Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose can smallmouth bass live in east Texas pond?

TGW1 - IMO 1."I would think they might take hold because the smb would be a young smb and might adjust to the pond". Adjusting. The newly stocked smallies should initially compete enough to survive since they are 'going in' as larger individuals and the LMB are still smaller at 12"-14". However the second year when LMB reproduce and initial stocker LMB become an increasing larger presence at 15"-18" expect the smallies to struggle more because forage items will be in shorter supply. LMB will be controlling all the better forage areas. In 2nd year, existing LMB with new young bass are now well outnumbering the SMB. Each succeeding year the outnumbering becomes increased. Your SMB will truly be the rare bonus fish. The extra stress of behavioral competition from LMB toward SMB may also shorten their life spans.

2. Growth. "Would they lose wt, would they adjust, and if 10 fish, would 5 be female? "I think your transplanted SMB will do well to grow 1" per year due to predator competition. Remember this is a small space compared to where they came from. Plus the number of LMB per acre is very likely higher in the new habitat compared to the smallies home location. Fishes tend to be more crowded pond habitats compared to lake habitats. Anybody's guess will be good as to number of males and females for every 10 individuals. I would never expect SMB to complete a successful nesting experience in a pond with LMB present.
When I searched literature for my 5 PBoss articles about growing SMB in ponds, most information indicated the male and female SMB grew at similar rates.
http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/growing-smallmouth.html

3. Don't count on the SMB to affect the LMB recruitment because I think the LMB will have the smallies intimidated into marginal spaces where competition is low. In smaller habitats, I think the LMB are pretty nasty playground bullies to the SMB.

Other members with LMB and SMB in the same pond are very welcome to share their experiences of how both perform together. Remember to provide the size of your pond and about how many of each bass specie that you have.

If I still had aquariums I would set one up with a LMB and a SMB, both juveniles about 7" long. I would then document their daily behaviors for about a month.

Bill, I belonged to a fishing club in Ohio for many years that had a 22 acre lake stocked with both LMB and SMB. It was near the highest point in Ohio so the climate resembled central Michigan. And it was quite deep in most places, with some spots over 30 feet.

SMB did well for a while, though they were never as numerous as LMB. Indeed, I caught close to a 4lb SMB one time while fishing for BG with a live redworm. Spectacular fight on light tackle.

But after 5 or 6 years, SMB gradually went into decline. After about 10 years, they just about disappeared. LMB outcompeted them, plain and simple.

Don't know if this is helpful, but that was my experience.

anthropic -All past information is good information. A 22 ac pond which provides some deep extra habitat locations can be helpful for helping in keep the smallies around a little longer. Your experiences with SMB & LMB together are similar to others. To maintain numbers the SMB usually need to replaced when old adults die out.

Thanks for the comments guys. After reading Dr Willis comments I will agree with you that over time the smb will die out, or be caught out. In either case Bill I agree, but maybe a pipe dream here, but I was thinking if a small amount of smallies were added to the mix at the same sizes as the lmb as yoy with a pond with new forage of all types they might grow. They will never grow like the lmb but maybe they might show some growth that I might be proud of as a bonus fish. What the heck. if I do this next fall I will report the findings. Call me hard headed
Tracy

Perhaps the best plan might be:
Stock smallies first, and have them set up shop for 1-2 years, eating eating eating. Say in a 1 acre pond drop 30 smallies.

1-2 years later, when smallies are at least 12-14" in size, stock largemouth bass fingerlings 4-6" in size. Say in that 1 acre pond drop 10 largemouth bass.

You now have 30 smallies (forget about any spawn and mortality for argument sake) twice as large as the largemouth, and three times as abundant.

Maybe the size _and_ the pack mentality / territorial pissings would slow the largemouth takeover to a period of years.

?

Best of luck, TGW1! I love SMB, their jumping is spectacular. You might also look into providing forage better suited for them than for the LMB.

