Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Going in Backwards

I built a new 2 acre pond Fall of 2012, by Fall of 2013 my pond was about 1/2 full. A nearby friend has a couple ponds on his lands and he started an active harvesting program pulling out any LMB under 14". Through the Fall, I moved 75 bass between 10 - 14" into my pond. From seining a pond he has I added about 300 bluegill in October. In January of 2014 I added 15 lbs of minnows, 2500 1-3" coppernose, 600 3-4" copernose and 500 redear. In February, I moved 15 more 12-14" LMB into the pond.

I would appreciate any thoughts as to if I need to add more bait fish, and should I stop adding LMB.

thanks

Good morning, and welcome to Pond Boss.

I think the title of your post says it all.....nicely done.

Lots of experts will chime in, but a couple thoughts:

1] No more LMB. You're going to have a huge spawn this spring and you'll be up to your eyeballs in greencarp before you know it.

2] Don't waste your money on any type of minnow, or any forage fish other than BG >6" in size. Anything smaller, and just about any fusiform forage such as shiners, is just going to be expensive fish food.

3] Look in the archives for threads about LMB heavy ponds, there's a lot in there.

4] Don't despair-most pond missteps can be fixed with persistance and elbow grease. Get an ultralight, and remove every small bass you catch for the next couple years.

And of course should have asked for your goals. If you're shooting for nothing but big bream, you may be on the right track....balanced fishery or trophy LMB, may take some rebalancing.

Again, welcome.

what did the initial 75 bass have to eat?

they probably were very hungry and ate just about every thing you added after them, Most notably the 1-4" CNBG and Redear.

If they did not get them the next 15 LMB did.

You might have to continue stocking adult sunfish to get them established and your minnows are probably toast.

this is just my novice point of view, I'll let the experts give you some real suggestions.

My goal is to build big bass - pure and simple -

Will be adding Tilapia later this spring to clear algea and get more forage fish in there -

So pull Bass out? - I had read some time ago to add about 200 fingerlings , so I thought adding 75-100 12-14" would be good - guess not

unless you add very large tilapia they wil get eaten, I believe

Okay - you are in TX so your fish will eat a reasonable amount of fish in cool weather Dec-Mar compared to northern LMB in ice covered ponds. Now for some homework and fishery science.

I calculate you are way too light on forage. IMO you shot yourself and your new fishery "in the foot". Those 90 bass you stocked are easily capable of each growing an extra 1.5 to 2 lbs this year. Greg Grimes (Aquatic Environmental Services) has grown bass from fingerling to 3 to 5 lbs in one year for several clients including Arkansas.

Your lack of forage for these 90bass will likely result in them each not growing an average of 0.25 lb in 2014.
Predators to gain a pound need about 8-10 lbs of forage, usually fish. Each bass to grow 1.5-2 lbs needs 12 to 20 pounds of fish forage to get that amount of growth. Those 90 bass could reasonably eat 1080 to 1800 lbs of fish - almost a ton of forage (2000lbs) should be present in 2 acres; most of it consumed and some left over for spawning (see below).

I calculate from fishery literature data that the total weight of the forage fish you added was close to 128 lbs. Forage of 128 lbs will grow 12-13 lbs of weight gain for LMbass, if it is all eaten, and most of it will be eaten in your case due to the current stocking shortage. 90bass/12 pounds (192oz) of total gain potential = each bass can gain 2.1 ounces this year based on your current fish forage base. Ideally you want 30% to 50% of your forage fish as brooders to survive to the next spawn season.

Large bass of 10"-14" will not normally eat bluegill fry; so the 2014 BG spawn should not be considered 2014 food for your current LMB population of larger bass. LMB 10"-14" can and prefer to eat fish 3" to 5" long (BG-sunfish-shad-tilapia-adult shiners-small LMB); not fathead minnows. FHM are for growing bass primarily 2"-8" long. Once bass hit 10",,,,, FHM are a waste of money and wasted weight gain efficiency for growing larger predators such as LMB 12"+. The larger bass has to expend & waste too much body energy catching enough small minnows to fill its belly. Catching one larger fish uses about the same amount of energy as catching one minnow. Generally - Small forage items are for growing primarily small predators.

