Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose new pond green sunfish

You may still have a few RES that survived the introduction stocking, however the resident GSF are likely consuming all the RES eggs and or fry which are not abundant to begin with. RES are notorious for not biting hooks as well the other sunfish species. RES are what I would call a shy bite and often preferring live bait fished near the bottom.

Esshup that is why I posed the questions I did above. I sure don't know how cwadeer should proceed. If he had another pond with larger fish available for stocking like I do, I think the way I'm proceeding will eventually work. But I doubt he has that resource available.

He could kill the pond and start over, but with a neighbors pond that overflows into his, might he not be right back where he started? He may very well be forced to deal with GSF and manage around them, if he likes or not.

Thanks Bill. Kind of what I figured on the RES recruitment. I need to learn to catch them better, for sure. Have caught hundreds of BG this year out of main pond, and 4 RES. For some strange reason I seem to be fascinated by RES but I better learn to harvest them better if I'm going to keep raising them. Just recently put 175 fingerling RES in my new tenth acre sediment pond. Figure removing a lot of them at 5" and transfer to main and old pond.

BH seem to like my baited hook better than the RES in the old pond at least.

Sorry for hyjacking thread cwadeer. Hope I am at least helping with your thinking process as I sure don't have any ready made solution for your problem. That is my intent, to help you ask the right questions, not give advice because I'm only about a year ahead of you in learning to deal with GSF in a pond while trying to create a good fishery instead of just whatever nature decides to provide without outside management.

Your observation of "BH seem to like my baited hook better than the RES" is a very common occurrence for many anglers in pond and lake fishing. Often the most aggressive fish "gets the worm" first and shy bite fish are rarely caught until the aggressive ones are removed or numbers reduced.

Keep at it. How many BG have been stocked in there? Remember, a GSF has the same sized mouth as a LMB up to about 8"-9", then the LMB start pulling away in relation to the gape size.

I had put 10 BG originally before I found out I could get some RES in the fall of 2013. In Mar of 2013 had put FHM in at the same time I stocked the big pond. As far as I knew then the FHM were the only fish in there besides some small minnows I had seen in the puddle left. So I had put the 10 BG in caught from the main pond that fall and I think they were probably 6" then. So at that point all I thought was in there was FHM and 10 BG. Then found out I could get some 3" RES and put 125 in main pond and 125 in this old pond. Would have bought more but that was all he had. That is when I thought I would try to make the pond heavy with RES. Just leave the original 10 BG that were already in there and the 125 RES along with the FHM and let them reproduce till I saw the need for predators, then put in a few LMB as needed out of my main pond.

Then I caught the first GSF. And the news got worse from there as I found out the GSF had spawned so I had lots of them as well as lots of BH. That is the point we discussed my options in another thread earlier this year. I gave up on the mostly RES pond because of your story expressed above about the GSF eating all the new eggs and fry of the desirable species. And I think that is exactly what has happened.

If I were dependent on buying fish to stock my best bet may have been to have killed the pond and start over. Larger size stocking fish are harder to come by and expensive "here".

But where I seemed to have abundant reproduction of BG in my main pond I just changed the goals for the pond and decided to remove as many GSF and BH as I had time and add BG (and hopefully later RES if my forage pond and sediment pond will produce RES) from my main pond. Where I could raise my own larger size BG stocking fish I thought that was a viable alternative. Plus in the mean time the few hybrid BG that were mixed in with my regular BG in the main pond I really liked. So after Dave Davidsons comments about liking GSF and my experience with the hybrids, decided the GSF in there would not be such a bad thing if I could manage around them and get other more desirable fish established.

