Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Hybrid striped bass and walleye, when to add

These are comments to Gpugh's questions that I have not worked on as answers. Readers pay attention the the " " marks that indicate Gpugh's posts information.

Gpugh says “I stocked the pond with 11 pounds of fathead minnows last Dec 2020 and 10 lb of FHM that lasted about a week in spring 2021. Then added 20 more pounds FHM in February 2022. “In April 2022 I stocked 10 lbs of golden shiners, 215 yellow perch, and 100 red ear sunfish into 1.2ac. I also added 5 dozen creek chubs, 6 dozen craw dads, from the creek below the pond, same one I filled the pond with. A friend has been catching shiners and minnows ( he calls them blood shiners and ozark minnows) from the Nianga river in southern mo. About 10 dozen of these."

"I now have thousands of minnows in the pond. I have been feeding them Optimal Jr and a special lab mix that Dustin from Optimal said would really turbo charge these fish (90 dollars a bag) and man it really turbo charged em ! The perch were 2-3 inches when stocked Apr 22, now (fall 2022) they are 8-9 inches. Shiners were 2 inches stocked size and are now 4-5 inches and about 2 inches from back to belly. Don't know how big the red ears are because I haven't seen or caught any."

Redears - RES are hard to catch compared to BG or HBG. IMO do not expect to catch very many redears(RES), assuming you actually stocked RES instead of green sunfish(GSF) , unless you use special angling methods to dependably catch RES or fish for RES during their beach spawn activities. I suspect all the GSF came from unfiltered creek-water that you used to fill the pond. This is an excellent way to get GSF into a pond by filling it with unfiltered creek or ditch water. GSF fry can often be 3/8" long and very common in all drainage ditches and streams. It only takes two.

Your blood shiners are very likely more correctly called bleeding shiners. They primarily spawn in riffles of streams over and in the gravel nests and pits made by other fish usually hornyhead chubs and stonerollers. Ozark minnows mature in 2nd year and lay their eggs in nests of horny-head chubs and often hybridize with other shiners that lay eggs in steam fish nests. Creek chubs will in my experience will not pond spawn and also are primarily or exclusively stream spawners where they build nests in gravel that typically has a current flowing through the gravel. The chubs sense this stream gravel unique current as places to build nests. The current in the gravel nest keeps the eggs well oxygenated.

From what we read above about blood shiners, Ozark minnows, and chubs, they are not pond spawning species, so most likely practically all of the 1000’s of minnows now present from what you see, we assume to be golden shiners (GSH) and hopefully some fatheads(FHM) as survivors. Both can be very prolific in pond habitats. Small 1"-1.5" fish can also be small GSF, although GSF will swim and behave a lot different compared to shiners and FHM.

YP – “”The last perch I caught was around 10 inches, haven’t seen or caught one YP since then.”
I think the easiest and best time to catch the most YP is soon after spawning when they feed heavily to regain body fat from winter and spring spawning. If YP are being fed pellets, the fall is also a good time to catch YP.

Walleye – Your fall 2022 walleye total is now 40 stocked in two sessions. 25 in Oct 2021 and 15 in Oct 30 2022. “I stocked them(WE) last fall, they were around 6-8 inches when I stocked them, “” I just don’t know if the WE are big enough yet to be feeding on my perch. IMO walleye @ 6"-8" stocked in Oct 2021 and in fall 2022 will be around 10” to maybe 13” after one year in the pond. Walleye in a pond are DEFINITELY not as easy to catch as HSB.
“”Just sent Bill some pics of a HSB …….. to see what it has been eating. I sent the pics of the fish and it’s stomach contents and he said they were GSF,. Now the GSF are really getting hammered, I see about a third of what I used to see from the dock and shoreline.””

The fewer GSF are most likely due to predation from the 40 HSB rather than from 40 walleye(WE). I think this because WE do not grow very fast and large in pond environments compared to HSB. Not growing fast indicates these individuals (WE) are not eating as much food as faster growing fish (HSB). Food creates growth.

The other factor for HSB eating more GSF than WE is because the GSF seek refuge in shallow shoreline areas. HSB in small ponds will always frequent shoreline areas more often where GSF are hiding compared to WE. Interaction leads to predation.