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#295775 06/14/12 01:40 PM
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We we are digging our first pond. We are grading the sub soil right now and cutting in our rip rap rock skirting.

The pond is about .25 to .30 acre in size kidney shaped to limit wave action. We have two very deep ends 18 feet and 16 feet with a ridge in the middle of the kidney for spawning that is about 3-5 feet deep.

The plan is to have two 9" aeration heads in each deep end to run 12 hours only at night.

The pond is just starting to fill up NEED RAIN.....

I plan on stocking fathead minnows as soon as I can. I understand when I have 6 feet of water.

We want to get some numbers for stocking the fish in the spring of 2013. We want to run some walleye, perch, maybe black crappy. Looking for advice on stocking of these three or should we just stick with walleye and perch?

Will post some pictures of the finished pond as we have it dug out now.

Cheers Don.

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I don't think WE and YP are aggressive enough predators to control BCP. Start first with YP and WE after a good forage base has developed. See this discussion for stocking ideas from another pond in Canada.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=295716#Post295716

Last edited by Bill Cody; 06/14/12 08:11 PM.

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Ditto with what Bill says about crappies with WE and YP in a pond that size. I would have made also sacrificed some of the depth for larger surface area.

Welcome aboard!


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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My concern is if the pond will hold water well. I hope so for your sake. Those small basins with depths of 16'&18' appear to be essentially dug holes which can work in very dense clay walls, but often those types of ponds leak. IMO the wave action on shorelines is very good for the overall health of ponds and lakes because the waves thrash the shorelines to keep them aerobic with minimal black sediments. Shorelines should be stabilized with emergent vegetation and or rip-rap.
On good notes the steep sides will reduce the submerged plant growths and infestations. The shallow ridge could easily become weed-choked if the wrong plants become established. IF you work to manage the YP as pellet fed fish you can produce quite a few of them per year for table use in this pond compared to if they were not fed pellets.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 06/16/12 01:32 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
My concern is if the pond will hold water well. I hope so for your sake. Those small basins with depths of 16'&18' appear to be essentially dug holes which can work in very dense clay walls, but often those types of ponds leak. IMO the wave action on shorelines is very good for the overall health of ponds and lakes because the waves thrash the shorelines to keep them aerobic with minimal black sediments. Shorelines should be stabilized with emergent vegetation and or rip-rap.
On good notes the steep sides will reduce the submerged plant growths and infestations. he shallow ridge could easily become weed-choked if the wrong plants become established. IF you work to manage the YP as pellet fed fish you can produce quite a few of them per year for table use in this pond compared to if they were not fed pellets.


Here is the pond ready for the rip rap. Will have 10 feet around the whole outside of the pond. You can see the cut with the high hoe where the rip rap will be placed on Monday if we can get a truck on it.

The kidney shape you can see and the ridge for the middle. Lots of good sized rocks in the bottom and four two foot diameter concrete tiles down in there.

The ridge will have rip rap all the way down on the west, and north west side. The ground level is level with the east most side of the pond and we get so much east wind I hate the east wind. This should give good wave action on the rip rap for the walleye I hope to spawn.

On this ridge we will place the rest of it with 3/4 stone with some pea stone mixed in. Few areas with some brick sand too.

Have a peek at the pictures added. Pictures do not do it justice this pond looks so so big. I am leaning more like .5 acre. Trust me this good heavy clay will hold water. If we did not strip the top soil it would have only filled to the layer of the top soil. Our township had the most major brick manufactures than any others I know of. Good clay good clay bricks.

Cheers Don.

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Last edited by DonoBBD; 06/15/12 04:48 PM.

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Ok so I can get fathead minnows, perch, and walleye from an area fish supplier.

What sizes and how many of each and when!

The boys and I will be placing as many as we can catch of local paper crayfish.

Cheers Don.


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Don,

Pictures can be deceiving but it does look larger than .25 to .30 acres to me. I do know most actually overestimate the depth of their ponds. I'll bet once it's full and you measure depths they are not 16 to 18 feet but closer to 12 to 14 feet at the most.

I think your pond builder did a really nice job!

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 06/16/12 11:52 AM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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You should start researching fish suppliers in your area within 200mi. All the fish that you need for this pond can be self-hauled in plastic bags with oxygen from the fish farm - no problem. As I mentioned try to get pellet trained YP. They will be more abundant and grow faster if fed pellets similar to BG on pellets. YP will need to eat trout food quality pellets for best results. Buy your first batch of pellets from the fish farm that raised the YP. I have a local pond owner who has only YP in his 0.3 ac pond for 19 yrs and he keeps feeding and harvesting without overpopulation and consistantly gets good growth for lots of YP to 10"-13". On natural foods, YP will tend to be slower growing and overabundant.

