Well, like most others here in TX took advantage of the drought and dug three of my ponds out. I placed structure in two of them before it rained including large concrete culverts and piles of bricks as well as weighted down plastic barrel with end cut off. Now Im thinking of stocking. They are all approx 3/4 of the way full.

Two of the ponds have nothing in them. The third pond has a 5-lbs Largemouth bass and around 100 small bluegill and a couple red ear I saved from one of the ponds as we dug them out.

I have a fourth pond with only catfish in it that didnt get dug out but it has tons of large catfish in it so dont want catfish in the other three.

Im thinking I need fathead minnows, coppernose bluegill, and bass. Have been thinking of making two ponds bass ponds and maybe the third being strictly hybrid bluegill that get real big.

I know my stocking rate will depends on carrying capacity of the ponds, but Im mainly looking for info on WHEN I should stock WHAT.

Any info would be GREAT!

Nathan, I'm sure you will get responses from Dave Davidson and M.L. with excellent advice, so stand by.
Another good source for info is PondBoss.com

I really like your signature photo and would appreciate a larger print - thank you for your service.
George

Nathan, right now is a good time to be asking questions but, IMO, a poor time to stock fish. They're not going to do anything until the water warms up. That said, I consider a pond without fish an obscenity.

What and how many to stock depends on size of the pond(s) and your goals for EACH pond. The "normal" best bet is to stock fatheads and BG or CNBG and then wait a year until they reproduce to stock predators like bass. I believe that a bass should be able to go to sleep with it's mouth open and wake up with a full belly. Until the forage base gets to that stage, don't stock predators. However, if you have a tendency to transplant big Lake Fork bass, that's a whole different ball game and requires a different forage base and management plan. It also depends on whether you get Spring rains. Rain is always the biggest wild card in stocking and managing ponds.

Guys I have used include:

Todd Overton
Pond Boss
Tyler Fish Farm
Bill Wingo

They all know what they are doing as do a lot of others. Some of the others don't come to mind right now. There are also some who I can't recommend but won't mention them.

I've also bought off of fish trucks but seldom recommend that. You have no idea how long they have been on the truck or what their condition or health is.

To overcome the obscenity mentioned above, I would probably toss some fatheads in at this time. Those things could survive a nuclear fallout. I wouldn't mind getting them from a fish truck.

To answer your questions: "It all depends.".

What and when... First, start with fathead minnows at about 10 pounds per acre. A minnow is a minnow and the best place I've found to buy them is off the fish trucks at your local feed store. Put them in now, if you can get them. Generally you can't beat the price off the fish trucks and with the fish placed in bags you can easily verify that you are getting what you paid for and not unwanted species.

Second, add bluegills, your choice of coppernose, native, hybrid(HBG). If HBG is the choice, they work best in a dedicated hybrid pond where you can control the balance. I like to keep the ratio of HBG to predator at about 5 to 1. Around here, they will grow just fine in winter and the sooner you get them in the pond, the sooner they will start growing. I have had excellent growth of HBG over the winter months(see my web site for documentation on HBG) and strongly recommend stocking them now vs waiting.

For bass ponds, I like the coppernosed bluegills(CNBG) as a forage fish and about 10% red ears for parasite control. I like the Florida/Native cross bass, mostly for their aggressive behavior, but also like to have a few pure Floridas. A pretty good mixture is 25/50/25 of Florida/cross/Native.

The "when" on bass is different...you want to be sure they have a well established forage base before stocking your bass. Stock only fingerling bass, that way you can better manage balance and will get better growth in the long run. Buy your bass in June so as to avoid "last year's" fish that likely will not grow out as well.

That pond with the 5 pound bass and 100 small BG likely now has one 5 pound(or less) bass and zero BG, or close to zero. It is VERY difficult to manage balance in ponds in which large predators are added. Throwing some big catfish and/or large bass into an existing pond is a recipie for total loss of control, i.e. the pond manager is *issing up a rope trying to maintain any kind of balance in such a pond. The large fish that are added generally do not grow and play havoc with the forage base eventually starving themselves out of existance.

Good luck with your ponds.

Thanks for all the great info! I am wanting to do it right so will be building a forage base long before adding predator fish. The pond with the one 5lb bass I will remove it and place it in my already stocked pond before I begin my stocking program on the three newly renovated ponds.

Im wanting to stock fathead minnows in each of my ponds as a start. Then Id like to have two ponds designated as bass/bluegill ponds. On those two, Id like to stock coppernose bluegill, and give the BG and the FH minnows time to establish before adding any bass.

On the third, Im not positive what Id like to do. Would like to do something besides bass in that one and I already have a good catfish pond, so not real sure what to stock in it.

If they wont really do anything until it warms up, Ill just wait until spring and stock my fathead minnows and coppernose bluegill. Will probably wait a year to stock my bass and do research in that time to decide what strain to stock.

The 10% redear is a good idea and I will do that in my Bass/BG ponds. Should I stock them in the spring at the same time as putting in my BG and fatheads?