IMO you really shot yourself not in one foot, but both feet because the bass you added were not pellet trained. Larger pellet trained bass could be fed high protein pellets and still grow 1-1.5 lbs this year while the forage base increased and was supplimented.

IMO based on what you have done to date, I suggest that you remove as many LMB as possible if your goal is to grow bass 4 lbs to 5+ lbs. The remaining few 3 to 10 bass will provide more than enough new baby bass and maybe too many fingerling bass to feed on the 2014 forage hatch-offspring. Those 2014 year class of new bass should grow well if forage is adequate. A well fed LMB hatched in 2014 can be 10"-14" long in one year if it has unlimited food. Less food always means less growth. So when you buy one year old fish and they are comparatively small, depending on the species, that usually means they had food shortages which often occurs at fish farms where fish are raised too crowded. IMO it is a good idea always to ask how old the fish are when you buy them from a fish farm so you have some idea of how good the fish farm is.

After removing almost all the bass, restock at least twice the amount (180-250lbs) of the original forage fish stocked(128lbs) including adult golden shiners so ample new forage is present. This forage fish weight of 200-400 lbs, is about and often less than the amount of forage pounds that will grow from a spring stocking of forage fish and letting them spawn before adding predators. A good fertilized pound can EASILY grow 300lbs of forage per acre per year if no predators are present. Well managed ponds will grow more than 300lbs/ac/yr.

IMO your current path - plan, actually set your pond backwards and did not provide for an advanced fishery, at least not a high quality fishery. The large stocker bass will not grow to their potential. The growth that they do not get this year is lost forever and will not be recaptured. With the right amount of forage they will continue to grow but will always be behind the 1 - 2 lbs that was lost per fish in 2013-2014 growth year.

Based on your current path of working backwards, IMO your fishery does not have the potential to grow bass bigger than 3-4 lbs because the forage base is anemic, lacking, under sized and way under populated with the correct sizes of fish for feeding adult bass.

For in-depth extensive reading about growing LMB see this from the Pond Boss Common Pond Q&A Archives:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255372#Post255372

Well - I was/am looking for opinions/facts on this issue. So while I certainly put myself behind, I'm committed to catching up, or retooling as the case may be -

So should I shock my pond and re-harvest the bass I put in?

Or alternatively, how else should I throw some resources at this problem to fix it?

How else could I throw resources to get this corrected?

Major purchase of some big forage fish?

Shcoking pond and removing bass?

IIRC Greg stocks forage fish for the LMB at a rate of 20 to 40 forage fish per LMB. IIRC he'll put 50 LMB in per acre. He doesn't stock LMB that are a size that can eat the CNBG in the pond, they are advanced fingerlings, that feed on the FHM, YOY GSH and YOY CNBG. But they grow dang fast, and start eating their way up the food chain quickly.

Here's some numbers to crunch. Like what was said, figure an average of 10# of forage fish to put 1# on 1 LMB. Keep those figures in mind.

A fertile pond that isn't aerated, nor has a supplemental feeding program can sustain roughly 300# of fish per surface acre. Not fertile?, drop that figure.

Bump that up to around 500# per surface acre if the pond has a good aeration system designed for it.

Bump THAT figure by another 200# or so if that same pond has a supplemental feeding program, feeding a good quality food.

Now, run those numbers back thru the 10# of food/pound of added weight to a LMB. Plan on roughly 100# of LMB per surface acre (max) of all sizes. That could be 10 fish 10# each, etc. Less if you want them to grow quick.

It's your call on what to do. With a goal of growing large LMB, either shock it to remove as many LMB as you can, fish the heck out of it and remove every LMB you catch, or add a bunch more forage fish. The LMB that you added could possibly spawn this year, which add even more LMB to the mix. I'd send a water sample to Texas A&M and tell us the results. You may have to lime, you may have to fertilize. If the water isn't fertile, then no matter how many fish you put in, it won't grow big fish. Without good water quality, the fish won't grow. Like trying to grow 200+ bu./acre of corn. If the soil doesn't have all the nutrients that the corn needs, you won't get the production, and that's what you are doing, is producing fish.