The numbers/ac to stock will highly depend on if they are eating pellets or not. Pellet feeding fish allow for stocking of more fish/ac. Pellet eating fish allow more minnows to survive, breed and keep minnow-shiner numbers ample for the YP that do not eat pellets especially the future generations. Non-pellet eating YP alone can eventually eliminate FH from a weed free pond irregardles of how many FH you start with.

YP with pellets 400-600/ac; YP without pellets 150-300/ac.

Currently there are two philosophies here on WE stocking.
One is only a few fish per acre because they are 'pretty' predatory and "normal" natural northern fisheries have 4-10/ac with a maximum of 24/ac in more fertile productive waters.
Second philosophy is crowd them at near 100/ac and expect slower growth keeping WE smaller and forcing them to prey on smaller YP and minnows. These will be slow growing WE and they could be only 19" after 9-12yrs.
I wouldn't stock WE until you see that you had a YP hatch and then put WE in that fall or the next spring. Most walleye stockers are available in fall at 5"-10" long and those are usually the most frequent stocker size. Very, very few ponds see successful WE recruitment due to the spawn has a very low hatch rate. The few that hatch and survive as fry or small fingerling are uaually eaten by other small fish. WE is easy to swallow as a thin, tubular bodied fish until it gets to 11-14" long.
IMO you don't want WE spawn surviving in your pond. This way you have good control of the number of predators. Have too few, add some; have too many and they are eating too many small fish causing low YP recruitment, reduce WE numbers. Creating or maintaining a good fishery is all about good control of the numbers of fish present. With WE recruiting you don't know about how many you actually have in the pond. Each WE can easily eat 200-300 fish per year if the forage is available.

More reading:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=14805
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=251821
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=154949
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=167584&page=1
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=209464

Last edited by Bill Cody; 06/16/12 02:39 PM.

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4-10 walleye per acre x 0.25 acres = 1-4 walleye total for this pond, whoa.

If you aerate over the winter, could you keep trout?

Last edited by Bocomo; 06/16/12 06:52 PM.
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Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
Don,

Pictures can be deceiving but it does look larger than .25 to .30 acres to me. I do know most actually overestimate the depth of their ponds. I'll bet once it's full and you measure depths they are not 16 to 18 feet but closer to 12 to 14 feet at the most.

I think your pond builder did a really nice job!


I am just guessing. At the front of the pond where the cement tiles are is the deepest part. I know the 590 can reach a max depth of 14 feet. When we did the grade lines with the laser we had 3 feet of fall from the house side (shallower end) than the road side (deeper end).

When she fills I will know for sure. I guess I can shoot the laser again and know for sure from the top of the rip rap. 2"s of rain over night and that heavy clay will make your boots 10-20#'s heavier just walking out there.


Bill great info and have my morning reading ahead of me. Thanks so much for the links and all the good reading.

One question for anyone willing to step in. Now is it a big miss conception about pellet fed fish that they get a livery taste? We have a camp on Lake Onaping North of Sudbury. Few perch but many many mongo walleye. The meat taste is 100% better than even lake Erie walleye. Is it lean with low fat content? what makes it taste so so good?

I totally agree with pellet trained perch but am afraid of the taste of the fish. Is there a very good high end feed I can get? Is the taste of the fish something I can control? I know the minnow will get picked off with out good structure. My boys and I are working on some artificial bushes and branches for the perch to populate on and hide in. We are working on a deep water structure as well for winter months. Can we start with feeding the perch then stop in 2 years time with more structure and lots of minnows? Or is this irrelevant with top end feed and no need to stop feeding because I can control the taste?

Future plan is to have a floating dock on the house side with a full roof over for sun shade. Kind of a floating gazebo sun room.

Bocomo, yes all my friends want me to do trout. If the mud or liver taste is to do with aeration or food and I can control the taste of the trout maybe I would try them. My favorite fish are crappy, perch, and walleye. I under stand now that the large pan shape of the crappy make them hard to eat by a walleye or any predator fish. I can see how they would in time given the right un attended environment will take over a pond or body of water.

Can trout, perch and walleye cohabitate with each other and be easy to manage? I don't see the trout spawning in a small pond? I could be totally wrong about this I really do not know.

Cheers Don.

EDIT: spell check.

Last edited by DonoBBD; 06/17/12 08:59 AM.

