?! HOW MUCH ?! Pond Stocking

Hello Fellow Anglers - Also hoping to get some input from those who stock ponds

I work at an office campus in the North Texas area (Frisco) that recently just had a pond filled on the property. The pond is roughly 2 acres with a floating fountain that sprays 30ft high, in the middle pond. The pond itself is currently without underwater vegetation, muddy bottom, and only has grass growing along the banks...kind of your typical pond found in a "business park" area. It has been at capacity for about 4 months and one of the "benefits" of moving to this new office with its pond on site was the ability to catch and release fish.

Well I had advocated to our leadership and facilities representatives to partner with Texas Parks and Wildlife in the creation and maintenance of this pond. I thought it would be a great partnership to not only create a body of water that represents wildlife of the surrounding area, but would help publicly as well.

Our facilities representative just got back to me that they were quoted $30K to initially stock the pond and then $10K a month for Parks and Wildlife to help maintain it. I don't know what company/companies they checked with. I am not a pond owner nor am I an expert in the stocking and maintenance of ponds, but does this sound like a reasonable price based on the details above??? Would enjoy to hear any feedback or experience from business owners of pond maintenance companies, TPWD officials or just anyone with any helpful information.

How dang big is it? And now way would I have the state manage anything of mine lol

Well since I have seen the pond when it was empty, I would guess that the deepest the pond would get is 8ft-10ft and I estimate it to be no more than 2 acres.

And I think when they told me Parks and Wildlife for the monthly maintenance, they were referring to the Cities Park and Wildlife either (Frisco or Plano)

Here is the most recent Satellite image on Google Maps. I have outlined the pond area in blue

That seems pretty steep for 2 acres. and 10K a month!!! Thats ridiculous.

Yea, that's what I was thinking...so my mind set is they either gave me bogus numbers to get me off their back or whatever company they got the quote from saw big corporation and thought big dollar :p

I would go with the latter. Check out todd Overton to get an Idea of what it would cost.

Thanks for the suggestion,

I checked out his website Overton Fisheries and it had a good amount of information. Based on at least the cost of bass and bluegill, there would be no where near $30K. Heck even putting in fish feeders doesn't get it closer to $30K.

But I did see some of the other services that are provided and I guess it really depends on what the pond may need (water treatment, aquatic plants, food management) to make it a sustainable habitat for healthy fish

$10k per month....$120k for a year. That is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Some one should be investigated.

I agree... that's insanity.

Don't think I've ever heard of anything that ridiculous. Those extra services come nowhere that number. Sounds like they don't really want to do it.

Banker Fisherman, call me. Those numbers are way out of line. Been doing this for 40 years. Happy to help figure out a manageable plan that makes better sense. (903)564-5372. Let my staff know who you are and I'll call you back and we'll work out a smarter program.

My backyard pond is around that same size. I share it with five really good neighbors. We do our own. My favorite is blue cats. They will beg you to eat out of their hand. They all died over the years.



We just restocked with blue cats. Not much help but the price made me appreciate the efforts of my neighbors.

Thank you Bob, I will reach out to our facilities team and see if they are still pursuing having the pond stocked and maintained.

$30K to stock a 2 acre pond ? I stocked a 4 acre pond for $500 and thought that was to much. Bass and bluegill are usually the choice for N Texas ponds, and bass fingerlings go for about $85 per 100 and coppernose for about $50 per 100. The important thing in new ponds is to get the forage established and then maintain some kind of equilibrium between forage and predators. Get as many bluegill as you can afford and add then about 200 bass - with just 50, they would probably still eventually overpopulate and become stunted without maintaining the pond. And, TP&W wants $10K per month to maintain the pond ? It must have been April fool's day when they quoted their fees to your ' facilities' guy. Gee, for the money those clowns are asking, you could hire someone like Bob Lusk who actually knows something about ponds and the maintenance to keep them going.

I think $30k would stock tawakoni lol. $300 would stock a 2 acre lake.

I use Abney's pond & lake stocking and Overton Fisheries. I stocked my 3 acre pond and 3 smaller ponds with fathead minnows,6'' channel cats, black crappie, copperhead bluegill, black bass. I also used Overton Fisheries for some blue cats and a few Florida bass.
Abney's has trucks that come to Texas for deliveries in some of the local towns in the cooler months. There is no delivery cost added on and the price is better than Overton Fisheries.
Overton Fisheries have bigger stocking size fish than Abney's. Both company's can work with you on the amount of fish needed for your size pond.
The first thing I would do is put in several underwater brush piles, crappie condos , structure, etc. Make sure you mark the gps coordinates of each brush pile. This will allow you to fish over the piles later by boat. Both companies do sell pond fertilizer that I used for the first 10 years. I been happy with the outcome of my ponds. 13lb black bass, 2 1/2lb crappie, 20lb blue, and 13 channel. Good luck to you!
Abney's info below:
Berry Abney
13414 HWY 37 South
McCrory, AR 72101
870-697-3550

This^. I believe this is the same company i used when i had property in N. Tx. Except i bought off of their trucks at feed stores . Your 2 acre pond can be stocked for $ 2-300 ,easy. I also hit the creeks for small cats and bream along with fish caught from catch and release ponds on golf course. I would catch then release into my pond. Maybe i misinterpreted the sign. Oh well. Like Pop R stated, let the bullhead minnows establish first. good luck on your new fishing hole.

Totally ridiculous. I restocked our 15 acre pond with bass this year after a fishkill. We caught 116 pounds of bass from 1-3.5 lbs and that was $ 1160.00. We have added some from various ponds as well. Bass up in OK run about 10 bucks a pound. That initial stocking was between 55-60 fish.

You don't need the state to manage the pond. You can.

I supplemental stocked my 30+ acre lake this spring with medium to large sized fish, crappie, bluegill, large mouth bass, and channel catfish. I wanna say it was 1000 6-8 inch crappie, 1000 4-6 inch bluegill and 200 each 8-10 inch bass and 10-12 inch catfish. With delivery that only ran me 2k. Those are big fish not designed to go into a new pond, but you could do something like that and still be way ahead of the 30k they were quoted.

Even adding habitat structures and feeders you would have a hard time getting to 30k unless you covered near every sq foot of the pond.

Something tells me someone heard “corporate” and the quote got inflated by 30-50 fold just because.