Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Mystery fish

Hi, I stocked my pond in North Georgia about 4 years ago. Stocked with bluegill, shellcracker and largemouth. I have big population of a fish that I’m not familiar with in the pond. I’m afraid the person I bought the fish from gave me these instead of shellcracker. My bluegill have not performed as expected and I’m curious if these fish could be the culprit.


Any help identifying this fish would be greatly appreciated.

GSF or possible HBG (GSF X BG cross)..

Were your BG pure-strain, or did you order Hybrid BG? If you don't know/remember the particulars, perhaps check your supplier's website and see what they DO sell?

Were you there when the fish were delivered? I did help a Pond Boss member a while back transfer a lot of Red Ear Sunfish (shellcrackers) from his grow-out pond to his main pond. At his (Kansas) pond, the RES were pretty easy to identify at pretty small sizes. If you were on location, you might have been able to see that shellcrackers were going into your pond - even if you were not an expert. Have you caught some "for sure" shellcrackers from your pond?

I agree with ewest, about that fish possibly being a Hybrid BG. It should be BG heavy spawning time in Georgia right now! The male BG will typically get even richer colors during the spawn! Hybrid BG are usually about 80-90% male. Therefore, if you DO have Hybrid BG, and THAT fish is an example, then you might catch many fish that look similar to that over the course of this summer.

Have you caught any pure Green Sunfish in the pond? When you say, " I have big population of a fish that I’m not familiar with in the pond", does that mean there were already fish in the pond prior to your stocking? If so, then lots of different types of sunfish hybrids are theoretically possible.

Sorry to hear that your BG are not doing well. Perhaps read some of the old threads about feeding commercial pellets to your fish. Your BG and shellcrackers both might thank you.

Good luck bringing your pond around!

Hi Fellows, Thanks for the replies. When I ordered the fish I requested specifically BG and shellcracker, and no hybrids of any kind. I was there when he delivered, but did not closely inspect the fish. I do remember him saying his supplier did not have any small shellcracker at the time, so he gave me larger ones at the same price.

The pond had been completely drained the year before so it would not have had any fish in it at the time of stocking. We have caught a few shellcrackers, but not many and I have never caught anything that I would think to be a Green Sunfish.

I have read that over time the hybrids diminish in number due to their limited fertility. I plan acquire some traps that cat fishermen use to catch bream as bait. I hope that way I can reduce their numbers where they won’t compete so heavily with the BG. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I will need to look into the feeding program also.

Sounds like your pond was a "clean slate" to start. Any chance GSF have come in from upstream in the water supply to your pond? Any chance fish have come in from downstream? Some fish (like GSF) are sneaky bastards and will swim upstream during flood stage at your pond outlet and can make it into the pond through surprisingly shallow flows of water.

If your pond still has zero outside fish introduced since the last draining, then either a few Hybrid BG or a few GSF did get in during your stocking.

IF those fish are the cause of your BG not doing well, then that problem should be self-correcting. Your BG will massively outbreed both the HBG and the GSF.

However, the most common cause of BG not doing well ... is too many BG.

Maybe read up on some threads about Relative Weight. It is the easiest way for average pond owners like me to evaluate our fish populations.

If you are catching underweight BG, then something is hurting the health of your population. If you are catching fat BG, but they are all small/young, then perhaps your bass population raced ahead of your BG population. When that happens, the bass may have eaten most of your large (original) BG. However, the BG still usually breed enough to catch up with the feeding requirements of your bass. You also need to track the sizes and relative weights of your bass. That gives you info on your bass AND info about your BG.

Finally, maybe try fishing specifically for some of your shellcrackers. Sure would be nice to see how they are doing.

P.S. Right after I clicked "Post", my thoughts went to "What about forage for the BG?"

If your pond was drained dry and all fish eliminated, then your panfish may not have much food available for them!

Did you add minnows ahead of time before your stocking, or just add some when you stocked your panfish and bass?

