Pond stocking

[jml755]

Not being a "true" fisherman, I had my brother-in-law come out and fish my pond last week. In the past, I had dropped a line or two and not gotten anything, although I could see the buggers swimming around. Pond is about 4 acres and about 9 ft deep in the middle. He caught a large-mouth bass on almost every cast from shore. Mostly small, 5-8 inches or so. He and others thought it was overpopulated with LMB. I would like to stock it with perch, so I contacted a hatchery and they also suggested putting in some hybrid blue-gill to control the LMB population as the BG will eat the LMB fry. Maybe throw in some minnows as well. The idea is to get it in balance. Thoughts/comments?

[JazzDad]

I'll just quote the line from one of my favourite musicals, "The little fish, eat the littler fish. The littler fish, eat the little-little fish. The little-little fish, eat the littlest fish. And that's the way it goes."

[egon]

Stock it with some Esox lucius and your bass problems will disappear. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

I like to stock fathead minnows. They are excellent forage for bass and they never get big enough to compete with game fish. They can reproduce 2-3 times a year.

Pat

[roujesky]

I would check out http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php. People on this board know everything about stocking a pond/lake.
I do not recommend stocking with hybrid bluegill. When they spawn, some of the fry will revert to green perch which are not as desirable. I would go with coppernose bluegill. These are a better fish generation after generation.
If you decide to stock with Bluegill, make sure you get LARGE ones. The existing bass will eat fingerling bluegill just like the bluegill will eat fingerling bass.



Good luck.

[jml755]

roujesky,
Thanks for the advice. I'll check out pondboss.