To date I have added probably around 250 additional BG to the original 10 that ranged from 3" to 6" with the bulk of them being 4-5". Every time I go out fishing I keep a 5 gallon bucket with water in it and when I catch a small BG, it goes to the old pond. This size appears to me to be from the first spawn from the summer of 2013 from my original fingerling BG placed in March of 2013. There seems to be a lot of the 4-5" size. My original stock BG are all in the 6-8" range with the bulk of them 7-7.5". They all get released in the same pond. My thinking is the 4-5" plentiful size is too big for my 12" LMB to eat so not suitable for food in my main pond, but big enough that they will not be eaten in the old pond by the GSF. My thinking also is that removing these 4-5" will make more room for biomass in the smaller sizes next spring when the BG and FHM spawn again to feed the new LMB spawn that should happen then. I hope by removing some of these 4-5" size class I'm helping both my big pond by removing them and the old pond by putting them in it. Hope I'm not harming my fish population in my big pond. From what I have read here on PBF, it seems the original 8" mature BG should provide adequate spawning to provide new BG for the big pond. That is the assumption I going on. If it is incorrect, please let me know.

So I'll probably keep adding 4-5" BG from the big pond into the old pond this fall as I catch them. Maybe 100-200 more before the season ends and I head for warmer climates and looking at fish under water instead of above. Then wait and see what happens to the spawn and recruitment next spring in the old pond. Hopefully I start catching about half BG in the minnow traps by late summer along with the GSF I have been catching. So far I have only caught a couple of BG in the minnow traps that I thought were recruitment and not something I had transferred into the pond. Out of hundreds of small GSF I've removed, that is not much.

So that is kind of where the old pond stands to date. We have removed gobs of GSF and BH, eating a few of the larger BH's, and been adding 4-5" BG as we catch them. And we have a half dozen 11-12" LMB in there now working on the GSF also, that should spawn next spring.

Edit: I've also moved probably 20 hybrid BG/GSF from my main pond to the old pond as I caught them. They are usually about 8" now, the ones I have re-caught from the old pond.

To help with recruitment, add a truckload or two of pea gravel to some areas that are 2'-3' deep and relatively flat. Have some cover nearby with smaller openings in it for the YOY fish to escape predation from the larger fish.

You will turn the tide if you keep at it, but it will take a few years.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Ok, have already added some AB3 piles of crushed limestone, which has fines to 1", a few feet out from the bank.

I do lack any cover for small fish around the shoreline. Have cedar trees sunk out in the middle that reach the surface, but not much around the edges, which is where most of my small BG and FHM hang out in my big pond. Will think about it and work on that cover for small fish by next spring.

So do I stick to my original plan and stock my bass in may or will the GSF eat them

The Bass that you stock should be around the same length of the GSF or maybe 3/4 as long. (or larger)

You don't want to stock bass that are small enough to be eaten by the GSF, nor do you want to stock bass that are large enough to eat your stocked BG. LMB (and GSF) can eat fish 1/3 their length or longer, depending if the fish are tall for their length like BG, or long and slender for their length like Yellow Perch, FHM and Golden Shiners.

If you stock LMB now, they might be a better fish than if you were to stock the same size LMB next spring. Here's what I mean: Say you need to stock 4"-6" LMB. They will be larger next spring (May), so if you stock 4"-6" LMB in May next year they might very well be runts from this year.

Do you think the BG or GSF pulled off a spawn in your pond this year?

Consider this. Measure your smallest GSF probably this years hatch which are likely 1.3 to 2" long. My YOY GSF are now 1.2"-1.75" long. Stock bass 4" to 7". This way the new bass can right away can begin eating GSF and not have to compete and not rely on what the GSF or other fish are eating.

The picture I posted are some of the biggest ones I'd say around 4" they are eating my feed like crazy if I keep poring the feed to them will they leave my bass along they already look like they are about to bust

IMO the 4" GSF would only be able to catch and eat a 1" bass. Remember the main thing you want to happen when you stock LMbass is for them to be big enough to start eating fish right away so the bass grow. When LMbass get to 8"-14" they will eat a lot of GSF due to the bass habits allow them to encounter and eat a lot of the GSF.

Glad to know that. I caught one of the LMB in the old pond taken originally out of my main pond. Biggest one I had put in was 12" and some smaller. This one measured 14" and has only been in there a few months at most. I think he must be chowing down on the GSF, cause that is about the only fish in there that are in its eating size range that I know of.

Bill's GSF pic

My GSF don't have that much color but like I said my pond is muddy. I guess if my bass get big enough the neighbors pond will keep them fed

Aren't they purdy!

Too bad they don't get about a foot long and a few pounds.