Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Smallmouth bass in new pond?

Mitch, like Yolk I've been managing BG in a limited gape cool water species fishery for 8 years now. With seining, angling, trapping, cast nets, and dense predator stocking I've managed their population - but it requires constant effort. Some is fun, some is laborious. Unless you are willing to apply those efforts for the rest of the fishery's lifetime, consider other options.

For example: Given your fishery is so young, I'd consider draining, seine, nuke and start over sans the BG. Remove all the GSH, FHM and RES you can, cage them, drain as low as you can and nuke with hydrated lime the remainder of the pond. Refill and restock your caged fish. Per Yolk, another possible companion Lepomis would be HBG, although you could expect some hybridization with the RES - the resulting offspring are really pretty cool and believe still heavily skewed towards males therefore not presenting a population management issue.

BG in a cool water/limited gape species fishery isn't a disaster, it's just a challenge and I encourage all my clients to avoid the scenario at all possible the only exception is infiltration from upstream fisheries during overflow events.