I had a small minnow pond dug out a month or so ago. I want to raise minnows in it so i can take some out for fishing, and also put them in my bigger sister pond when they get big and fat. I will post some pics below. The sister pond is just above it, about 100yds away. The runoff from the bigger pond goes into this pond. The sister pond is 1/2 acre+ in size, 20ft in deep end. Aerated with a 2-diffuser set-up, and stocked with LMB,BG and FHM. The minnow pond is about 12ft deep in an oval shape. Any advice on the pond in raising minnows please let me know. I am going to run another diffuser and put it in there in a month or so. It is full pool right now.
Here is the big pond and the minnow pond together. It might be hard to tell from the picture but the minnow pond is 150-ish feet down in elevation from the bigger pond. My property is on a pretty good grade. Its all run-off fed, but I have no patience so when it was done I turned the well on and ran it into the minnow pond for two weeks straight!!! Cant wait to get that electric bill.
Some more pics of its creation...I have also put in 1000 FHM, hopefully its not too early. i am feeding them when I am there which is only 1-2 days a week.
Looks good, beautiful water color! The only issue that I see as a potential problem is if a few LMB wash out of the big pond into the minnow pond......
Ok, I will get some Lilly pads going.. esshup the overflow is a 12" x20ft culvert pipe that is screened at the top. The only way they could get in would be by another animal bringing them in. Boy would he be one happy fat lmb!
I've seen FHM spawning on the underside of American Pondweed too. Plus look in the cover/structure archives for ideas on putting in artifical spawning cover.
I'd go the artifical route because if you want to seine the pond, it can be easily removed to seine. Lilies and vegetation not so much........
Esshup, what's best for spawning? In my 3rd pic you see some of the stuff I put in already, but is not artificial spawning habitat. I will look at the structure section, but what is best for spawning, at what depth, etc? Ty
FHM spawn on the underside of things. Pallets, lily pads, etc., etc. Usually in water that is relatively shallow, probably due to predators in the pond.
A male will stake out a territory that is about 18" square.
If the male can't see his "neighbor" then their territories can be smaller.
They'll utilize anything, but I've noticed that it should stay in one place and not float all over the pond.
I've cut up pieces of foam and tethered them in place with a rope and a brick, cut sections of 3" dia foam core PVC 12" long or so and tied them together (found that they float so I used 3" dia regular PVC every 2nd or 3rd piece to give it some weight), threw pallets in shallow areas (less than 24" deep), etc. etc.
Esshup is right that too much vegetation will hamper your seining but minnow traps can be used in highly vegetation ponds to collect minnows. Vegetation will add oxygen, structure and bugs for feeding. The picture below are little white hoppers I call them about the size of a pin head on my lily pads. As I waded my pond and knocked these guys off the pads my minnows were having a feast.
Great guys, I will look into doing a combination of both. Maybe just one particular area for vegetation. Can someone recommend a good place to shop for pond plants/lillies?
Here is a thread with some pictures of the type structure I build for FHM. Lots of "underside" area with different places so the FHM can have their "territory". I try to space the layers of boards 1 to 2" apart. This gives some protection from larger fish predators while providing lots of spawning "areas" in a compact structure.
Just built two more of these for the sediment pond I built recently. Will let the FHM's populate it before putting in any other forage fish.
Pallets will float in the beginning then sink. So on the later versions I added a couple strips of foam insulation on top for flotation when the wood saturates and some rock on top of that to get the unit to sink further down in the water while the wood is still buoyant. Then I tie them off with a rope attached to a stake along the shore. This allows them to rise and fall with water levels yet stay in one general location. I can also pull the unit to the shore and pull it out of the water at the end of the season.
They appear to work as my mini-forage pond now has gazillions of FHM fry and my main pond (which I also built lots of structure for FHM) has masses of them that I can see scatter at the top of the water as I ride the 4 wheeler around the pond.
I've also noticed the FHM will excavate under some of the 3" rock I have in the pond and forage pond and use the underside of this rock structure. So they will use about anything solid that has an underside.
The pond was just built this spring so all the FHM fry are still very small. I also put some 3" RES and recently seen them making a nest and one pair mating. Was kind of surprised they would reproduce this year.
Don't know how many minnows will be able to take out. Especially with the RES in there also, because they are surely working on the FHM fry.
My intention is, when the FHM get big enough, to put a minnow trap in the pond periodically transfer minnows to the main pond. Don't know if I will be able to do that daily or weekly or whatever yet.
Probably will be next year before I pull any FHM out. I thought my main pond the FHM would be pretty well wiped out this year because as the LMB were put in last fall, the numbers of FHM seemed to be dropping rapidly this spring. But the FHM must have got a really good spawn off, because now the half grown fry are just thick all around the edge of the entire circumference of the 3 acre pond. So no need for FHM out of the forage pond just yet (plus they are not big enough). I suspect when the LMB spawn next spring and get a new batch of predators working on the minnow population, about next May or June will be the time to start transferring minnows from the forage to the main pond.