If it was my pond, I'd:
1) 2)Get the water tested, and lime/fertilize as required per the test.
2) 1)Call in a shock boat, and remove as many of the LMB as possible before they spawn.
3) Get the forage fish population established first before adding any more LMB.
4) Once the forage fish population is established, then add feed trained LMB, with good genetics - down your way, I'd go with Florida Genetics.
5) Get a feeding program established. First for the forage fish (which is what the CNBG are) and then later for the LMB.
6) Start researching aeration systems. With a fertile pond, the biomass will get large, and sooner rather than later, the O2 levels might drop. You don't want to go thru all this work just to have a fish kill. If the pocket book will allow it, I'd go with a bottom diffusion system to make the whole water column useable to the fish, and also go with surface agitation. The more O2 in the water, the better the water quality, and the less stress the fish will be under.

CNBG are the backbone of the forage fish population. Golden Shiners will help too. Threadfin Shad (Not Gizzard Shad) will help the pond greatly if they will survive in your area. Only when the the LMB are greater than "X" size would you consider stocking Gizzard Shad. But, that's way down the road if at all.

Go to the Pond Boss store and buy the book "Perfect Pond" and "Raising Trophy Bass". That will help answer a lot more questions that you never thought to ask.

But we'll still be here for ya!

What do you have in the pond for cover for the fish? (both forage fish and LMB)

David, I removed the duplicate post in the "new member introduction area" so that all the answers would be here under one post.

IMO the removing as many LMB as possible will be your best option. Angling for them might be an effective option.

in addition to removing LMB If you can get more ( adult or larger ) blue gill from Seining that would help IMO, some have concerns about adding wild fish from other bobies of water but you have already done that so it might help to do a little more , OF coarse they will need food too.....so feeding pellets might help them out.

Retenone and start over if you really want it done right. You'll only be 1 year behind instead of several.

true, prob would catch up and surpass starting over vs curent path..Prob not anymore effort either

David, welcome to Pond Boss. What part of Texas are you in? Lots of difference between Amarillo, El Paso, Texarkana, and the Big Thicket; especially when it concerns ponds.

You've gotten some good advice by some guys that know exactly what they are doing.

Neither angling, seining nor shocking is really all that effective at removing fish. The fish get use to the lures or bait and become conditioned. In other words, they get lockjaw. Shocking is mainly for sampling and won't get over 1% of the fish. With a seine, you'll only get shallow water fish and bass are notorious for dodging seines.

By now, you have figured out that you have done it all backwards. There is nothing unusual about stocking errors and a lot of people have made the mistake of what we call bucket and seine stocking. It seems simple but has very little chance of success in the long run. And, overall, you will find that stocking is the least expensive part of the process to having a well balanced pond.

I often use the illustration of cows in a pasture. You have stocked the equivalent of a bunch of young heifers in a pasture with very little grass. They continually over eat the grass and it never has a chance to grow. The ground bakes because nothing protects it from the sun. The cows do poorly and starve due to limited forage. The cows are the predator and the grass is the prey. It's the same with ponds and we often call BG/CNBG forage or fodder for bass.

If it were me, and it's not, I would probably rotenone the whole thing and start over. That's tough to do but I've tried it the other ways to no avail. You can't buy the rotenone and will have to hire a licensed applicator for that. But, overall, it will be your cheapest and most satisfying alternative.

Buy a feeder or 2 and feed the fish a good quality fish food. Resist the temptation to feed dog food or bread.

Start over with 2,000 small bluegills per acre, about 3 or 4 hundred Redear Sunfish per acre and about 5 pounds per acre of fathead minnows. Feed the fish. Resist the urge to add bass until the second year. If you decide to do it different and bucket stock again(it's up to you) wait until the 3rd year to start adding bass. Those things are eating and spawning machines.Then stock about 50 small bass per acre. I like some Florida genetics but not pure Floridas. Those things are too hard to catch and just aren't much fun. After a couple of years, start culling everything under 12 inches. After a couple more years start culling everything under 15 inches.

Monitor the body condition of the fish you catch and especially the BG. As my cow illustration above indicates, the best cattle rancher is a grass farmer. The condition and various sizes of the BG will be a determinant of whether your predator/prey relationship is correct and being correctly maintained.

