Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Next Steps with Stocking?

I have a 1 acre pond in West MO. It was empty of fish when I started. To date I've put:

5 lbs of fatheads Fall of 2021
5 lbs of fatheads Fall of 2022
250 2-3" BG Fall of 2022

Thinking of 50 3" LMB this spring.

The above is 50% of the MO Dept of Wildlife recommendation ( or the South MO rate ) . I did this as I was worried about my pond with the very dry spell we had last summer /fall. However, my pond has recovered for the most part and I feel better about the swings. My depth is marginal. I can find a fair amount ( 10-20% ) of 8-9' of water now but I'm near full. I suspect I'll be down a foot or more at some time this year.

Do I add another 250 BG and then 100 LMB or will I be OK with the original plan.

What other fish are you hoping to put in there in the future (meaning any other predators like HSB, WE, Pike, Musky, catfish etc) and any other medium size fish species like YP?
What type of bluegill?
Have you considered other forage fish species like Spotfin shiners or Golden shiners for diversity for when fathead minnows disappear?

I'm not advocating for more predators, a BG, LMB only pond is fine if that is your goal.

Pond Boss conventional wisdom says that you want to pull off some bluegill spawns before stocking your LMB.

There's a real good chance you'll have a bluegill spawn this spring and potentially a few times during the summer.

For a 1 acre pond, 250 bluegill is kind of light.

As an option, you could stock another 500+ bluegill now, and then do LMB in the Fall '23.

Your pond should be teaming with fathead minnows.

I have a 3 yo and a 2 yo Grandsons. My goal for this pond is to have the bobber go down when they come to fish. I'd like to catch a nice bass now and again but that;s not my primary objective. I don't think many of the cold water species you mention above will do well in my weather.

I think a BG / LMB Pond would be fine for me and my goals. However, as the boys age, I can them wanting to catch LMB of size so I'll need to keep that in mind.

Not a bad idea. I keep worrying I'll have some kind of a failure and lose my investment.

I like the slow and steady idea.

Right now my recommendation would be to concentrate on a large BG, small LMB pond. That gives the young kids BG up to 10+" to catch, and lots of LMB up to 14" or so. You have 2 years or so to get the fish to size before they can fish in earnest, so here's what I'd recommend.

500 BG, 250-500 RES, 500 HBG stocked now. 1"-2.5" fish will be fine. Stock 100 3"-5: LMB this Fall. Get a feeding program started. Texas Hunter directional feeder, Optimal Jr. fish feed. Feed what they can consume in 15 minutes 2x day. Feed 1/2 hr after sunrise, 1 hr before sunset. Next Spring stock 50 4"-6" HSB. Switch to Optimal BG feed next year.

Year 3 switch feed to 50% Optimal Bass food and 50% Optimal BG food. In 2 years the BG will be at least 8" and the LMB will be 12" or bigger. You want to remove every LMB over 14" after they pull off a spawn, and keep removing the LMB over 14" for the next 5-7 years. You will have big Bluegills and will have 5#-7# HSB in 3-4 years. Remove all the female BG that you catch.

In 5 - 7years switch to taking out all the LMB UNDER 12" and leave the bigger LMB in there. You will switch your fishery from large BG to larger LMB over the period of a few years when the grandkids are in their early teens. The HSB will be a put and take fishery, if you remove some (or see some die) restock with 6"-8" HSB.

Get an aeration system installed in the pond later on this year, that will help protect the fish investment and slow down the eutrophication process of the pond.

Slow and steady can bite you in the butt quickly if you get some fish in there that you don't want. Or somebody bucket stocks the pond for you because they don't see any bigger fish in there. Seen that happen before (both situations). Ponds had to be killed with Rotenone and re-stocked. Once they were restocked with the higher amount of fish, the issue never happened again.

Thank you for the feedback and suggestions. The journey has begun!

Yep. Scott(Esshup in the funny papers here) has pretty well nailed it.