The other goal for the forage pond was to raise up some RES in a pond where there were no predators, to get good reproduction. Hopefully next year I also get a bunch of RES fry that I can grow up at least a few of them to a size predators are unlikely to eat and transfer them to different ponds. Having the RES in the mix will surely reduce the potential FHM production.
It's as much an experiment as anything. Actually right now am working on the dam to raise the water level about a foot. The overflow was just rock covered. Digging it down and replacing dam in its place and will be putting an overflow pipe about a foot above the original overflow height.
Also built a sediment pond a couple months ago and stocked FHM. Already seeing a few fry in that pond. I think maybe 0.2 acre but have not measured it yet. It can also serve as a forage pond for a while, but at some point the elevation and overflow is such that during a large rain event fish from the main pond will get into it. So eventually it will end up with predators. But it will serve as a forage pond till that happens.
Here is a picture of a more recent FHM condo I built with the flotation device to keep them from sinking when they get waterlogged. I did not take any pictures of these while building, but they are similar to the ones in the thread linked above. Notice also put some rocks on top because initially the wood is buoyant and tends to float too high in the water.
I make these out of whatever scraps I have laying around. The wood is pallets and crates that have had various parts delivered to the farm at some point. The foam insulation is some from old turkey barns we tore down. The only thing new is screws that I screw the parts together.
One thing I noticed on the original ones I built. The top was very open and green herons would perch on top and pick off the FHM that spawned on the upper level in very shallow water. Later condo's I built with a more solid top or at least less open area to give the FHN better protection from bird predation.
Pictures below of the last two I built for the new sediment pond that will act as a forage pond for a while (till LMB swim up the overflow tube during an unusually large rain event). Last picture shows a regular pallet that I put in a month or so ago. It floated when put in, but has since sank as shown. Thus the idea of adding flotation so the FHM condo's will not sink to the bottom.
Will remove these from the pond about November and put them back in about next April.
Savannah if this pond is just to raise FHM minnows that spawn on the undersides of areas then I would grow invasive wild lily pads that spread rapidly and not delicate lily pads that hardly expand in a decade. If you want fat larger minnows put in some GSH. I have some now that looked to be 8 inches long and fat. I would want underwater plants for even more structure and oxygen, and for GSH to spawn all over the place. I have been through two winter kills and one summer drought and the minnow don't seem to be effected that I can tell while everything else was mostly killed off. I don't have a diffuser so you may have harsher winters in your state then IN. but this last winter was pretty bad. Any place I walk around my pond edge I see lots of fry to 1 1/2" and on out are the larger minnows and when I feed to see what I have the large ones come into sight.
If the pond is mainly for forage production, you may want to keep as many rooted and filamentous algae plants out as possible. Plants will make harvesting fish much more difficult. Without predators you need little if any cover yet still getting high production numbers. Amount of proper food is often the main limiting factor in production of forage fish.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 07/18/1408:17 AM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
Great point Bill. While I'm at it, for future reference, are there any old threads on how to seine? Obviously something for down the road, but I have never used a net or done anything like that.
Seining is relatively easy. Stretch it out and slowly bring it in. One can use poles as handles on the ends or tie a pull ropes on the ends. Extra weights on the seine are useful. Some better quality seines more commercial seines have a "mud line" as bottom weight. Good seine length for small ponds is 20 to 100 ft long and 4 to 6ft deep. Use 1/8" or 1/4" net mesh depending on size of minnow desired.
Other harvest methods can be wire mesh fish traps or drop nets also called lift nets or umbrella net. Clover leaf traps often catch the most fish per set.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 07/18/1402:53 PM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
That looks really nice. I do not allow very much vegetation or have permanent underwater structures in my minnow ponds because I sein my minnows out. I use gambusia minnows that give live birth and do not need to lay eggs to structure. I feed a crush feed daily to the minnows.Often I will grind up high protein floating fingerling feed during the warmer months and feed them (they like that a lot). I use garbage cans filled with water from the pond I am transporting the minnows to try and avoid introducing anything unwanted into the pond where the minnow are going.
When pulling a seine, slower is better than faster like Bill said. Another thing to watch is make sure that the bottom of the net is closer to the end point than the top of the net, and that you have a "bag" in the net (seine is taller vertically than the pond depth so it allows a bag to form in the net as it's pulled thru the water).
If the pond is mainly for forage production, you may want to keep as many rooted and filamentous algae plants out as possible. Plants will make harvesting fish much more difficult. Without predators you need little if any cover yet still getting high production numbers. Amount of proper food is often the main limiting factor in production of forage fish.
I completely agree with no plant life in a forage production pond! As John Monroe said, if you want lots of minnows and habitat for them, his line of vision works....but would make any harvesting of the minnows for putting into other bodies of water, all but impossible to do.
