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

Yeah caught a lot of Rock Bass up North for sure. Rock Bass are kind of brownish in color and have very distinct red eyes. I have heard a lot of people down here in Arknasas call them Warmouth. I was brought up to believe they were Rock Bass. The only place I have caught them down here though are in deeper colder lakes.

I thought they were the same fish as well. Looking at pics on the internet, I'm catching Warmouth.

CJ (criminal justice) -- you probably are right on the warmouth and the abundant bass. A lot of the black and white crappie state records come from ponds, too. Often, the records come from ponds where the owner didn't even know they had that species (Don Gabelhouse found that out while working on a lmb-crappie study for the Central States Small Impoundment Work Group quite a few years ago). Anyway, low density, plenty of bass, and an occasional catch of a large sunfish or crappie is probably right.

Thanks everyone.

There is a 4-5 acre pond near me that was subject to a recent fish kill.

Anyway it used to a private pond until it was sold to the local government.

It had warmouth, bluegill and redear in the pond along with carp and largemouth bass.

I only knew of two warmouth to come out of the pond but when I saw the killed fish there were more warmouth than I thought. Not as many as the bluegill or redear but more than I figured would be in there.

I was just wondering if warmouth would make a good auxillary fish for lm bass besides bluegill

We would catch them on minnows

Depends on your goals... If you want a bonus species, they are an option. However I think they compete with LMB to an even greater extent than GSF do and provide limited forage as their reproductive rates are even less than GSF are.

Thanks

Not a big fan of lmb

Thought I would bump this thread. The OP posed the question of whether a WM only pond was feasible in 1/4 acre. No in-depth discussion about how to manage but Eric rightly suggested that he may have to employ seines and/or traps along with fishing to keep the population in good sizes.

WM are similar to GSF but are different in ways that are important to me. Now having sampled some, I do consider them more desirable than GSF. GSF, everywhere I have ever found them, have been susceptible to black spot. Also, the flesh is not nearly as good to eat as BG, IMO. Personally, would not care to have GSF but the WM ... possibly.

Drawbacks are that while they can persist with other sunfish, they just don't seem to be able to maintain a substantial standing weight when others are present. They do better in water where other species are challenged to survive. They grow much slower than RES or BG and don't attain as high a top end weight as these species can. That said, some sources describe them as having high proportions of harvestable fish. A Mississippi webpage said they were less prone to stunt in small waters. The 42 OK ponds paper I sometimes reference stated they occurred in 36% of the ponds and that harvestable individuals comprised 71% of the standing populations (3rd only to CC and LMB). So even if they don't have an internal growth clock that matches BG and RES, a greater proportion of their populations attained harvestable weight than did BG and RES. This probably owing to lower recruitment than BG or RES.

I've been investigating this and a single species pond combined with trapping or perhaps even a single predator pond may be manageable in 1/4 acre. So just throwing it out there again to see if there may be feedback and experience that can be added to the thread. Any with something to share please do!

I have an experiment going, but it will likely take years till I know the results. The pond was teaming with FHM first.

I have a few that I caught from a neighbor pond that were close to a pound and transferred to my pond.They haven’t been seen since but I think I have caught a few maybe hybrids in retention pond when pond gets full and overflows…. Pretty fish whatever they are

jpsdad,

If warmouth have a much lower recruitment rate, that would explain two of the data points in your research. First, that they don't do well in ponds with lots of other panfish. Secondly, that they are less prone to stunting in small ponds.

If that is all true, then perhaps they would be a good choice to put in a small pond as the only predator species? (Even though that goes against our PB conventional wisdom?)

A family might be able to properly manage their small pond just by fishing. If they kept good catch records with relative weights, then they could know when to eat a few more warmouth, and when to do more catch and release.

I think warmouth would be an even better choice if they would take supplemental feed and you could grow them out a little faster.

jpsdad (and others): Anyone have any data on warmouth learning to take pellets?

RAH: I can't remember if you have any automatic feeders? (I think not.) Do you ever hand feed your fish? If so, have you tried any hand-feeding in your warmouth experiment?

I don't feed except for occasionally thowing in a little in the BG/LMB pond. I have not tried feeding in my other ponds. I am in the early days of the warmouth pond and only added a few fish to stock it.

This is great. Will be fun to follow this along. Is the experiment running in the .4 acre pond that was leaky?

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=555728&an=

Don't know how much help this will be ... but I have worked up a climate model for the WM which is based on maximum potentials for WM adjusted for temperature. The model assumes ad libitum growth. Below are the maximum potentials for Boone County, IN. Most populations fall below those curves after age 2. This is due to under-exploitation (not enough harvest). But it will give you an idea what is possible at your location if they are getting all they want to eat!

Maybe they could be a predator only option, I am not sure. With regard to conventional wisdom, keep in mind that predator only scenarios have been advanced and applied to true piscivores for quite some time now. Prominently, LMB and SMB have been successfully managed as a single species pond. With either of them, they don't as single species produce enough YOY to supply all of their energy needs. So invertebrates also play a role. To me, the question of whether they can be managed by fishing alone is answered in just how effective they are as piscivores. If they will consume sufficient quantities of YOY such that adolescents (1.5 years of age) can grow at near maximum rates of growth and in manageable quantities... then yes ... fishing could possibly be the only necessary management tool to keeping them thriving with good rates of growth.

Balance in a single predator scenario is the balance of adults to YOY. There needs to be enough adults to crop the YOY to a manageable number that will grow to a minimum size for cropping at 1.5 years of age. At this age, some proportion should be recruited to replace older adults that are being harvested or dying of natural causes. Whatever else can be cropped as an excess of production that could hinder growth into ages 2 and beyond. To better understand what to release and what to keep, I would employ a marking system for catch and release fish (but even these can be cropped limitedly). Any fish that is unmarked and of harvestable size can be removed. For marked fish, they can be kept up to an annual allowable but not more than that. 

Take a look at the spread sheet below. It's based on a carry of 100 lbs (which can be adjusted of course). In this scenario, fish are marked when exceeding the gape limit of the largest fish. This occurs after they are 1 years of age at around 4" in length. 100 per 100 lbs standing weight (in this particular scenario also 100 per acre) is needed at the second anniversary. So with 10% natural mortality at this stage I would select 111 fish >4-5" in mid to late summer by clipping a bit of the rear portion of the posterior dorsal fin to stand for selected in 2025. From that point forward, I would only keep that fish if my quota of clipped fish had not been filled for the year. Any unclipped fish would be slaughtered if exceeding 5" (0.10 lbs). Each year is a repeat of selecting recruits. If a pond will support the 100 lbs standing weight and the mortality of 90 lbs/acre year ... then this is a possible scenario based on the average curve I replied to RAH with.



For someone doing an initial stocking. The adult population number (287) plus anticipated natural mortality to 6" lengths would be the correct initial stocking number. This particular growth is the average of males and females growing at maximum climate adjusted growth.




Not clear how well they would take pellets. But I think feeding in twilight and/or feed training as Augie has with RES might be worth a try.

jpsdad - You have a good memory. This is the leaky 0.4 acre pond (with a wetland about the same size attached).

I wish that were true. The part about me having a good memory. Was better a while back. When you mentioned having started a WM pond, I thought I might find it in your post history. Didn't take long. I missed it the first time but will be following your thread now.