Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Adult Golden Shiner Survival....

I'm starting to believe that an adult Golden Shiner of 5", 6", and 7"+ can easily survive predation in a pond with 3, 4, and 5 lb.+ LMB, 3-5lb and much greater CC, and 4 lb.+ HSB. I'm thinking they may be too fast, or too keen to be taken.

My neighborhood pond is 1/4 acre when full pool (less than 1/3 of the non-winter time), and is basically a basin of a rectangle shape, reducing at the same slope. Little vegetation if any....a bit of FA on and off. Clumps of X-Mas trees in various states of decay, but none with any needles.

Very little place to hide if any. But those adult GSH are there, in force at times.

I do feed, but only a few times a week.

For several years, I did the Anderson Fish Farm Golden Shiner Fry thing. Certainly established GSH in the pond with many, many adult predator fish.

The adult GSH hit the feed at times.

If you net and partially tail clip 15,000 GSH this winter, you should probably be able to remedy that situation.

Really interesting GSH discussion. I've stocked them several times, but they don't survive long at all. Threadfin shad do much better.

Shorty has talked about his GHS situation in his pond with Smallies as the main predator.

I got them to take in a pond with established predators and little cover with the Anderson fry approach. I just can't believe the amount of GHS surviving in this pond. Earlier this year, I would see schools of hundreds and hundreds of 3-4" GSH just busting around. Some smaller LMB would just hang out in the GSH crowd.

Visibility hasn't been great this year. No real secchi disk measurements, but less than 12" clarity IMO.

Sunil - the abundance of GSH strongly suggests that the number of 13"-16" predators are lacking. Since you say the pond has LMB and HSB, each CC takes the place of one of the other shiner eating predators. Focus on removing the CC so the other predator species will fill the pond's predator carrying capacity. This should help noticeably reduce the adult shiners. Two other items for this topic. 1, focus on catching the shiners with small hooks as you sit and sip a Corona or give a bounty to neighbor kids who catch shiners and put shiners in a live box for you. Feed those shiners to the predators to condition them to eating shiners. Get more of this info technique from your buddy Condello who is an expert at this method. 2. It is easily possible that you don't have as many medium predators as you think are in the pond, thus there is less predation pressure on the various year classes of larger shiners.

I checked my records from my first pond. The GSH lasted for 5 years after LMB were stocked. That last year I was catching GSH up to 8" and LMB up to 18".

I stocked 200 adults up to 10" long in my pond and they didn't last more than a few months with 18"-19" LMB in there.

Sunil - Theo and esshup are providing additional testimony and credence that your pond with the over abundant adult GSH suggest that the pond likely does not have as many predators as you think that are present. Those murky waters usually hold unknown secrets. However the abundance of adult GSH are saying something pretty loud about predator size and density.

Thanks for all the input.

Bill, it is surprising at times seeing what lurks/dwells in this little pond, but I do feel that there are plenty of predators in the pond. However, I could easily have had some die offs of LMB and never seen the bodies.

Tag line from the Horror Movie "The Creature From Bill Cody's Lagoon."

Who has access to this pond. Since it is a neighborhood pond, trespassers could have harvested some of the bass or caught them and caused deaths. Very often a pond has a lot fewer fish than expected and an abundance of GSH suggests this as the case.

The access is limited to residents by signage only; there's nothing physical stopping anyone from fishing it or otherwise.

Bill, your analysis makes sense.

Did you do the million-shiner fry route? If so that many GS could overwhelm the predators - for a while. With a strong plankton bloom a lot would survive and reproduce. Do you see any predator reproduction?

I think it was the 250K golden shiner fry, but for 2-3 years in a row.


Yes on predator reproduction.

the poor employee who has to count those shiners before they close each box...

I think I would sit back and watch growth on the predators. Tempted to add a few SMB and harvest a couple of big CC.

Sunil - Are you sure all the HSB that you have added have survived? . Often when I work with HSB I get poor survival of those stocked. Young HSB can be sensitive to handling. Some local fish farms hold HSB in high salt concentrations and the stockers might get some sort of salt shock when not tempered when stocked. Shiners are definitely NOT too fast for HSB predation. How clear is the water in that 1/4 ac pond? And are they fed pellets?

SMB don't fare so well in this pond due to lack of favorable structure and other predators.

The HSB have had very good survival in this pond, and I think there are only (2) left. One I would guess is 4+ lbs, and the other maybe 2-3 lbs.

IMO It will take definitely more than a few HSB and LMB in 0.25 ac pond that has an established abundant population of golden shiners(GSH) to get them back into a reasonable density. This merges on the topic of can a pond have too many forage fish?

I think a similar pond should have around 18 to close to 30 adult predators (12"-18") to reduce an established and strong GSH population. Amount and type of habitat play roles here. Then as GSH numbers are monitored and their numbers are lowered, gradually reduce predator numbers. It is all about monitoring and numbers management for a resulting high quality fishery. It is often fairly easy for the ratio of prey vs predator to get out of balance depending on the species involved, their ages, sizes, and their ability to reproduce.

Sunil,

Reading your post and Bill's - maybe time to add a few more HSB?

I think they would enjoy a GSH "target-rich" environment!

Rod, that could help, but I wonder how large an HSB has to be to eat a 8" golden shiner.

I don't know.

But if she eats a lot of little golden shiners, then eventually she will get to the big ones!

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but seem to recall warnings that overpopulation of golden shiners caused them to excrete chemicals that suppressed spawning. So would this also suppress spawning of other fish?

Just to add in my 2 cents, we had GSH put in our pond the spring of 2018, after stocking new LMB, to help boost growth and take some pressure off our BG population as our forage base that spring. We still see adult GSH, and occasional catch 7 to 8 inch adults on small jigs. This spring, the ones I caught were fat with eggs. However, if I recall my reading, all those adult females are sterile by now, correct? Something about a parasite that impacts the ovarian function of the females? So the adults can still stake claim to some of the food chain (small fish, eggs, etc) but are no longer contributing new fry?