Mrd05d asks - 1. "Bill you say lower fertility and natural foods = few quality fish per acre. Is that bad?" No it is not bad, although some may consider it not what they want. Most want lots of quality sized or 'big' fish per acre. Higher fertility supports more fish pounds per acre and if you manage by selectively harvesting fish for more larger fish, angling is more impressive.
2. ""..my thinking was that most of the fish i would be stocking i would have to continually restock and would get to pick the fish out right? Or does it not work that way?"" Some or a few user friendly fish farms allow selecting individual fish, although they may ask a small up charge for that option. Many do not allow it. You will have to do good homework as to which fish farms in your region are best for your goals. One option I and some use is buy mixed fish, grow them in small ponds, in cages, or behind blocking nets when grown to larger sizes, choose which ones are released. The rejects are invited to dinner, given away, sold, or traded.
3. "What quantity of fish are we talking about when we say few quality fish?" Quantity will be based on your pond's fertility and amount of phytoplankton that it is able to raise naturally without fertilization. So it is hard to provide a definate number of pounds of fish at this point if we don't know the pond's productivity as sometimes determined by a Secchi disk. Novices and even some experienced in advanced pond management will need help with this. Good advice on this topic is available from some forum members. See this for an introduction:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92624#Post92624The total pounds of fish will be distributed among all sizes of the species present. Those pounds will be divided by the numbers of prey and predators.
This is 'how in theory' it works. In naturally fed pond populations the prey to predator ratio is or should be at least 10 and often 20 prey to every predator. So right from the onset, the pond will ideally have about 15 times more pounds of prey fish (forage) than predator fish. Let's assume that your pond is "average" fertility of 150 fish pounds per acre. This means that the pond should have around 140 pounds of preyfish and 10 pounds of predator. We will assume that there are 10, 1 lb predators. Each eats 8-10 lbs of forage per year. This leaves 40-50 pounds of preyfish to reproduce and provide food for the next year. Often what happens is the predators reproduce and now more predators are too abundant and over eat the prey fish depleating their numbers (pounds). Now the pond is out of ideal balance. Predator growth suffers - slows down - predators get skinny. This is where many pond owners use fish pellets to suppliment pellet feed and compensate for lack of prey or forage fish and boost the number and sizes of sustainable larger sized preyfish and predators.
If you haven't read the Topic of "Carrying Capacity" in the Common Q&A Archives then study this:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92440#Post92440Proper fish management for quality or premium fishes can get a little complicated due to all the influences that can interact and affect a fish community and one's goals. The management is not quite so complicated early in the pond's history when fewer and smaller predators are present. Where it becomes more complicated is after 4-6 years the predators are larger and the community or fishery contains numerous generations of predators and prey, and all conntinue reproducing. All sizes / ages of those reproducing fish have to interact and maintain a balanced community for the goals, thus management becomes more difficult year after year due to recruitment success and year class strength of the offspring. To simplify this, I and a few others have promoted introducing or using non-reproducing predators fro ponds which makes management and maintaining higher numbers of quality predator populations much easier due to lack of annual recruitment of new predators that need or demand to be fed so they grow well.
Quality of fish by my definition are actually those in the "Preferred" or "Memorable" categories as listed in Fisheries Techniques book (1996) by Murphy & Willis as in Dr.Dave Willis, So Dakota State Univ. Fisheries Professor and a member here. The book lists 5 size categories and appropriate lengths for all sport fish which are Stock, Quality, Preferred, Memorable and Trophy. As book examples for your desired species the sizes would be: YP: Quality 8", preferred 10", memorable 12"; HSB: Qual 12", preferred 15", memorable 20"; RBT: Qual 16", preferred 20", memorable 26"; walleye Qual 15", preferred 20", memorable 25".
