Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Local recommendations against SMB

I saw one place that says SMB spawn about 10 days earlier than LMB which for me is around the same time, but more precision is always good. First lilac bloom is also an indicator that morel mushrooms are starting to pop in my area.

I had the fish kill in my RES/SMB pond last year and I see zero activity in that pond. Have been doing some hand feeding and other ponds are active but get hardly anything making a swirl in that pond. I was hoping at least some of the small SMB had survived but now I am wondering. Have not tried fishing it with a small lure. I used to catch the juvenile SMB that way all the time, from 4" to 6" long fish right along the bank.

The good news is I had caught and transferred many SMB out of that pond to the other ponds. So I still have adult populations there. Hopefully I can catch a few of those, put them back in the RES/SMB pond and get reproduction going again. I had SMB recruitment every single year since the original stocking in that pond. At fish kill time I counted 50 dead fish. By the time I found them they were degrading but I could tell most of them were the same size SMB and HSB and quite a few large RES. I did not see many small fish dead so was hopeful the juvenal SMB and RES survived. We will see.

I'm one Kansas pond owner where the SMB did fine in a Kansas pond. That is until the combination of a drought and low water level along with stocking numerous HSB and over populating the pond the previous year. My mistake.

John, big bummer on your SMB/RES pond. I was hoping that was going to be a great fishery for the grandkids in a few years!

Do you still have FHM in your forage pond? If so, then I would definitely dump as many as I could catch into the SMB/RES pond. That way, if you did have a 100% fish kill, then the few SMB that you can catch and move over would find themselves in paradise.

Is it easy for you to catch some gams in the pools of your creek? If so, then adding some gams to the SMB/RES pond could also jump start your forage base.

(If adding creek gams, I would only add the large ones. They are quite easy to identify by sight and make sure no GSF get added from the creek! Personally, I suck at identifying tiny fish.)

I have a 1.8 acre pond on I40, 60 miles from Texas panhandle, trying to manage as a pay to fish.
Yesterday had 20 middle school students, most had never fished, I and their "Outdoor ed" teacher stayed busy teaching
property respect and bait fishing. They caught ???150-250??? RBT, YP, SMB, BG, GSF.
several 5-8" SMB, recruitment, 20-30 YP possible recruitment. Even in far SW Oklahoma.
In this day, it's how the next gen is going to learn respect.
Thank You very much, for all I've learned about ponds and fish, this last year on PB !!!

I went through Clinton a couple of weeks ago. Had never been there but wife and I, both retired, often leave Fort Worth and head somewhere else. We thought that we would go see Muleshoe where I was raised but go by a different route.

Stop by next time, would appreciate your thoughts, God's blessings in your travels.