Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Can you overstock forage?

We finished draining and reworking my 2 ac. pond and it has filled. We were able to relocate many of the larger LMB and BG to a smaller pond next to it. We then moved as many of the LMB and BG back into the larger pond as we could. After that I put 1000 FHM and 400 BG fry in for forage last fall. I have no idea if any survived. They were for forage any way.

This week I fished and caught a lot of 2-3 1/2 lb. LMB that were preparing to spawn. They didn't look that fat or with roe as I think they should. Maybe the double move and lack of forage in the reworked pond set them back.

Anyway, I want to stock 1000 FHM, 400BG and some number(?) of GSH for forage. Since there is a good number of adult LMB I don't think it will be a problem to stock too many forage fish but I would appreciate any opinions.

Also, I would like to have some walleye and YP in there as well but am leery of that. The pond is 15' deep at the dam and averages 8' with a clay bottom. I added some pea gravel in some of the shallows.

The little pond I am thinking of just putting BG and CC in there for eating and transferring some larger BG to the big pond from time to time for spawning forage so I won't have to buy more.

I know it's a lot of questions but I have always received excellent advice here.

Lack of plumpness to me based on your story in prespawn bass is a sign more of lack of food than from moving adults. Depending on how many bass were moved will determine how much forage is needed for maintaining basic standard weight bass and not 'tubby' bass. Adult BG also need normal amounts of foods both ample naturals &/or pelleted. Re-working a pond destroys the established natural food chain / web that can take months or years to recolonize. Adding adult fish back into a newish renovated pond puts them into almost desert-food like conditions considering how much diversity of natural foods are present in a 1-2 yr pond. IMO from your description your restokced adult fish are probably experiencing food famine due to low natural large foods biodiversity of a new pond. That is why the general policy of stocking a new pond begins with fingerling fish who thrive on the type of foods produced in conditions of a relatively new pond habitat.

Bill, that is exactly what I am afraid of in the LMB. I did put in some forage to help out last fall as the pond filled and now the water covers all the weeds and tree structure we left in the shallow end. I fear the LMB are starving because they crushed my baits on every cast. They are still remarkably good looking but definitely not fatties.

So basically I can add all the FHM, BG fry and GSH I want because most of them will be eaten right away? I can't really overpopulate my pond by putting too many right?

I doubt you will be able to feasably put in too much forage. Your wallet will probably go flat first or your wife will apply the common sense 'brakes'. Also - FHM, BG fry, and GSH are not very good forate items for 1 lb to 3.5 lb LMB. Those items will tide them over and keep them from losing more weight but it will not quickly get them back to standard weight condition. It takes an abundance of larger vulnerable forage or food items to put fat on mature bass.

Ok. I have a feeder. Should I start that or is it a waste of money right now? I have spent a fortune on these ponds and saving the fish so I guess the old saying "in for a dime, in for a dollar" applies to me now.

It was "about the pond" but now it's about the fish.

I would not start the feeder UNTIL you are sure the fish will eat pellets. Hand feed first once or twice a day in area of feeder at the planned time of auto-feeding until you know pellets will be immediately eaten.

What is the water temp. ? Might be a good time to add some adult BG to the pond.

Mark, with this brutal cold we've been having here in VA lately, you may see a downturn in activity again. Water temps in many local ponds were pushing 60 and I have seen some into the mid 40's. Those swings are awfully hard on fish! Particularly ones that are stressed already.

Not sure how much money you are looking to spend, but I agree with Bill and don't think you could stock too much forage fish before your wallet burned up!

Northern Virginia has to to have the same cold temps I have in PA right now. I would stock adult BG right now. They wont spawn for another month or so. If you have a pond you trust the fish from catch as many BG as you can and stock stock stock.

Thanks for the advice. As soon as my new little pond fills up some more I plan to stock it with BG and CC so I have fish to eat and provide forage for the bigger pong which is all LMB and BG.

On another thought-how practical is it to stock larger WE and YP in my 2 ac. BG and LMB pond in the hopes of providing some diversity and eating fish? Will they survive and reproduce or will it be more a stock and catch deal?

Just read Bill Cody's post on YP and BG and LMB on another thread so I guess I have my answer.

Are ther any disadvantages of stocking golden shiners in a pond designed for LMB? Will the population of golden shiners sustain itself with LMB in the pond?

I don't see any disadvantages to having GSH in a LMB pond, but that's just my opinion.
If you have enough shallow cover where the big bass can't get all of them they should do well, trout sure love them.

