I stocked 40 pounds of minnows in a new 2 acre pond. Mostly shiners with some Dace and Bluntnose. The minnows are surrounding and nibbling at people as they swim. It doesn’t hurt, but is a bit annoying, and we’re worried it might scare away people from swimming in the pond.
The pond is new so there isn’t much life in it yet, so I wonder if the minnows are just overly hungry. Given this my thoughts are to 1) feed them before people want to swim 2) put some predators in so they can’t just “hang out in the open” around swimmers, or 3) get rid of them and put in feed trained predator fish (likely SMB, although was hoping for WE too).
Any advice on what we might do? Swimming is the top priority for the pond, followed by fishing.
