Fishing Forum

When do you think the best time of year would be to stock our private pond here on the farm? We hit it pretty hard over the summer and took quite a few big bass and bluegills out this year. They are the only species in the pond right now. (Except for the crayfish and a big turtle known as "Buck")

I know of a great spot to catch small bluegills by the dozens (1-2 inches) in minnow traps. Grandpa says he wants to get rid of some of the bass as there is A LOT of them at the 6-9 inch range that eat pretty much anything and everything that touches the surface. He wants less bass and more bluegills.

Only problem is if I stock 1-2 inch bluegills the bass are just going to eat them all. My thinking is harvest some of the smaller bass and then just restock the gills. Hopefully in a couple years of doing that things will change from a bass pond to more of a gill pond. I'd also like to stock a mountain of perch but I don't know where to get them from. I'm sure it would be big $$$ to buy them and I don't want to spend that much cash just so the bass can have a feast and have them all gone in a matter of days if not minutes.

Ok.. so anyway back to the questions. When (what time of year) would be the best time to stock bluegills? Perch? Would it be better to do it at night or during the day?

I'm half tempted to just throw in 3-4 nice size pike and let them clean out the pond and just start over. Only problem with that is it would be 3-4 years before fishing would be any good again stocking from stratch again.

Pond is about 2 acre's and is about 14 feet at it's deepest point.

Thanks for any help.
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Cookie crumbs in the keyboard , I gotta do this all over again [crazy] !
Late April , and May for stocking ,let those little guys get a full summer under their belts .
Night time , definatly !
I've seen daytime D.N.R. plantings and it was nothing but a feeding frenzy [mad] .
To get the fingerlings off to a good start I would concider cutting some thick brush now while there are no leaves on them , line them up on the ice near shore (maybe bundel some of them together ) so that they have some protective cover to hide in untill they get large enough to take on the open water .

As far as pike , wouldn't think of it , getting rid of them might be hard to do . Maybe a kids fishing derby would help out a bit .
There are groups of special needs children that would love to spend a day on a pond , Volinteers to help out are kind of easy to find with an event like that .
Think about it , maybe Dave and I can figure out some stuff to help out . Dave is an old hand with this kind of stuff , he's one in a million [] .
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ok, you have the same problem as every one else maintaining a stock pond..

your problem is your pond can not produce the amont of food required to maintain the number of fish you want to harvest in a year...

you have a couple options and one of them is not catching fish from other bodies of water and bringing them back to your farm pond...

Reason is you will bring back desease and invasive species of plant and other aquadic nusances..

There is a fish farm in Imlay city who will deliver...

Insted of putting in a pike put in an automated fish feeder. Placing in a pike in a small area like that is just adding one more preditor to an already preditor over poplation..

much like the deer feeder it feeds twice per day...

the advantage of the fish feeder is that you will feed your gills and prevent stunting, once stunted the wont grow any more... You will know if you have a stunting problem if you have gills under 8-9 inches that are full of eggs...

I would do three things...
[ol] [li]first I would order some blue gills.. They come 8-9 inches in lenth... You will want some hybreds, and you will want some standards... Hybred gills get to 14-18 inches if food is available...[/li] [li]order food, at the time of planting you want to flood the release area with minnows and shads. an automated fish feeder will put out fish pellets your gills will be happy to eat even the ones already existing in your pond...[/li] [li]Maintain a healthy population, by this I mean you will need to weed out some fish, yes adding a pike would help but you would need to release 20 or 30 and it would take years for the pond to naturalize it self.. Insted invest in to a cast net. 10-25 foot will do... You can do the job of 50 pike in a day or two's time... [/li] [ul] [li]Pack a filleting knife, and a few 5 gallon buckets. [/li] [li]Prior to gill spawning go out and harvest any gill under 8 inches full of eggs and any gill under 5 inches.. You are not going to be able to get rid of all of them so dont sweat it.. You are the top fish harvester of the pond, Fillet and skin up what you want to keep and place all the rest in to the garden no deaper than 8 inches... "Depth of a shovel blade" [/li] [li]a pike will only take out a few hundred fish in a year and will not be selective and has he gets bigger he wont target the ones you want to get rid of, insted he will become a competitor for the fish you want to harvest.[/li] [li]as long as the fish never leave the property you can harvest the under sized bass if nessary, but I doubt you will need to, reason is that once you start the blue gill regiment plan you will cause the bass to start feeding on them selves.. this will reduce the number of bass in the pond and will increase the size of the remaining ones...[/li] [li]Dont put in perch or other pan fish because you have a food defficet problem. By adding more species you in affect create more compitition for the same amount of available food.. Feeding them will solve the problem but at an expence..[/li] [li]if you do all that I mentioned above impose a fishing rule on your pond, Minnimum gill size limit of 10 inches for gills... You will see a dramitic change in your pond by september of the first year...[/li][/ul][/ol]
you dont want to do the planting of your Hybred and Standards untill after you do the weeding..

