Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New pond stocking

I wish my Crawfish would get to cutting down on my underwater vegetation. Between them, my KOI and my Grass carp they aren't even putting a dent in it

Thank you I will hold off until fall on the crayfish and prob sm(Leggis didn’t say anything about only available in fall when I spoke to him last week)

I’m finally getting ready to stock some fish now. It’s a .4 acre pond, had fhm and emerald shiners added this winter. I do not see any swimming around anywhere so I’m not sure if they survived? I know when the guy dropped them off he did not temper them to the water temp. I can’t complain to much as they were free but have no idea if any made it. I do not have a minnow trap to try and catch any. I was thinking about getting some perch this weekend either from laggis or Ron chrismon- would it be good idea to get some from each or would it not matter? I have not spoken with Ron yet to see what he has available and do not personally know him- just got his name on here. I have heard good things about laggis perch. Also Stoney creek has RES to stock. I spoke to them and they are fish from the south so I don’t know how well they will over winter here in MI but I’m willing to give it a shot. So I’m thinking of getting 100perch and 50 res here soon. I’ll prob put another gallon of fatheads in as well. This fall I’ll look into adding some smb and maybe a couple wae. I do plan to hand feed this summer if I can get the perch/res to take pellets

If there was nothing in the pond prior to stocking the fathead minnows, you should be seeing them (if enough were put in and, then survived the stocking).

If, for some reason you didn't have survival of the fatheads and/or the emerald shiners, then any Yellow Perch you put in may not have anything to eat.

Also, you'd want any bait fish to spawn before stocking predator fish like Yellow Perch, and if you only stocked them this past winter, you''d only have spawning in the next few months.

To add to what Sunil said, if the forage fish didn't survive, are you sure that your YP/RES will survive 12 months +?

I'm not sure the RES will survive up near Lansing Mi.

I also noticed that Stoney Creek was carrying RES. They are north of Grand Rapids. I would assume that RES can survive at those latitudes if SC is selling them to Michigan folk?

I am thinking about getting some RES, but it is a 2:45 drive for me to Stoney Creek.

I have trouble in NW KS at 3700' elevation getting RES to survive BUT..a buddy in MI has SMB and YP spawning 2-3 weeks before me, so maybe RES would do better there than I think.

I believe the minnows didn’t survive just because he put hole in ice and just dumped them in without trying to accumulate them to the temp- at least that’s what I figured. I have tons of frogs,tadpoles and few turtles living in it now. I know there are a few lakes around me that have RES in them but I have also heard people have hard time with them this far north. Stoney creek said that he has customers up where he is that have done fine with them.

Josh, if you can find out your water temperatures, we should be able to determine if you should be seeing fathead minnows easily.

If not, then you are probably correct in that they didn't make it. Stocking while a pond is iced over probably has small chances of success.

I would explore getting a few pounds of fatheads to stock ASAP.

I just talked to my minnow guy and told him I wanted 3 gallons- which looks like it equates to roughly 24lbs. I’ll prob get those later this week or early next. I’ll have to get a thermometer for the pond- what depth would you typically take temp at?

I take the temp around 10-12" below the surface. Probably a little bit off, but still usable info.

There are a lot of micro climates in Michigan due to the large Great Lakes. I am USDA Zone 6a here in Plymouth Indiana, Lake Odessa. Mi is also 6a. I bet Ron is 6 or 6a. Holland Mi, due West of Lake Odessa is 6

Been awhile since I posted pond is full and I stocked 50 RES and 100 yp this spring. I have tons of what I thought were all fatheads swimming in the shallows. I haven’t fished much at all and thru out a minnow trap tonight as I was going to put one on a hook and toss it out. Thru trap out for 5min and had 12 minnows-3 of which were these. Are these standard bluegill? I’m afraid they are and not sure what I’m going to do now. Had planned for smb,yp and res.

From the picture it looks more like a Bluegill than a RES,,,however it COULD be a small RES. For sure It is not a green sunfish. It is pretty hard to be accurate at that small size.; BG and RES look a lot alike at that size until the ear tab starts to show more color detail with a rear border or no border. IMO you won't know the positive ID until it gets larger as in 3.5"-4". Either way if it is a BG you are stuck with them. What size RES were stocked???

This is why we heavily emphasize to buy larger size RES 4"-5" so they can be hand sorted to usually stop introduction of sunfish that you do not want to have in the pond. Keep us advised as the pond progresses and this size gets larger . The 50 RES that were stocked Spring 2024 should be 4"-5" by now and if you fish with a small hook and worm near the bottom you might catch some of the larger ones. Where did you buy the RES??

Th RES were 2-3” at stocking from Stoney creek fish farm in Grant,Mi. After I posted, I put the trap out in 2 different spots for 5 min at a time and caught 5 more of them. So out of 15 min of trapping in 3different spots I caught 8 of these which leads me to believe common bg due to the abundance?

