ScottE,
In the ponds with which I have experience with CC/Lepomis (two of them), the recruitment of CC is very subdued and does not prevent good growth of CC. Neither of these ponds have CC spawning containers which might make a difference. Both pond receive supplemental stocking of CC. My sense is that most of the fish the CC are eating are aged or sick lepomis (possibly even dead) which probably turnover completely every 5 years or so. IMHO, short lived minnow are better forage because their populations turnover much more quickly. They won't compete with CC for large insects or YOY fish fry older than say 14 days or so. In other words, they can grow a greater weight of predators. This is corroborated by many studies which indicate that minnows produce greater standing weights of LMB than do BG. BG are used in combination with LMB because they are resistant to predation relative to the minnows which are typically extirpated.
My brother in law has his vision of a "dream pond". It meets his version of perfection but he doesn't care that standing weight is shared with dink lepomis. You will probably never get large BG (even with feeding) with CC as the apex predator. They will just reproduce too much and the numbers be to high. This could be true of YP, I don't know, but that is why I suggested walleye as an alternative. Also walleye is a bigger gape more effective predator.
Last edited by jpsdad; 12/02/21 10:25 AM.