Dont stock any gills under 8 inches.. Reason is because this is going to become your new breading stock.. Which is the reason for the 10 minimum gill size requirement... Yes you will be able to harvest a few gills 10 inches by december and feb under the ice, but I say dont harvest anything untill the second year unless you want to do a stock and harvest program on a yearly baises.. In wich case you will want to stock only the hybreds..

When to stock them, Plan on mid june, this will give you time to harvest the breading stunts & runts.

In the spring look for the spawning beds, I am sure you already know where they are, Just prior to spaw they will start congragating near the spawn area. target those areas with your net. You can also target the deap holes.. order a couple fish tags to tag your big bass. you can prestamp a name on the tag so you know when you catch big birtha or what ever..

Blue gills dont live much more than 5-6 years, you can have a pond full of 3-5 inch breading gills. Doing one major harvest prior to spawn will do more for your pond than doing anything else.. But with out stocking it will like you said take a couple years for your gills to return to normal if they can..

The first Dont allow any bluegill fishing on the pond unless you plant extras for a harvest and count the number of harvested ones kept. You need to maintain your breading stock. The hybred ones you can harvest during the first year because they wont bread for you. So make sure you know the differance between the hybreds and breaders...
[ul] [li]airation in the pond is critical when you have a pond with limited amount of of area where the pond can take on oxigen. ponds take in oxigen naturaly two ways, wind agitation, water fall agitation. [/li] [li]there are two types of oxigenators available on the market, fountain and bubbler, one works as well as the other..[/li] [li]any normal winter can cause a major fish kill off on your pond, especialy if it is a shallow pond.[/li][/ul]
Stunted gills is caused by lack of food and oxigen

Farm Ponds can become proffitable. [indent]
pay to fish
harvest and sell
home freezer stock[/indent]

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Recap

If you do every thing I suggest, this is what will happen,

the pond will have a food shortage for bass,
Bass will start feeding on them selves eliminating the need for any more preditor fish.

you increas the amount of available food for your stocked breaders increasing their size by decreasing the number of stunts in the spring. Thus by year two you will be harvesting 14 inch minimum gills.

adding a fish feeder reduces the stress on your gills and will alow them to grow larger in size. "wich is what you want"

Bigger fish require more oxigen especialy during winter months. to avoid fish kills place in an airator of some sort to protect your envestment.

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note, If you dont want to spend any money at all, invest in a cast net and pull out the stunted gills off the beds in the spring prior to spawning... that is the best thing you can do for your pond. dont add any other species from any other bodies of water... Only pick up your fish stock from breaders to insure no non-native invasions of aquatic life.

note, a couple acre privet pond is nothing more than a giant aquarium. It will create its own ecosystem if left alone but will never produce the product you want if not maintained to some extent.

note, Fish need two things to grow, food and oxigen...

Note, If you want another species in your pond, concider Bull frogs...
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Thanks for the info. Some good stuff in there. I knew this would be a good place to ask.
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your welcome,

be sure to let us know what your game plan will be after every one has sat down and decided what it is worth to them...

then keep us updated along the process.. my plan is to do the same thing down south but on a much smaller scale and a new hole.

we would love to be part of a noble ambition if only vewiers from the side lines...

I will try to find a couple resorces and post them later tonight...

You didnt mention if you had a weed problem. there is a way to handle it with out chemicals...

one thing I forgot to mention is if you have a weed problem that can kill fish during mid to late summer, the weeds when they turn brown start to take oxigen from the water...

an easy way to handle the problem is to take a section of chain link fence with bricks not block tied to the front where you tie on a heavey cable then heavy rope...

what you do is row out and drop off the fence in to the pond, row back and tie the rope to the back of a 4 wheel drive and drive off..

you will only need to do part to open up an area. stay away from weed killers... yes the weeds will come back, but it will take some time and not by the end of the year because you will have destroid the rooted area...
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here is the stocking rate for gills

HYBRID BLUEGILL 200-500/Acre

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