Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Single Species Crappie Pond/Lake, Yellow Perch

I am currently very pleased with our yellow perch only pond. The only odd thing I find is the recruitment of young perch seems low. I think Bill figured it out that the type of shiners we have as forage are eating the young perch. We did start the shiners a full year before the perch and have caught adult shiners in the 6-8" size. The shiner boom is due to the water fall designed into the pond. The shiners spawn in the water fall when the water gets warmer after the perch all ready have, but the perch minnows are harvested by the adult shiners pre spawn and post spawn.

The small perch have not been a problem yet and I have not pulled the trigger on adding walleye to the pond yet because of this.

We stocked 400 perch in 2012 and most are 11"s on average with a few 13"ers.

Cheers Don.

No question that a YP only (with forage fish) pond will work well. That is especially true if you can use supplemental feeding (pellets). YP are often grown as an aquaculture fish (food production)for just that reason. Similar in concept to CC , HSB and tilapia.

I wish crappie could be raise/grown the same but its not possible with the knowledge we currently have.

So your experience is that yellow perch single species can be sustaining and not experience stunting issues when there is no apex predator to control them? I still prefer crappie, but yellow perch are an awesome and delicious species, and if they work great as single-species, they could be a great candidate for a smaller BOW for us...

YP as only the main fish in the pond will stunt unless fed often with high quality pellets. It is best to utilize two sizes of pellets one(3/16") for 2"-4" and a larger one(1/4") for adults to keep all sizes growing well. You may need to do some manual population thinning to maintain best size structure. Plan for filamentous algae control or maintain turbid water to minimize FA and weed growth. Tilapia work well for FA control in a all perch pond.

I have been away for a year or so from the board, work and life, and kids just dominated most of my time, sorry. I was catching up on this thread and after a fishing rod and visual survey today I still have fathead minnows and a very nice population of yellow perch in my single species pond. I gave away egg ribbons this year. We removed almost three 5 gallon buckets worth in all. I am feeding by hand morning and evening, things are still the same here.