Fish Stocking

Tree Spud

5 year old buck +
Last fall we had fish stocked in our pond and they did well over the winter. This morning we put in:
  • 200 Bluegill
  • 100 Black crappie
  • 100 Yellow perch
  • 75 Walleye
  • Another 40# of flathead minnows
Last fall we put in similar amounts of Hybrids, Bluegills, Perch, and largemouth Bass. The minnows did a good job reproducing with lots of small fry visible. The Wallaye & Bass are predators to manage the pan fish population.

Can't wait to see the young kids start tossin a few worms in and see what they can catch.

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How are the fish doing now? What have you put in for bass so far, I'm thinking of building a pond and using a similar stocking plan.
 
How are the fish doing now? What have you put in for bass so far, I'm thinking of building a pond and using a similar stocking plan.

I put in 50 largemouth bass last fall. They were 6-7" and are now 12". Our pond is 14' deep and did not see any die off from the winter. The BG are now 6". I think we may even had a hatch of some new BG's this spring as we have some small ones in the 3" range.
 
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Very nice.just hope otters dont move in. They cleaned out both my ponds in 2 years. 6 draw tags issued for the county each year. Also, dont stock trout, they poop their body weight plugging the springs up.

Yes, aware of potential otter & fisher problems. We never leave any opens holes in the ice during winter. I have also put a small grate (1" x 1") fence covering the water level & drain pipe to shut off that point of entry.

Have talked to several trappers, they are all interested to get the trapping rights, very unreliable in showing up though.
 
When we walk down to the pond, fish will come in looking for a free meal. They were accustomed to fish feeders in the stocked facility so some of them will respond when we throw fish pellets in. The kids really enjoy feeding the fish ...

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We stocked channel catfish in a pond and they would do the same thing. We would have a few bass follow us around the pond as well when we are mowing or weedwacking - they loved the bugs and the like that ended up in the water.

Sounds like you got your pond off to a great start - the kids will have a ball!
 
The fish are all growing is size. Some of the bluegills are as big as my hand and some bass are 16", saw several perch this weekend that were approaching 12". We definitely now have natural reproduction as you can see in the lower left.

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Also got the pier expanded ... took a bit of flotation engineering ...

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Great looking dock! Darn cool that you can see the fish like that, they tend to dart off when someone gets close to them at our place.
 
That looks awesome...all of it!
 
I want to see one of those ...... a six foot bluegill!!!!! Funny how one little mark can make all the difference!!!!!

OPPS ... :emoji_astonished: ... interesting that it 13 months for that one to be caught ... :emoji_grinning:
 
Great looking dock! Darn cool that you can see the fish like that, they tend to dart off when someone gets close to them at our place.

Well ... your boys are the fish slayers ... :emoji_wink:

We started having some algae problems this year and used Cutrine for the first time. Happy with the results so far.

Funny, sometimes a small bluegill will rise to eat a fish pellet, and then a bass will rise to eat the bluegill ...
 
OPPS ... :emoji_astonished: ... interesting that it 13 months for that one to be caught ... :emoji_grinning:
I saw that post and thought of those Nile river perch and thought.....man....that would be one hell of a bluegill!!!! Your gonna need a bigger boat! Do you feed your fish at all or are they left to their own devices? You seem to have built a pretty good food chain their with the stocking of the minnows and smaller fish to then feed your larger predators. A lake/pond I know of they stocked all the smaller fish in the first year to allow them to get good and established and then the second year introduced the larger predatory fish. The predatory fish grew like crazy and was producing 3 and 4 pound largemouth bass 3 years after being stocked at 9 inchers.
 
I saw that post and thought of those Nile river perch and thought.....man....that would be one hell of a bluegill!!!! Your gonna need a bigger boat! Do you feed your fish at all or are they left to their own devices? You seem to have built a pretty good food chain their with the stocking of the minnows and smaller fish to then feed your larger predators. A lake/pond I know of they stocked all the smaller fish in the first year to allow them to get good and established and then the second year introduced the larger predatory fish. The predatory fish grew like crazy and was producing 3 and 4 pound largemouth bass 3 years after being stocked at 9 inchers.

We only feed the fish when we are there on the weekends. We will take a cup of pellets and walk down to the pier and toss them out, probably twice each weekend.

Yes, the food chain was set-up to be self supporting. Minnows-Panfish-Bass ... the only top level predators we stocked were Walleye. Have not seen them yet; however, they are deeper water inhabitants and tend to cruise the shallows at night. The bass we stocked were only about 6-7". and panfish were 4-5".

When we bought the place, the pond was absent of fish. Pretty sure it was overfished and the predators (fishers, otters, etc) had their rein. We did want not a fish class to become dominant so we stocked to allow growth, breeding, & feeding to be balanced hopefully within the food chain ... so far, so good!
 
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Well ... your boys are the fish slayers ... :emoji_wink:

We started having some algae problems this year and used Cutrine for the first time. Happy with the results so far.

Funny, sometimes a small bluegill will rise to eat a fish pellet, and then a bass will rise to eat the bluegill ...
Those darn kids drag home more fish than we can eat!
Seriously, you've done great things with that pond. Good job!

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I will never forget the first time I caught a walleye. Now keep in mind I was roughly 12 or 13 at the time. Walleye are not common here in IN other than in the larger lakes.....at least in my area. I was fishing a small pond fishing for bass and got a goof take, but the fish went deep, where bass will typically come to the surface fairly easily. I pulled the fish out and it looked really weird to me and i thought it was blind because of the eye coloration. I reached down to lip the fish and boy was I surprised......TEETH!!! Not knowing what to do I used a pair of needle pliers and returned the fish to the water. My grandfather got a good laugh when I told him the story as he knew what it was......turns out the pond was owned by a friend of his and he confirmed that this yahoo put walleye in it.......It was like maybe 1/2 in surface area!
 
Awesome pond!

Be careful with largemouth bass. How many did you put in?
 
Put in 50 large mouth which some are now ~16". Both bluegills & perch are naturally reproducing.
 
Bass can quickly take over. Just make sure you keep them in check. I have no idea what ratios are best, but keep an eye on them.
 
Bass can quickly take over. Just make sure you keep them in check. I have no idea what ratios are best, but keep an eye on them.

I have a pond a little less than two acres in size. I stocked fathead minnows the first year. By the second year, the pond was actually seething with them. The second year I stocked fingerling bass, bluegill, redear, hybrid bluegill, and catfish. That was in 2014. The bass have just about wiped out the sunfish population. None of the bass would make 16”. I have decided this spring, before sunfish spawn, I need to catch as many of the bass and get them out. I live on a 29,000 acre lake so it would be no problem to add bass when the sunfish population had re-established. I wish I had waited two years after the sunfish stocking before adding the bass.
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