So if those are regular bg I need to have a plan. I was going to stock some SMB in the next few weeks but they are pretty pricy so I don’t want to buy and then kill off immediately . In your opinion will I be better off killing everything now and starting over? If I still did smallmouth (and maybe some Hsb if I can figure that out). How many same sex lmb would I need to help keep numbers in check. I’m not looking for trophy class of any fish. I would like to eat perch/bluegill a few times a year but provide the kids with fun fishing and swimming. I don’t want a bunch of stunted bg nipping swimmers. If I just stick SMB how many years do you think it would be before I had all just stunted bg? If it’s 6-7 years than I may just go that route and add lmb or kill it off then. If it’ll only be a few years then I’d rather just start over now.

Josh,

Your original post did include BG in the plan, so I wouldn't stress too much if you accidentally got them in your mix. If it was my pond, I think I would keep tweaking the stockings until I was positive that my fish population mix was a disaster.

I think you need to put in SMB when they are of a size NOT to eat your stocked YP. I think you need to work primarily on getting your YP established, since the BG are much more robust spawners.

How big are your YP now, and how big are the SMB available for stocking? (I don't know the correct size ratio for your YP to be safe, but if you list the info I bet you can get an expert reply.)

P.S. I think that BG are a lot more prolific in warm southern ponds. However, even if your SMB can't keep up with the BG population, in a pond as small as yours you can cull a lot of BG with some small hooks and bits of worms!

Yes I did plan on bg at first until I was advised against it with just smb as predator. When I stocked the perch I got 50 from Leggis that were 3-5” and 50 from Stoney creek that were 5-8”. Haven’t fished hardly at all. Caught 2 perch that were both 6-7”. I went out for quick fish tonight and first cast caught my first RES on little jig head and worm. Measured about 6”. Trying to post a pic but is says my pic is over 2mb not sure how to change that

Here it is. Didn’t even notice till I just looked at pic but what would tear its dorsal fin up like that?). It’s amazing how much different I treat my own fish vs one I would catch in a lake. I was so excited when I caught it that I wanted to make sure to get it back in asap and it had swallowed the tear drop jig head pretty good** never mind after zooming in there is a weed or something in the fin, it is not ripped

Congrats on seeing a redear!!

Josh, I "liked" FishinRod's post back a little ways particularly because he referred to your ability to effectively cull the BG in your small pond to keep their numbers low. My experience with our 1/4 acre pond leads me to believe that knocking down BG, GSF, and LMB to acceptable levels is a piece of cake. I have to be willing to keep any small sunfish I catch.
If it appears that BG are too numerous, I pull out 100 to 150 in a few fishing sessions. If GSF are everywhere, I do the same. It did take me 3 years of killing about 100 LMB each year to initially knock them down. Their numbers have stayed low now for several years.
I do have a very few BCP and YP in the pond. For years I've not caught 10 of either species in one year. I imagine the combo of LMB and GSF effectively knock the YP fry out each year. And, who knows why the crappie are so scarce and have remained so for the 15 years we've been here. There are no "forage minnows" of any sort in the pond.

Good addition to the thread, 4Corners!

Culling 300 LMB over a three year span in a 1/4 acre pond shows just how productive a small pond can be. That is a lot of fish mass in a small space, I wonder if you were getting close to a fish kill?

Did you ever have a good population of YP in your pond?

I like the idea of a small pond that is YP only. Buy pellet-trained (if you can) and start them with good forage minnows and an automatic feeder. When the YP are large enough to eat, start catching them and ladder stock some more YP if you did not have good recruitment.

I’m going to continue with stocking smb here in next few weeks then(as long as weather cools off). They will be around 5” so I’m not worried about them eating my perch. I would like to have perch as my main panfish- should I plan to stock more this year if available? 0.4 acre pond, put in 100 this spring along with 50 what I though were RES. I’m not 100% sure they are not res but just worried about the amount I trapped in a little bit of time. Should I be removing by trapping now? Do you think I should increase the amount of predator fish stocked? Thank you all for the advice.. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on here. If tj reads this, do you still have small pond with smb and bg? Is that staying fairly balanced?

Although the former owner rattled off several species of fish she thought were in the pond when we bought the property in 2009, we found only LMB, YP, and two 30+inch TGC. After observing and fishing the pond for a year, I discovered this invaluable PondBoss forum and started management. Except for limited patches of cattails and bulrushes, there was no vegetation whatsoever and no other cover.

And, although I'd found a few lures in the in the "tulies" and in the mud that indicated larger bass may have been present, it was a couple of years before we saw or caught a bass over 12"; all perch were 4' to 6" and very abundant.

Now there also are BG, GSF, HBG, 5 TGC, a very few SMB that have come down the irrigation ditch, and a piddling few BCP. I haven't seen my trout for several weeks and am assuming they're gone. At 6 and 7 years. they were very old for hatchery trout.

Caught 3 perch(6.5,7 and 8”). All looked very healthy and 2 RES(both 6” and healthy) today. Not to worried about smaller smb eating any of them yet. Plenty of fatheads swimming around still as well