Another thing I often say is to stock bass when they go to sleep with their mouth open and wake up with a full belly.

Your number one tool will be a continuous log of your observations of water conditions and the fish body conditions.

Oh yeah, take a water sample and send it to TAMU for analysis. Post the results here. This is a fairly important step.

Have fun and don't lie to your wife about the costs. You're gonna get caught and you just think you have problems now.

BTW, don't feel bad about what you have done. An awful lot of other people have done it and had to start over. One of them is me.

I'm in NE Texas - near Paris - Thanks to all for the input - One last (desparate) attempt - What about buying a large number of large (6") bluegill that could withstand the bass at this stage and start generating some numbers with that? - I obviously have to spend some significant money to correct this - Could I not buy my way out of this by buying more and bigger bluegill???

And Tiliapi

Lots of large BG and tilapia would help. But the Bass really dont have anything to eat right now I think is the issue.

take a out bass when you can and add lots of bait fish ....

David, our ponds are south of Paris about halfway to Sulphur Springs - Chris Steelman is N.E. of Paris so you have near neighbors.

If any consolation, I made the same mistake more than 10 years ago - corrected the problem and happy to share experience.
You are on the right track Could I not buy my way out of this by buying more and bigger bluegill???
That's exactly the way I solved my problem!

Your problem is much worse however and will take some deep poickets with this approach..
I only stocked 14 adult LMB and was advised by Bob lusk to stock 7 hand size BG for each bass stocked.

I love CNBG and had previously stocked pure genetic fingerlings from Bob Waldrop from Tyler Fish Farm but he had no large CNBG. I located some pure CNBG from a local source, now out of business - worked for me.

Todd Overton of Overton Fisheries in Buffalo is the only supplier of large pure CNBG that I know of. He hatches and grows out his own fish, whereas most fisheries buy Arkansas fish and re-sell.

Good luck and PM if I can be of help.
George Glazener

You have good advice so far. Most of us have been there done that.
My intent is not to be negative but realistic.
Great advice & explanation from DD1. You have been provided several good options each will lead to a decent pond but maybe not to regularly producing 8 lb to 10 lb bass in a small 2 ac pond.

I think the Bob Lusk's advice of 7 lg BG for each current large bass via George1 is sort of out dated and occurred years ago and directed or intended for salvaging that specific pond and not necessarily for growing trophy bass which you said is your goal. Lusk will probably agree. I am pretty sure Lusk would advise you differently today. If anyone doubts me,,, call him and pay him to evaluate your situation.

IMO in your current situation with 90 larger LMB, you will likely and within reason never get to where you commonly grow 8 lb to 10 lb bass in 2 ac. If you only had 6-10 female LMB in the pond, then yes that can be done. If you seriously want even a chance to do that, then start over. We do not know the age and growth potential of the bucket biology or stocker bass. Even if you start over, it is really difficult to consistently and for one in the long term to grow 8 lb+ reproducing bass in a small 2 ac pond unless you perform the best and 'out of the box' management practices. Plus you will need deep pockets to supplementally stock proper forage each year, such as trout (7"-10") and treadfins.

One path to 8 lb-10 lb LMB is to use gizzard shad when the bass get above the 5 lb range. I'm not sure this is even feasible in a 2 ac pond when the ecosystem is small and somewhat limited. If the pond was 20 ac then yes maybe gizzard shad are a good choice. All interested should read B.Lusk's book raising Trophy Bass - publ. 2000. Personally I think this good book is getting outdated and needs to have an updated 2nd edition that incorporates new information since the original was written.
http://www.pondboss.com/store.asp?c=8

If you think you want to buy your way out of the current situation, then go back and read my previous plan. You will need at least 200-400 lbs of mixed size and species of forage, and 400-600 lbs in 2 ac would be better. Even that amount of forage IMO will not lead to the 8 lb+ bass probably because the current bass genetics were likely not the best they could be. Genetics are a key item to producing consistent trophy bass over the long term. The 3 other necessary items are: a. habitat - including water body size & optimum fertility & productivity, b. optimum forage, and c. best management. IMO you are currently weak on all four requirements. How do you expect to grow the cows in DD1's example without proper grass or food? I think you can realistically salvage your current situation and regularly produce 3-5lb bass but not commonly and consistently grow and catch 8 lb+ bass in a 2 ac mixed sex pond.

