Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New Southern Ohio Pond

Welcome Drew and he says "" We're planning on 3:1 slopes, a 3ft shelf, a 5ft shelf, then down to somewhere between 8-10ft with a couple even deeper holes dug in there."
Firstly the bottom basin belly of a 0.5 pond is not a very big area. Not much bigger than 3-4 bulldozers. IMO leave out the couple deeper holes and just make the bottom basin all one depth or a gentle belly slope toward one deepest end away from the beech shallow zone or end. I would deepen the pond basin toward at least 13ft to a better 15-16ft. This bottom area is not very large and is added with cheap $, fast dirt removal for the long term benefit that the 3-4 extra feet of depth provides "healthy water" for a northern Ohio pond. This bottom depth will be beneficial as the pond ages past the 15 - 20 year range and sludge / muck accumulates. NOTE a circular pond has the least amount of shoreline compared to kidney shape or elongated rectangle shape pond - calculate shoreline areas for several pond shapes. Weeds and algae problems always grow on shorelines thus less shoreline results in fewer weed problems. Choose your best shape for your goals.

Jones FH is in the business to sell fish and get profit and not necessarily the best way to achieve your goals. Most fish farms are pretty good at growing and selling small fish but not experts at growing those fish into trophies. Trust our growing big fish opinions (they are free) and then decide which ones fits best for your goals. You will not need to stock nearly as many FHM and GSH as suggested by Jones if you follow our advice below.

As mentioned above start first with minnows / shiners and maybe fingerling up to 4"-6" YP or fingerling RES in spring 2023 or this fall and then next fall add the predators. Stocked to first reproduce -- it will only take 3-4 lbs FHM and 3 lbs GSH in spring to jump start this new pond with 10s of thousands of minnows for a fall predator stocking. Note the correct panfish species can be stocked with minnows in spring (see below) then with thousands of reproduced minnows add predators in fall or the next spring 2024.

As mentioned SMB will NOT control BG. RES is a better panfish with SMB with a few HSB. YP are even better than RES with SMB. HSB and RES-YP also work okay. Another option is HSB-walleye(WE) and RES-YP as panfish. Jones 100 YP and 75 RES is a good start option in your panfish pond. If you start with 4"-6" pellet trained YP in spring with minnows and feed YP pellets you can have 8"-10" by fall - I've done this in a lot of ponds. Check with Brehms Perch farm in West Liberty OH for high quality fast growing pellet trained yellow perch. Jones often buys some of their YP from them and Brehm's partner in Marysville! Remember that YP have proven and reported in the literature to eat a fair number of small sunfish and minnows during winter. So adult YP are also predators. I think Dave Smith at Freshwater Farms of Ohio in Urbana buys their YP from Brehm's.

This WE-HSB-YP-RES is a good combo because neither WE-HSB reproduce,, so you have VERY good control of the number of predators - need some add some; have too many predators thinning too many small fish then remove and eat a few predators. No more predators than you will need in 0.5 ac pond,,,,, adding a few predators as replacements occasionally will be cheap $ management in the long run. EACH predator including even each SMB will eat 250 to 300 fish a year so it will not take very many predators to thin out reproducing panfish such as RES&YP. and maybe some minnows which would be after the 3rd year just golden shiners. FHM are very slow swimmers and very vulnerable to predation; plus they only grow to about 2.5"-3" and are easy for a 8"-9" fish to eat adult FHM. I've had just adult YP alone in a small pond eat all the FHM and eliminate them.

Jones is adding WAY too many WE for a 0.5 ac normal Ohio panfish pond. 75 WE alone in a pond if when 10"-12" long to grow 1"-1.5" would need to eat 22,500 small fish in one year (sunfish YP minnows). WOW - What will your other predators be eating????? Your pond would not need any more than 6-7 WE with a few HSB or a few SMB for a balanced food prey situation. WE should be considered only a bonus fish for small ponds unless the pond is a basic walleye production growing pond. HSB inch for inch will be the hardest fighting fish that you will ever catch in freshwater

I've used HBG-YP in with SMB and HSB. They worked well until about the 6-7th year and then the HBG offspring backcrossing and inbreeding or recruitment of individuals trended toward the more dominant genetics of green sunfish rather than BG. After 20+ years all sunfish caught now look very close to GSF. No new HBG have been added periodically to this pond which as an option would have provided large faster growing panfish into this gene pool fishery.

If you want BG with WE-HSB-SMB as predator you can add male only BG that you buy or catch from another pond. Two forum members and I wrote how to do this in 3 issues of Pond Boss Magazine. The danger here is if the pond has RES,,, the male BG will cross (hybridize) with the RES. Been there done that. In that pond after about 10-14 years the hybrids died out and primary sunfish caught now is RES. Hybrids died out because I think the cross of RES female X male BG were not fertile and when original stocked male BG died hybridization stopped?

Reference for the articles of using and stocking of only male BG - available in back issues of Pond Boss Magazine:

Mar-Apr 2006 Pond Boss Magazine. BEHEMOTH BLUEGILLS IN SMALL PONDS. In Part I, Cody, Condello and Baird provide the necessary details of how to accurately sex bluegills as the first step to produce BG trophies in small waters.

May-Jun 2006. GROWING BEHEMOTH MALE BLUEGILLS; Part II. Cody, Condello and Baird present info about size, growth, stocking densities, and choosing proper male bluegills.

Jul-Aug 2006. THE ART OF MANAGING BEHEMOTH MALE BLUEGILLS. Cody, Condello and Baird conclude their three part article about raising trophy male bluegills. Discussed are best size of ponds, natural foods, supplemental feeding, angling implications, females only, and creative ways to use male bluegills. A standard weight table for bluegill is included.