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I have never heard of any of my local pondowners complain about livery or any off taste of their pellet fed YP. One of the owners regularly fishes Lk Erie for YP&WE so he knows the taste of Lk Erie YP & WE. I, my brother and others have eaten wild caught Ontario YP and do not see a difference in taste of those YP and my pellet fed YP. IMO trout are more likely to have this problem compared to BG and YP probably because trout have more oil in their meat?? Water quality that includes the algal community can have a significiant factor on fish taste.

Quality fish food. First check with the supplier of pellet fed YP for a local brand of fish food to use. Any trout food with 40%+ protein is okay IMO for YP and high protein trout food should be readily available in Canada. Floating food is better for YP compared to sinking food due to seeing whatis getting eaten with less waste.

Structure. Can be two main types - fish attractors and refuge areas. Artificial cover especially finely divided 'stems' is best for small fish protection. Tend to keep it shallower where small fish are often most common and avoiding larger deeper dwelling predators. I would try an gather the rocks in the bottom into one larger pile, or move them to the rock ledge to serve as shallow cover. Shallow rock piles will benefit crayfish populations. Abundant crayfish can help reduce filamentous algae problems.

Forage. To maintain constant minnow type forage, IMO you will need to have additional species besides FHM. You should be able to collect some bluntnose minnows from local streams, sm lakes or beaver ponds. Native shiners from local small lakes could maybe breed in your pond.

Question."Can we start with feeding the perch then stop in 2 years time with more structure and lots of minnows?" Feeding increases fish biomass and stopping pellet feeding results in elimination of the minnow community. IF you stop feeding, do a large fish harvest to compenstate for the high reduction of food input. I doubt very much that after 2-3 yrs and stocking WE & or trout that your minnow community has lots of minnows. Minnows are most likely to be scarce. If minnows are abundant, report back here as to how you did it and what kind they are because many readers here will want to learn your secret methods. After 2-3 years you will be a lot wiser about growing fish in a pond.
Depending on your average summer temperatures you could have trout survive year round in your small Ontario pond with a proper aeration schedule. Mid-summer water temps will have a lot to do with trout survival. Several trout as bonus would co-habitate with YP-WE if surface temperatures were kept below 70-72F. Trout typically spawn in redds built in streams with upwelling water. Very doubtful trout or WE will spawn in your pond. If it happens we would like to hear about it. Remember that the male walleye grow noticably slower than the females so you will see size differences for individuals of the same year class. Again, good management is best when fish numbers are known and densities are well controlled.

Additional information about WE stocking numbers.
Two experts (Willis & Cornwell) who write for PBoss magazine conclude in past articles that best stocking practice for WE is low of 10/ac/yr or high as 20/ac/1-2yr (PBoss Mag Jan-Feb 05, Sep-Oct 05). Back issues are available.
http://www.pondboss.com/back_issues.asp
Cornwell called walleye "eating machines" and they "often over-eat the forage base". This can be true. LMB are 'eating machines' too. I think it depends. IMO WE are not any more predatory compared to LMB or some other predators given similar circumstances. LMB may actually eat more fish per year compared to WE because LMB can be living in warmer water causing increased metabolism thus requiring more calories per pound of body weight. My PBoss article (Mar-Apr 2003) about walleye in ponds suggested stocking numbers based on fertility and water clarity of the pond. Clear water (5'-10'vis) 8-15/ac, medium clarity (3'-4' vis.) 25-30/ac, and high fertility (15"-2.5' vis.) 40-60/ac. Density would be numbers to have present of all size groups per acre.

I wouldn't be mad if the WE in my YP pond never got any bigger than 14-16". Premium fish. Those are a good size to clean and eat. That size walleye would not be eating larger YP and fewer larger shiners. Selective harvest does help to control size of fish present.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 06/17/12 03:50 PM.

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Well we are getting the pond filled up now with the rain from Sandy.

We are filling the pond with water from a nere by drainage ditch. My water fall pump is 5500 gph and we are using it to fill the pond. The pond is more like .5 to .7 surface acre. This is being calculated off of how it is taking 3 hours to raise the water level 1" with 5500 gph pump.

Stocking population:

300 yellow perch pellet trained.
How many Northern Red belly dace to stock same time?

4 walleye next fall replace as fished out.


My question is can I stock the fish this fall now or wait till spring now?
What size of Red belly dace to stock and how many? I expect stocking the pellet trained YP the red dace will get time to start re populating.

Pond is void of any plants. Just a few frogs here and there. Will stock with crayfish mid summer next year when we can catch them.

Any guidance or thoughts on my numbers or other feed minnows I should add?

Cheers Don.

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7/8th of an acre, Perch only pond, Ontario, Canada.

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