Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose SMB/YP/RES in one acre dug pond

RAH says "I suppose I should wait for the YP fry to get to about 3" before adding SMB?". Not necessarily. If you can find some 3"-5" SMB in spring of 2014 (May), then you can stock them at full or less than full rate. Full rate would be around 60-80/ac. If only larger SMB stockers are only available, I would wait until fall of 2014 and stock fingerlings SMB 2"-4" &/or 5"-7" ones. You could stock one size or a combination of both sizes at that time. Some of the larger sizes will provide larger bass quicker. Stocking only the smaller ones allows the forage to gain strength of numbers for another season. Larger ones would immediately start eating the YOY perch and minnows, whereas the smaller 2"-4" ones would eat perch from mainly the 2015 hatch year class. As long as the FHM are common to abundant plan on all the SMB to eat primarily fatheads until FHM are in short supply. Stocking pellet trained SMB is beneficial since it takes pressure off the forage fish base while still producing a high quality SMB fishery.