may apply more to large bodies of water. There are tons of hammer handles in Minnesota lakes. There could be many reasons for that such as over fishing removing the large Northerns.


Yes there is a very healthy YP population.

If you could get the golden shiners established, it would be another prey source for your predators. We kept talking about adding predators, and so of course, my thoughts strayed to what they would eat. Your only chance to establish would be stocking large adults. I don't know if you could find a source or not. Honestly, we've had a hard time getting them established. I have been wanting to find some wild golden shiners out in ponds in western SD, and then bring them back. Maybe they would get started more easily than naive shiners that are purchased straight from the hatchery?

Dave trouble establishing GShiners I assume not SMB & WE ?

Dwight is it lawful to stock GShiners in MN next to a river ?

My thinking is that the pond can handle 400 new predators due to the current forage base being healthy, though I do really like the idea of an additional forage fish.


I am checking with the hatchery on the golden shiner question as well as a source for some "Minnesota tough" shiners.

Usually when I decide to do something, I just go ahead and do it. Adding Walleye and Smallmouth has been contemplated and discussed for several years now. I don't want to upset the the natural balance that exists in the pond today so I tread lightly.

The idea of adding a new forage fish along with the new predators certainly seems to have merit since I don't do any feeding.

From Ewest: Dave trouble establishing GShiners I assume not SMB & WE ?

Dwight is it lawful to stock GShiners in MN next to a river ?

1. I could not even get the golden shiners established by buying and stocking hatchery fish into a pond that only had fathead minnows and orangespotted sunfish (a prey pond). That's how bad this is, and why I wanted to try some wild fish instead. Sort of embarassing, don't ya think?

2. Golden shiners are native in MN, so that should help Dwight.

Considering your existing fishery and predator base, I would be very interested in seeing the catch ratio of adults after stocking the juvenile WE and SMB. It would be very good and valuable data if you kept and reported catch records after the stocking.

I think you would have to follow the "new book" on doing everything you could to acclimate the new fish to the pond....blocking nets, removal of many numbers of the other predators...baitfish stocking prior to the new stocking...just everything you can do to amp the chances of establishing new populations.

If you can locate a pond or lake with a healthy wild GSH population, you can do what Esshup and I have done and that is using small baited hooks to catch larger adult GSH or a cast net if you know how to use one. I have had luck getting GSH to take hold in ponds when stocking very large GSH. Then again, I have never stocked them into ponds with large NP like yours has... There is no doubt in my mind, a smaller number of wild GSH being stocked has a far better chance of establishing a breeding population in a pond like yours as opposed to stocking a large number of hatchery raised GSH. Sorta like stocking pen raised pheasants as opposed to trap and transferring wild pheasants... You could put out 200 pen raised pheasants into prime habitat and they probably still won't establish a breeding population. You trap and transfer 20 wild pheasants to that same area and you have a decent chance...

If I wanted to try to establish GShiners in a pond with adult predators like Dwight's I would do the following (caution in advance as it could turn out badly):

Block off a cove/area about 1/2 acre * and add some extra cover (10 xmas trees would work) , add several range cubes (at least one suspended away from shore) , assuming a light bloom then add a floating fertilizer tub (to ramp-up the bloom in that area) , add adult GShiners (in time for spring/summer spawning) and let them do their thing , buy a bag of AM 400 and 20 days after stocking the adults start feeding 1 lb of food by hand per day, 30 days after the adults go in add purchased GShiner fry and feed until the food runs out (you have a 50 day supply), at the end of the food remove the net. Better yet buy an extra bag of GFC and keep them there an extra 25 days feeding 2 lbs per day.

Keep a close eye on things so you can adjust as needed.

* to block off the cove reverse seine out from shore to run out the predators.

This discussion is great...Dwight I'm 100% behind you on this - I love your ideas. If the SMB and WE don't establish - okay, so you have a put and take fishery. There's no downside at all with adding SMB and WE IMO - certainly aren't going to get ahead of your LMB or NP - but sure adds a new element to your fishery. One tastes great, the other fights 2x harder than your LMB. Sounds like a winner.

IMO Dwight just needs another class or two of high end predator to whack his perch and crappie numbers down some. So other than some FHMs on realease of the new fish, I would not worry about adding any other prey until he sees what happens. Dwight, you get the fish and I will take care of whatever you need for FHMs, as long as I am involved in the "release".

I like your idea Eric, I think it could work. I just requires a lot of work to do. One has to decide just how important establishing GSH is to them...

The stick has intimate knowledge of Dwight's pond. Seems his point is valid. Adding GSH to a pond can take predation away from YP, BC and BG. Perhaps something that isn't wanted if trying to keep their numbers in check and produce a higher quality panfish fishery?

So does Dave Willis and he brought up the GShiners and knows about prey/predator balance up north. Dwight knows his lake as well. This one is a tossup for me. SMB and WE are not particularly good at controlling BG and YP #s so I would not count on them to do too much in that regard. LMB do a very good job and over time and it is not uncommon to see LMB only ponds as a result. The opposite result is also not uncommon - BG overpopulation and stunting. Add in the crappie and you have even more uncertainty. GShiner adults will help with crappie egg reduction , and same for BG and LMB eggs. They do take up space which could go to other fish. One thing I can say is the more fish species you have the harder it is to manage for an unbalanced result like lots of big - your choice LMB , BG , NP , YP, SMB , WE etc. There are just too many interactions we don't understand as managers.

My comments were a generlaziation of how to if you really want too - not a you should try GShiners. The problem with the method noted is the success rate. You could have just the right # of surviving adults to establish a GShiner population. You could also not have enough to establish either of which is managable. The danger is you could be too successful and be overloaded with GShiners. No matter what yo have to realize you have ramped up the amount of forage and predators and as the ultimate balancer do your job.

If you have any kind of predator base, getting overloaded with Golden Shiners is a temporay problem, in my opinion.

I though SMB could help with YP control???

They can help but not control BG or YP #s as per Dave in northern ponds. YP can also help control small BG #s by eating them when its cold while they have an advantage as a coolwater fish. I assume YP do the same on crappie but that is one of those many interactions not known.

I figured correctly that there would be some interesting discussion in this thread.

Eric's "establishing a viable GShiner population" post is something I would consider doing in a separate pond. Thank you for the concept! I am not willing to submit Bremer Pond to that level of human intervention. Keeping things as "natural" as possible has always been my pond credo. A FH pond sounds interesting too.

Did I mention that my brother-in-law may be "storing" his track hoe out here this summer......

I have been convinced that removing the +-40" NP from the pond and replacing them with some small ones may be a smart move.

Why could it be a smart move?

Those big NP are probably cropping off the larger YP, BC, and BG (hereafter, the “Trio") in the pond with their voracious appetites. There has been some discussion of this phenomena in the Nine Inch Fish Thread .

Nate brought up the idea and after thinking about it, I can see the clear logic of his comments. Dr. Dave and Eric have hinted at this at times as welll. It took a smack upside the head to cause my fish brain to engage. Thanks, Nate!

The small NP will eat off the lower end of the Trio since that is all that they can get their mouth around. This will allow the larger Trio fish to grow to lunker-size while keeping the small Trio fish from overpopulating.

Since I want to add WE and SMB this fall, removing the large NP should free up a lot of predator “space” for the newcomers.

Targeting the big NP could result in some serious fishing fun!

Questions:

How many small NP is a good number for 16,000,000 gallons of water (5 acres x 10 feet deep average)?

What are the downsides of this potential plan?

Dwight, the only downside that I can see is the potential for the smaller NP to target the stocker WE & YP while the larger NP would key in on larger fish.