I will make accurate measurements of my ponds to correctly guage carrying capacity before I stock, but just as a general reference, two of the ponds are roughly 1/4 acre and the third is approx 1/3 acre. We dug them all out pretty deep. Right now, they are all approx 3/4 full pool and the water is very muddy from the runoff over the new ground. I planted rye which has sprouted pretty good around the ponds but isnt full.

What would be a good option for the third pond? I have been thinking of stocking golden shiners in at least one of my ponds. Defintly dont want crappie, or any more catfish. and I think two bass ponds is enough. Just want another option to fish for.

Thought of making it a forage grow out pond for the others?

No, I hadnt considered that. For that would I just stock fathead and bluegill and not any predators and then just tranfer from it every once in awhile to the other ponds?

Yeah but depth might be a consideration.

Something to consider: The general carrying capacity of bass in ponds runs about 100 pounds per acre....more if you take heroic measures, less if unmanaged. Hence, in your 1/4 acre pond thats about 25 pounds of bass which will likely over time be made up of a couple of bass around 5 pounds or more and the rest fish of about 1 pound. Now, those two or so nice bass aren't going to just throw themselves on the hook after being caught and/or observing others being caught. Hence you will find the more you fish them, the less you will catch bass, even the small ones. There's a couple of ways around this, at least. One is to fish less, very limited fishing, the other is to have enough different ponds to allow you to fish them and rotate among the ponds without ever applying too much fishing pressure to condition the bass.

It took me the better part of my adult life to figure this out and to solve the problem....the solution for me was to just have more ponds. This is why I have 5 ponds covering about 8 or 9 acres of water. I carefully control fishing pressure and as a result can generally expect some world class bass fishing on about any given outing on any given pond. This has worked very effectively for me now for over a decade and hence I feel I can safely claim the problem solved. The reason for saying all that is to suggest you consider, especially with the small size of your ponds, and with your desire to have bass in them, that you make them all bass ponds and manage your fishing pressure with the result.

Lastly, regarding when to stock, it is incorrect to say they really won't do anything until it warms up. At the worst, they will acclimate to your pond and will spawn much faster and with higher numbers when the water does begin to warm. Further, it is simply incorrect to say that bluegill will not grow in winter. Under a controlled experiment, I stocked 3 to 4 inch hybrid bluegills on Dec. 3 one year and carefully tracked/documented their growth with pictures and data throughout the succeeding year. Those 3-4 inch fish were about 7.5 inches by June with steady consistent growth every month after stocking.

Here's the before and after:

First the initial stocking of three to four inch fish on Dec.3 2005




Then on June 2, 2006 the sample. My sampling technique as documented was to catch 5 fish and throw out the high and low to get a three fish average and record that average every month for a year. By fall that year we were catching 9-10 inch fish regularly and continued to catch them until this summer's drought when the pond dried up. I'm re-stocking right now and fully expect the same results.

Once again Larry, you and I disagree on stocking of forage. For those that don't know us, Meadowlark and I are old friends who have had vastly different experiences. Perhaps geographical and climate are a factor. It took years before I tried tilapia as a forage fish. He was certainly right on that one.

We got into ponds at about the same time and both found that fishing pressure was a huge determining factor on small bodies of water. Fish quickly become "conditioned" to the presence of the top of the line predator. You really can't expect to be able to walk up to a mature 1/2 acre pond and catch fish like you could before they wised up.

BTW, if it doesn't rain, all of the discussions are meaningless.

I wouldnt stock a bass in a pond until at least a year after stocking your forage fish. I also would not stock ANY hybrids.

Cover/structure isnt near as important as fertilizing and getting your water right.

Cover/structure are for fisherman not management if you fertilize your lakes correctly.

I think waiting a year to stock bass fingerlings is a great theory, but here is a potential downside....mudcats. In my experience, mudcats move easily upstream or downstream and if they find your pond they will likely reproduce and enjoy a beautiful start in a pond full of fathead minnows, bluegill, etc. If you see evidence of mudcats (either at the feeder or balls of small fingerlings) in your pond then I recommend immediately dealing with them (trapping can work) or stocking bass of appropriate size to consume them.

Most often ponds are ready for bass and other predator fish after one good spring and/or summer season.

I disagree that this is a bad time to stock fish. Depends on where you are, and depends on current weather. Our water temps elevated to mid 60s yesterday and today. Been handling fish, feeding fish, stocking fish, not having issues.

Cover/structure (bass resting/ambush locations) grow more important when managing for trophy bass, but there is no substitute for productive water I agree need get water right.

Yes, old friends and I'm getting older every day Dave.


We just got over 7 inches of rain , ponds are full and flushed , water temps about 60 degrees and I promise you the bluegills and forage fish are growing right now in winter .

Hi Todd,

If you stock the forage in March/April/May. Would you recommend bass fingerlings in June? The reason for asking is that I have had several lake managers tell me; that if you stock bass in the fall, you are basically getting the culls or slower growing less aggressive bass left from the June fingerlings. So, really you have two options if you want the maximum growth potential of your bass. 1) you stock the June after you stock the forage or 2) you stock the following June. In other words, buying bass fingerlings in October through April means that most likely you are getting "lasts years" crop which lost 3 to 9 months of growth potential.

Do you agree?