# Stocking existing pond from scratch - help.



## celtic11 (Jun 30, 2011)

My grandparents have a pond on their property, probably about 1.5 acres. The deep end is probably about 8 feet deep, and about 1 acre is at least 5 feet deep. The pond used to have several catfish and largemouth in it that have since died off. Once all the grandkids grew up and stopped helping take care of it, its really gone downhill. The pond is currently being overrun by bullfrogs and I have gotten the permission from my grandfather gave me the ok to stock it up. Id like to stock it up with some catfish, bass, and maybe some crappie? 

My question is I'm not even sure where to begin? I'm guessing I need to get some sort of water sample tested but then what? Should I buy minnows? Should I just transport fish that I catch in other bodies of water? Just looking for some general direction on how to get started. Thanks in advance.


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## leupy (Feb 12, 2007)

Stocking minnows is a must, everyone will advise you not to stock fish from other bodies of water due to illness. My opinion only, is avoid crappie. Bass and bluegill are a great start along with catfish as long as you intend to harvest them when table fare and replace. Weed groth and alge are other issues you will need to deal with. I have a small pond 3/4 acre and fight everything all the time. There will be others that will respond with more knowledge that me. Good luck!! When you stock bass and catfish say goodbye to the frogs or call me and arrainge a frog leg dinner. When my pond was built and first started filling I had thousands of bullfrog tadpoles and when the first stocking was done I added 200 more at 50 cents each, within 2 days I could not find a tadpole anywhere. After ten years I have a couple of grass frogs once in a while. Harvest all the frogs you can before stocking and don't pay for tadpoles.


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## celtic11 (Jun 30, 2011)

Avoid crappie for what reason? Will they overrun the pond? Weed growth isn't out of control but algae may be. I found a local fish hatchery that has some nice fish and a pretty informative website. I think ill contact them and see what they suggest.

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## leupy (Feb 12, 2007)

They are massive minnow eaters they will make it hard for bass and bluegills to reproduce regularly.


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## celtic11 (Jun 30, 2011)

Ok thanks. I called my grandpa to find out what size pond he has and apparently I don't know my ass from a whole in the ground because it's only. 25 acre. 

I called the guy at the local fishery and he suggested 100 largemouth and 100 catfish and some other fish as well for a 1 acre pond. I'm thinking ill get 25 largemouth and 25 cats, and some koi to clean up. Grandpa says no bluegill so would perch be a suitable fish to add?

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## JIMS SVT (Aug 19, 2004)

I wouldnt put any Koi in there. They are the same as a regular common carp. Will tear up the bottom of the pond and make it muddy. Then theres a chance of them reproducing and having way to many with a super muddy pond. Put 2 or 3 grass carp in there instead.


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## hang_loose (Apr 2, 2008)

Crappie,(especially white) will take over a pond...One reason is that they spawn a lot earlier than your other fish so they will be feeding on your later fish spawns.

One more thing, yellow perch spawn earlier than crappie...

Tell grandpa that the blue gill spawn will make your bass and catfish a lot bigger.


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## sherman51 (Apr 12, 2011)

if your planning on fishing and keeping some of the fish, i would put some redears in it. they are great food for the bass and are a ball to catch on light tackle. and they get alot bigger than your standard bluegills. and are great table fare for humans to.LOL. just another opinion.
sherman


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

IMHO, this size pond isn't large enough for largemouth bass unless you are planning for fairly intense management and have the time and money to do so. I think your fish choices in this case should be limited to channel cats and hybrid stripers and maybe even some hybrid bluegill if your grandpa will allow. These fish don't reproduce for the most par t making them easy to manage to maintain good growth without the complication of trying to keep populations balanced or overloading such a small pond. A pond can support a limited number of pounds of fish.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

celtic11, in the meantime, you should consider dropping in a baited minnow trap for a couple of days and see what you come up with. There may still be some fish in there and the information would be important for developing a stocking plan. If you come up with nothing, the first step in most stocking plans for a pond without fish would be to add some fatheads and possibly some mosquito fish and let them reproduce. It doesn't cost much or take very many as they reproduce quickly. It took great restraint but I did this after my pond was built several months before other fish were added and you could almost walk across the minnows in my pond they were so thick. The minnows will likely get wiped out over the following couple of years but you will be rewarded for your patience.


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## sherman51 (Apr 12, 2011)

[email protected] said:


> IMHO, this size pond isn't large enough for largemouth bass unless you are planning for fairly intense management and have the time and money to do so. I think your fish choices in this case should be limited to channel cats and hybrid stripers and maybe even some hybrid bluegill if your grandpa will allow. These fish don't reproduce for the most par t making them easy to manage to maintain good growth without the complication of trying to keep populations balanced or overloading such a small pond. A pond can support a limited number of pounds of fish.



the only real problem with the hybrid bluegills is after a few years you end up with a pond full of green sunfish. i have a good friend who lets me fish his pond and thats what happened to him. now about 80% of the gills we get are the green sunfish. and he told me thats how he got them.
sherman


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

Reproduction of hybrid bluegills are very low. To start with, somewhere between 85% and 98% are male. This alone makes reproduction very low. The low numbers of F2s that may be produced do not exhibit the hybrid vigor of F1s and growth is typically less than either bluegill or green sunfish. This makes them easy prey even for other F1s but my recommendation was to stock along with channels and/or hybrid stripers which will easily keep them in check if not completely eliminate all hybrid bluegill offspring if stocked in appropriate ratios. This low production rate is one of the reasons why I would never recommend stocking them with largemouth bass if big bass is the goal. The low reproduction is a benefit in a very small pond because as the fish mature there are less fish competing for available resources which results in faster growth of individuals within a population. Hybrid bluegill exhibit much of the aggressiveness of the green sunfish and are more easily caught IMO. Although highly marketed as growing to enormous sizes very quickly the reality is they will not outgrow standard bluegill long term where there is abundant food. I believe that one reason for the fast growth hype is simply the low competition factor. Over a long period of time without sufficient predation/harvest, they will revert more toward the green sunfish. 

I believe the main reasons fish farms recommend them so much (even where they shouldn't IMO) is that they are easy to produce, easy to market, require restocking periodically increasing sales, easy to trap for them to harvest, they are hardier and transport mortality is lower, they take commercial feed well and larger pellets sooner initially growing faster commanding higher prices more quickly. 

I had stocked about 25 Hybrid bluegill along with a few hundred standard bluegill. The hybrids outgrew the standards for the first 3 years at which point my standards surpassed the hybrids. I saw no HBxHB offspring but I did produce a couple of HBxstandard BG offspring which as you can see do not exhibit desireable traits.

The standards and hybrids below were stocked at the same size and are the results after 3 years. It is due to these results and my goals that I have not restocked them.
Standards

















Hybrid









Standard bluegill/hybrid bluegill offspring


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