RAH, it's been my experience it all depends. GSH do have an advantage in that they reach a much larger size than most other minnow species, meaning that unlike say FHM for example, they get big enough to avoid predation by all but the largest of bass. This means, a few adults reach a "safe" size and can be your breeder stock. Sometimes too many get this size and can be a pain. I don't see that often though. I often see GSH being slowly removed from ponds over time, particularly ponds with little shallow water areas and steep banks. This combination produces few area for GSH to spawn and few areas for their young of year to take cover and feed. Usually, the first stocking produces a good number of fish who reach adulthood. These fish are stocked at the same time as or before LMB. Meaning they have a jump on the LMB and reach sizes too large for the initially stocked LMB to feed on. This original generation of GSH do well. However, as time goes on, poor spawning success and heavy predation on the young that are born leads to few if any new GSH reaching maturity. Over time as the original GSH die off from old age and with little or no recruitment, GSH eventually die out from the pond community.

GSH can prey on LMB eggs, but again this is generally a good thing as LMB tend to over reproduce which leads to stunting. I see no disadvantages to stocking GSH in a pond designed for growing bigger LMB. In ponds designed for growing trophy sunfish, I'd leave them out.

I generally agree with CJ on his post above especially in the context given. I would point out that there can be a problem if there are multiple planktivors (GShiners , tshad , gshad etc) in a system all competiting for the same basic food. This can impact yoy of other species as well like BG and LMB. The food web is so complicated and diverse it can be very hard to gauge and next to impossible to anticipate correctly the possible changes. Generally the more species you have the harder it is to manage all the potential interactions. Probally not something to worry too much about. I would be cautious of starting with multiple planktivors but it could be done with proper mgt. in the right system.

I and many others don't live far enough south to stock tshad and it's a rare northern pond where gshad would be a suitable addition. So GSH are really the only option for us. This is a big reason I have been so interested in other forage fish options such as lake chubsuckers, spottail and satinfin shiners, bluntnose minnows, banded killifish and others. I am a fan of forage fish species diversity.

Thanks to all. I added 10 lbs of FHM after a fish kill (BG, RE, CC, & LMB) this winter. There may be surviving fish, but I have not seen any yet. If they are gone, I'll pick up some golden shiners and see how they do.

That would probably be a good idea. LMB and CC can eat a lot of forage.

I just added 2000 FHM of very good size, 200 3-4" BG and over 100 crayfish to the pond to help get the forage base get jump started after the rebuild. I got them all from Zett's in WV and thoroughly went through all the fish and hand netted and checked any that looked suspicious, as I have had issues with unwanted species from them before.

I have to say the fish were very healthy and the counts were very generous. Mrs. Zett gave me the BG for half price as I related to her that a BG and FHM order I got last fall had a lot of floaters. Very pleased with this order.

Anyway, I want to stock some GSH but she only sells Silver Shiners. Are these basically the same?

Hey Mark I.ve enjoyed reading this thread. I lease a 50 acre pond that I want to manage for both #'s and trophy LMB. After reading everything here and elsewhere I decided to focus on removing 3000lb of LMB @ year and turning up the volume on the exixting BG. However I have not given up on crayfish (crawdads around here). A lot of people would tell you that those 100 'dads you put in are being digested as we speak but I hope not. Keep us posted...if your crayfish manage to become self sustaining that would be encouraging.

Those crayfish are certainly tasty treats for the LMB. That's OK. I spent a lot of money savig the bass when I drained and reworked the bottom last year. I did elease the 'dads in rocky cover I created so hopefully some will survive to reproduce. I will add some more later this month as well. They are $.04 each so compared to my other costs it isn't much. Besides, I need to fatten the bass up so they can spawn.

50 acre pond! That qualifies as a lake around. You have a big job ahead if you are going to remove that many LMB every year. Lot's of fish frys in your future I guess. SC is a great place. Always liked it. Take care.

Correction. They were $.40 each not $.04. Sorry.

I was just about to place an order for 10k of them! Thanks for the correction. As far as fish removal, if you break it down to 60LBs an acre its doable. We don't eat a lot of freshwater fish so we arranged to give most of them to local churchs and homeless shelters, no need to waste them. Not to get off topic, but if you want to see something sad just go to local 24hr Wal_mart @ 4am and count how many homeless people are there living in their cars. In 05 there would be maybe 1 or 2 cars...now 10+.

Lol,I've been trying to overstock forage for the last several years; at least to date, I haven't been successful. Three years of stocking Golden Shiners (and A LOT of them), still haven't been able to get them to establish. I might be making some headway with the Gizzard Shad, we'll see. I would have rather seen the Shiners take off. I stocked adult (12") LMB and adult Channel Cats, Blue Gill when I bought this place. It's a 1 acre pond.

That would be 3000 LMB right? My 10-12" fish right now are 12 oz. roughly. I caught, weighed and measured a bunch today. Mine are stressed from 2 transplants but you have a big job ahead of you. Are you going to clean them too? How many guys you got fishing that "pond"?

What part of SC you live in? That sounds like a lot of homeless folks.

take care