Our experience with LMB and SMB reflects what has been said above.
We bought the place with 1/4 ac pond in 2009. Former owner said all sorts of fish were in it including LMB, YP, GC which we've seen, and BG, CC, BCP which we did not catch nor see.
LMB were fry, 3 to 4" fish and a few adults in 10 to 14" class. No fish in between 4" and 10". YP were most common at 6 to 8" and a few 10". Incredibly high crawfish population with them visible at all times. No vegetation; mud bottom.
Pond is irrigation water fed from Dolores River, a trout stream. Water is available from April to October, then shut off. Very little surface runoff in this arid high country of sw Colorado. Pond is 9 feet deep maximum then loses depth to about 5 feet throughout the winter until the irrigation water returns in late April.
I've been culling LMB as the years go by, trying to get fewer mouths to feed.
As the reservoir on the Dolores has SMB, it's been no surprise that a few SMB have come down through the irrigation pipe over the years. These are little guys-4" fish. I added 18 SMB in the 7 to 10" range, a few at a time, over the first 3 years of our pond ownership.
Although there appear to be no LMB large enough to eat the adult smallies, these larger SMB, while visible and catchable (always C & R), have dwindled or disappeared. Last summer I only caught 1 SMB; previous years I would see and catch several.
Our home overlooks the pond ( I know, it's time that I post pictures-my bad) from 75 feet away. We have observed only 3 dead fish in the 5 years we've been here, all LMB, 2 small, and 1 (16")with eyes bigger than his stomach, who choked to death on a 9" YP! Once in a while a GBH visits; no mink or otters, so really no predation on the bigger fish.
Pond is now loaded with Elodea. I clear fishing paths at times.
All this rambling is to say the SMB that we've had seem to disappear over time. The LMB prolly are pushing them out of the better foraging areas and reducing their efficiency at finding food. Nearly every LMB I clean has crawfish in its gut. There is only a fledgling population of BG, introduced last summer. I'm hoping for a spawn this next summer. Water temps are not warm enough for BG to spawn repeatedly throughout the season. We successfully over summer RBT and BRNT.

Whew! Too long of a post, but then I like to talk about ponds.

Here's an unrelated question for all. We purportedly have 200+ ponds in this county-Montezuma. Now one pond owner I've ever met has heard of Pond Boss. I've never read a post on this forum from someone else living in this area. What mechanisms exist to spread the word around here about the advantages of managing one's pond with help from Pond Boss? People don't seem to get that with a bit of management, their ponds could suit them a lot better than they do now.

4C

I'm intrigued by your report, and also very glad you are chiming in and hope you do so more often! We have scant input from anyone West of Nebraska, KS, OK. TX - and that needs to change. I have historically attributed that lower geographic representation due to more arid regions, less available water for ponds, in addition to presence of many rivers and mountains which understandably draw people's recreational focus away from private ponds. That certainly could be part of the puzzle, but maybe we're just not reaching folks out there, somehow.

In regards to reaching members: Pond Boss brochures at one time existed for the sole purpose of spreading the gospel and getting others involved in water stewardship. We would leave these at local Coops and farm related stores which sell fish food and acreage owners [likely pond owners] frequent. This still may be an option for you, I will call the office and let you know.

Otherwise, word of mouth seems our best marketing method, albeit a slower mechanism. Since forum membership is free, and routinely saves pond owners thousands in management advice while helping owners to finally reach their goals, I think everyone is grateful once they find the forum. Of course, we collectively benefit from learning about unique challenges and characteristics of new regions - and the opportunity to make new relationships is also a bonus.

So...what are your goals for your fishery?

Tracy - good meeting you at the conference. Per our chats, I strongly encourage you to launch the SMB experiment, and you're getting great stocking strategy advice here by allowing the SMB to gain a foothold prior to stocking LMB. Worst case scenario you can always supplementally stock adult SMB from Texoma to keep the population viable.

Have you considered simply making it a SMB fishery, and see if you truly miss LMB before stocking them? You can turn a SMB fishery around in a hurry by stocking a few LMB...just saying - you can't go back once you start - might be cool to see if you can live without the LMB. Just an idea.

Cody note: HSB would also be a good fish to add in with the SMB since both do well and get along well together even when both are pellet trained.

TJ Note: Can't believe I forgot to suggest - thanks Bill. Tracy consider stocking HSB with SMB and see if you really miss the LMB at all. I own such a fishery and it's an absolute blast, and manage several for clients and they are all very happy with their decisions. If you miss your LMB, walk 1000' in any direction in TX and you can probably fish to your heart's content for all the LMB you can handle. If you wanted a truly unique piece of Canada in TX, you could also experiment with other northern species, like WE and YP. Both would require supplemental stocking to keep populations viable, but YP aren't expensive and WE numbers wouldn't likely be too high. I believe Sauger or even the Saugeye may be more tolerant of higher water temps, just not certain of their availability commercially. You could also consider utilizing Muskie in your fishery...they are the most tolerant large Esox species of warm water IIRC and might make it down there, you know, as a "destroying your light tackle drag screaming" surprise. If you're unhappy, stock some CNBG and LMB and revert your fishery to a more traditional TX fishery.