The example I gave for G.Grimes producing 3 - 5 lb bass in one year was in larger waters than 2 ac; often it is in 15-40+ ac.

It would be a very interesting and educational experiment to see how many of those 90 bass that you could catch by angling out of the pond before they spawn.

Possible corrective action for the overpopulation of LMB?????
Would it be at all feasible to target spawning LMB on the nest? I'm thinking diligently search for nests, remove all bass that you could catch from the nests so the eggs or fry would be vulnerable to predation (BG), seine or otherwise capture every black ball of bass fry you could? All the while stocking more large BG. As Bill has indicated above 3 to 10 bass could be all or more than you need right now. However, short of nuking or draining your pond, you'd be moving in the direction you desire.
IMO it would be a fun time on the water, harassing those LMB. Every minute I spend at pond's edge allows me to get to know the BOW better; sure beats going to work.
I've been guiding my small pond for 4 years now with ideas from this forum. I'm fascinated by the project and enjoy the results.
Please keep us in the loop.

I have to agree with Bill here. I bought a pond 4 years ago and it already had LMB in it. A bunch of 12 inch and under. I caught as many of those as I could and then put in 250 CNBG in the 2 inch range! Haha that was a joke! Needless to say they didn't last! I still had LMB in there and they ate 95 percent of them up. Plus I didn't have any decent habitat in the water either. I LOVE LMB too and I wanted some nice bass so I then turned around and bought 100 6 inch plus CNBG well they made it and started spawning and then I put in a few other LMB Florida strain to mix things up a little. Well I now have some nice 3 pound bass about 17 inches but it's taken 4 years just to get that! Why? Because I did it backwards. Course my goal was not to have 8+ pound bass either. I am just fine with 3 to 4 pound bass so it kind of worked out for me in the end, but it's taken a long time and I will never have 8 pound bass let alone 10.

RC

All good advice from experience. Maybe D.Bliss should rethink his goals?? Numerous 3-4 lb bass with the occasional one 5 lbs is realistic for a 2 ac pond when you proceed backwards, sideways or forwards. It would be educational for all of us to have Lusk or anyone else that regularly grows 8 lb+ bass weigh in on this one.

David: 2 questions.

1) What do you consider a "big bass"?

2) How large is the pond now? From reading your post, I get the assumption that it is only one acre now (50% full).

Cody Note: yes maybe we incorrectly assumed that a big bass in TX was 8lb+?? A big bass to some anglers is 3-5 lbs.

You guys are awesome - I truly appreciate ALL the input and time you take to provide some insights, facts and opinions. As to the last post - Size of Bass - I would be beyond ecstatic if I could get to a point whereby there would be a good chance to catch bass in the 5-8 lb range. Based on what I read before I started the project that 8+ pound bass would be highly unlikely in a 2 ac pond size. However, dirt budget and land considerations limited me to this size.

As far as how full currently - When full to spill point - it will be a 2.1 acre size - area wise - I'm probably at 1.5 to 1.7 acres - water volume wise I'm probably only 60% full

More questions have come to mind -
If my pond is low on forage - will not the baby bass born on spawn be subject to being eaten and as such somewhat keep a lid on bass population?

Secondly - Another part of this story - I have access (may soon own) a 3/4 acre pond basically adjacent to my pond. I'm conjuring up a strategy to stock that pond up with 3-4" CNBG and Tilapia when water temp allows for Tilapia (late April) and feed the snot out of it. Then about September - pump that pond dry (I could use the water in my pond) and easily move all those CNBG and Tilapi. If the CNBG and Tilapia are allowed to reproduce without predation (in the 3/4 acre pond) - wouldn't I have an incredible amount of forage fish to add to my 2 acre pond that may then prove to be 'enough'

I would simultaneously add 600 -700 of the 6" CNBG to my 2 ac pond now and add 20lbs or so of Tilapia to my 2 ac pond as well

What do you guys think?