Your Pond

Comment

Comment by Billy Fason on January 24, 2010 at 1:32am

Hello all,
I live in Central Arkansas and have two ponds on my place. I have a fishing pond that is about half to three quarter acres and about ten feet deep at the deepest point. There is an island at one end of the rectangular pond and it is stocked with Channel Cats, redear, coppernose, black crappie, bluegill, and some sunfish. I add fathead minnow and feed the fish. I also have a small round pond about six feet deep and about fifty feet across. This I use for raising fathead minnows and very young bream. The two ponds are connected with a shallow canal that I block off to prevent transfer of fish. This spring I plan on changing types of food, add a feeder, an aerator, and a spawning net pool. I have some very large cats, a few large bass, and a lot of bream of all kinds. To date I have caught a few in the eleven inch range, but most are around eight to nine inches. Look forward to hearing what you guys do with your ponds. I moved here a year ago and the ponds were preexisting so working on gettting them where I want them. Grandkids love to fish here as they bream barely let a hook hit the water before they are on the hook.

Comment by Walt Foreman on January 23, 2010 at 10:38pm

If you want big bluegill, you need to release the larger bluegill, especially the males; you can keep the hybrids, but release the larger (9"+) northern-strain (or coppernose if you have them) bluegill. Keeping the larger ones and not keeping the smaller ones can lead to inferior genetics through cuckold males fertilizing most of the nests rather than mature males.

Comment by Magnolia Rick on January 23, 2010 at 7:58pm

Sharon
Here the link about catfish spaning in farm ponds

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPage?storeId=101...
and here another link.
http://www.wildlifedepartment.com/landowner/channelcatfish.pdf

Comment by Magnolia Rick on January 23, 2010 at 7:46pm

Walt
Your right about the HBG and BG this was posted on pond boss that back up you comment.

100 LMB would give you a 5:1 (reproducing) bream:bass ratio. IIRC that is generally considered bass heavy stocking down Texas way. If you were up North I would advise going with 200 LMB, and I suggest you consider it anyway based on more Southern responses to the question.

I would not have bothered stocking any HBG along with the Coppernose, but I do not consider it a huge mistake. Under proper big bream management, the HBG will outgrow the CNBG for maybe a year (maybe not at all). My experience with stocking both hybrids and regular BG was that the HBG were a non-entity after a couple of years. Go ahead and remove the HBG and enjoy eating them as soon as they reach what you consider to be harvestable size. I suspect that after the first CNBG spawn grow a little, you will see a hybrid rarely if ever.

If you manage bass-heavy, any HBG offspring that are more GSF-like will be preferred bass forage. Not to worry on that front.

Edited by Theo Gallus (10/14/09 01:20 PM)

Comment by Magnolia Rick on January 23, 2010 at 7:25pm

I have both, seem that my sons (4 of them 21, 23,24,26) have been fishing local lake and adding them in the pond. The 400 I stocked were the hybird. But I'm think the bass that were in my pond at the time I stock most likely eat haft of them. I have been recording all the fish being catch from the pond. Take pictures and weight them. Right now the bass sizes run between 8" to 12" I'm think that I'd wait until September and start removing Bass under 10" and blue gills 10" and larger
what your take.

Comment by Walt Foreman on January 23, 2010 at 6:54pm

The bluegill in the photo above, I'm almost certain, is not a hybrid but rather a common northern-strain bluegill. It's a healthy one, so that's good. If you have common-strain bluegill in your pond, they'll provide lots of forage for the bass. And, I wouldn't drop below 75 or 100 bass so they keep the bluegill well-thinned so the ones that survive grow faster and bigger.

I had thought based on some other photos you've posted in the past that your bluegill didn't look like hybrids - this one definitely doesn't.

Comment by Magnolia Rick on January 23, 2010 at 6:28pm

http://wildlife.tamu.edu/static/publications/pond_mgmt/3_Pond_MGMT_...
This is from Texas A & M Universty

Comment by Magnolia Rick on January 23, 2010 at 6:21pm

http://www.suttlefish.com/Stock_Hybrid_Bluegill.html
This is one of the site I reviewed before stocking my pond. I also contact Texas A & M University. I'll post thier comment. This is why this group is so vital do to you who have been there done that. again keep the information coming

Comment by Magnolia Rick on January 23, 2010 at 3:14pm

ok just came in from the pond. Little lest then 3 hrs 6 bass and 1 gill.

Comment by Walt Foreman on January 23, 2010 at 1:41pm

$14K is very cheap for a four-acre pond - very, very cheap. I've never heard of a pond that size being built for less short of the landowner owning a bulldozer - and I wouldn't recommend that unless you have experience building ponds.

Rick, crappie are terrible for ponds - they won't provide much forage for bass as they spawn before the bass do so the crappie young-of-year are too big for the YOY bass to eat every year, and the crappie also quickly reach the size that only very large bass can eat them, and then they overpopulate the pond. For the bass pond you'd be much better off stocking golden shiners as an additional forage, but you should also stock bluegill (common-strain, not hybrid) in that pond as the forage base.

It's a shame that many hatcheries mislead pond owners just to make a few bucks, but it happens a lot. Sorry to hear you got taken.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 89
• 90
• 91
• 92
• Next ›
• Page