If you did the latter, then the panfish and the small bass might have cleaned out ALL of the minnows in just a few months. Very few people can afford to buy enough minnows to feed their fish for years on end.

The typical plan is to stock an empty pond with 10 pounds (or more) of fathead minnows per acre. (Depending on their size, that is 150-300 minnows per pound.) In a fertile, one-acre pond, those initial 2,000 minnows would turn into hundreds of thousands of minnows in a few months. Then the panfish and bass are introduced. By the time they have eaten up all of those minnows, the pond should have good reproducing populations of your panfish and bass.

It is much tougher to introduce minnows after the larger fish are already in the pond. They typically get eaten before they get to massively reproduce.

If you did NOT have a big minnow population before your initial stocking of other fish, then that alone is almost surely that cause of your disappointing results. Initially your BG only had some insect larva to eat. Now they get some fry from the bass, the RES, and the other BG, but that is not enough food supply.

How much have the fish grown in length since stocking?

This fish has some copper "speckles" common to pumpkinseed. It lacks fin tip coloration of GSF. I would love to see this fish with fins extended and in good light.
Very interesting fish.

This is just a test. Been having problems getting my replies to post.

Worked that time. So I don’t think it is likely at all that GSF got into the pond from up or downstream. Even so, threadfin shad did get into the pond somehow. There is a large reservoir within a 1/4 mile of the pond and I assume some shad roe hitched a ride on some heron’s legs. I am worried that I may have too many LMB because a friend and I fished for them last week. I was shocked how many we caught. In fact I kept about 15 of the smaller ones. They ranged in size from 1-3 1/2 lbs. they all were fat and healthy looking. I guess I should mention that the pond is 2 1/2 acres.
I did not stock any minnows in the pond. The bass were fingerlings I went almost to Disney World to pick up so I could have pure strain FL largemouth. I understood, maybe incorrectly, that blue gill started spawning at a young age, and their fry would provide a food source for the bass.
I will try to get a better picture and post it next chance I get. I did notice that pictures of GSF and BG hybrids did retain some of the orange on the lower fins. I have not noticed that on these fish but I didn’t know that if the longer the hybrids crossed with bluegills if that orange trait might disappear.
Thanks for your help guys!!!

Could this be RES x GSF hybrid? that rust on the opercular flap makes me think RES or pumpkinseed is involved, plus that mouth gape looks pretty big

Despite the large gape, no yellow or orange on the fin margins (to me) dispels any GSF genes in the mix.

Did the panfish grow in length since being stocked?

Shad on bird legs? I seriously doubt it. If the reservoir is upstream, then they could have followed the water downstream, but are you sure that they are threadfin and not gizzard shad? Is the stream connected to the reservoir?

What type and amount of cover for small fish to hide in do you have in the pond? When I say amount, I'm talking square footage or percent of the ponds surface area.

Do you have a feeder on the pond to feed the fish?

Have you weighed and measured the fish, then checked that number against the relative weight chart in the archives?

Glad to hear that your bass are doing well!


That is absolutely correct. However, the BG ALSO need a good food source for them to grow and thrive.

You already have a lot of experts (not me) in your thread. If you post some pics and lengths/weights of your BG and RES, then they can probably give you some excellent further guidance!

Looks like a speckle belly to me ; BG and Redear hybrid.

LANGSTER, I believe I'm going to agree with you. Depending on which species was which parent, shape can be slightly different between the 2, but I think I agree with ya.

This may help.

I have speckle belly in 2 of my ponds, that I got from malone, and that is what they look like when very young. When they get older they get much blacker. I also have Red ear coppernose hybrids in both ponds and they did it (hybrid) on there own. They are speckled too but much lighter and more yellow. Very cool fish. I do not see green sunfish in that photo.

We had a small sunfish-hybrid thread a while back.

I don't remember anyone mentioning a CNBG/RES hybrid. Very cool, Langster!