Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Sotcking from DNR in Georgia

https://georgiawildlife.com/pond-management
^^^

Anyone been through this process anywhere? Prices seem crazy cheap and worth waiting maybe.

It IS cheap, remember you have to pick up the fish. I'd get fatheads established in the pond as soon as there's a couple feet of water. Make sure you get all your cover/structure placed in the pond before it starts to fill up, so that means getting it ready to go in well before the pond is done being constructed.

Is pick up that big of a deal? how much roomd o I need?
Even if I had to rent a pickup for a day that's still cheaper than normal stocking purchase

Also-

What would be the effects on tehe fish if I stocked 1 acre worth in a 1 acre pond that had nothing else in it?

It depends on how far you have to drive.

I don't understand the last question. If you mean a barren pond with no cover, the problem will be that the fish are swimming in a bathtub. The predators will expend a lot of energy chasing down the forage fish and will not gain a lot of weight and with no cover the forage base will suffer because they have no place to hide.

DNR fish are usually raised in crowded conditions and are on the small range for fish of that age, although they can grow into decent fish when you give them plenty of food.

By nothing else I meant fish wise.

Assume I have the standard ~20% cover.
What happens when you 'overstock' with YoY per normal stocking rates.

I.e. If I purchased a full acre worth of fish from DNR which would consist of 500 Bluegill/RES and 50 Bass (i'd pass on catfish, and maybe stock a small number of males later)

And put these fish in a 1/10 acre pond with an appropriate amoutn of different types of cover.

What happens, like literally?

Without going into much greater detail than a few sentences, I have the answer to that question. You will have 10 times the number of fish in the pond than you should have. That's a density of 5000 BG /acre and 500 LMB/acre. For a time both LMB and BG will be stunted. The BG will outgrow the gape of the LMB fingerlings and offer them no food until they begin reproducing. But eventually enough of the original BG will die off and the BG sizes will improve. You'd probably always have small LMB ... which is a good thing because you won't have big BG if this weren't the case.

Citydad, the quick answer to overstocking is generally too much biomass leading to an O2 shortage and a fish kill.

As Lusk says, fish live in their own toilet.