Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New Old Pond v3

I've been pouring over forums and websites to come up with my plan for stocking. We removed all the trees and stumps from last years mud puddle back in August due to the rebuild. When I stocked minnows in the fall of 2020 (20lbs of fatheads and 10lbs of shiners) they spawned like crazy in just 3-4 feet of water. It was sad to see 4-5" shiners what seemed like thousands of fatheads a year later flopping around in the mud when we pumped it dry for the rebuild.

My ultimate goal is to create a trophy LM pond. It will two years this coming April before we get it filled back up. Even with a surface area of 1/2 acre and 5 feet of depth, I'm waiting until spring to add forage as I don't think it makes sense at this point in the year. We have really good water clarity and I already have algae growing in the shallow edges.

To start stocking, I was looking at 50lbs of shiners, 50lbs of shiners and 1250 4-6" bluegill for 75 5-7"LM.

No other fish other than a possible grass carp or two will be added.

I'm starting with 12" + LM (how many is my?) and thinking of bumping the shiners and fatheads to 75lbs along with added brood shiners in addition to the 1250BG.

What's your definition of "trophy"?

Good question Esshup. As long as I can keep them fed naturally,, my goal are a few 21" 7lbers.

In that case I would cut back on the number of LMB you stock to 25.

I would plan on putting a Texas Hunter Feeder on the pond to feed both the Bluegills and the Bass. If you are stocking 12" bass, then they most likely have lived their lives eating pellets and they will have to learn to eat fish.

Reason why I say cut back on the bass is that a bass @ 12" weight somewhere between 0.8 and 1 pound. Each bass will have to eat roughly 60# of fish to grow to 7 pounds. The Bluegills will weigh between 40# and 100# per thousand fish, depending on how big they are.

If the bass were eating a good fish food, they could put on approximately a pound of weight eating 2 pounds of food.

I like the idea of 25 bass to start with. I may stock with some bigger specimens caught from a couple of local places I have access to.

What's the drawback of a feeder? Does it make the bass tougher to catch? I have power already so that isn't a problem. The other challenge is I'm only down there once a month.

Unless you purchase feed trained bass they don’t for the most part eat pellets, also don’t see a down side to a feeder, other than the expense of feeder and feed

The feeders are solar and are large enough to hold a months worth of feed.