Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Yellow Perch in Kansas?

Hello:
I am new to using forums, and new to ponds. I live in NE Kansas and am putting in a pond (its not done yet, probably next week) it should be about an acre and 10-12 feet deep. I have not seen any YP since moving to KS. There is a lot of discussion about YP working in ponds but I have not seen anything this far south. A local fishery thinks I might not be deep enough for them to get big. It seems there are others growing them in 10ft of water, does the heat here change anything? Would I be wasting my time trying to grow them?

Welcome to PB. YP should work in Kansas and can withstand your common summer temps. Good water quality will help.

From FishBase

North America: Atlantic, Arctic, Great Lakes, and Mississippi River basins from Nova Scotia and Quebec west to Great Slave Lake in Northwest Territories in Canada, and south to Ohio, Illinois and Nebraska in the USA; south in Atlantic drainages to Santee River in South Carolina, USA.

Temp to 30C = 86F.

Deep water in a pond situation will stratify to form warm and cold layers. Problem is for almost all ponds, where spring water does not flow in, the cold layer almost always looses its oxygen during mid-summer. Pond age, productivity, and water clarity determine how fast the deep water looses its oxygen. Thus no fish, not even perch live in that deep water that has no oxygen so the cooler/cold water is not a benefit for cool water loving fish. Bottom aeration brings the deep cold water to the surface thus warming & oxygenating the bottom zone for fish and invertebrate life. Aeration run time can affect how warm the bottom water becomes.

Hatchery pond raised perch will grow quickly to large sizes in ponds where water gets into the high 80F to I have seen low 90F. YP will grow well in KS ponds especially if YP are pellet trained & fed hi-protein pellets. Proper periods of aeration of the pond during the heat of mid-summer can help more of the old adult perch survive better.

In your case the big benefit to starting a new pond with YP is the pond fishery can be easily changed to other species if the YP are not performing to your goals. However to add perch to an existing fishery especially if LMB are present is quite difficult to maintain them as a good sustainable panfish or the main panfish fish without periodically stocking adults.

In my experience whatever you do start the "perch" based pond without largemouth bass. LMB eat too many YP that would have grown to harvestable fish. LMB can always be added years later in desired. Once LMB are thriving YP density proportionally decreases. For predators use HSB, SMB, walleye(WE) or I have even seen where a few CC will help control excess numbers of YP. Be careful, CC can overpopulate in a pond without bass. For a perch based pond, I prefer predators that have minimal or no reproduction & recruitment. The more control you have of the predator population numbers, the better the YP will be. With reproducing predators there needs to be a 'heavy' harvest of predators to allow YP to achieve their potential for highest numbers of large adults. Remember the more predators present in a YP pond the fewer perch will be available for harvest. So goals and proper fish management are very important to having a high quality yellow perch fishery.

With pellet trained YP in small ponds, I have had very good luck with YP-HSB combo and with only YP and minnows as supplemental foods. As soon as the YP are perceived to be too abundant and YP are not growing, predators can be added to achieve balance.

Welcome to the forum, Kenn.

I'm in Lincoln, NE and manage multiple "cool water" species fisheries, a few of them on my property. SMB, WE, and HSB are my go to management predators - we're seeing great results. YP will make it in KS per Cody, many in MO doing this now.

If you're leaning towards a cool water species fishery, I'd opt to construct your pond with some deeper holes than 9' - I'd push it to 25% of your depth 12-14'. This buys you some space for accumulating organic matter/silt and increases the volume of cold water in the warm months you can aerate and keep the pond water temps lower which provides relief for YP, SMB, WE, etc.

Feel free to drop me a line anytime, happy to help in any way I can.

State record came out of Coffey County near my house so it can be done. Where at in NE Kansas are you?

I am on the west side of Leavenworth County just south of Atchison

Lots of large yellow perch are grown in ponds at your geographic latitude that is in line with Indianapolis IN, Columbus OH, and Pittsburgh PA. If you do things correctly that favor YP you could in 4-6 yrs grow the new Kansas record for YP. This should be relatively easy because the KS record YP is 1 lb 1 oz at 14.0".