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hueyjazz
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# Posted: 20 Aug 2018 11:42am
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Has anyone here stocked a fish pond? I own three ponds and when I bought the place one came with bass and bass only. Fortunately there's a good supply of food for them in that pond.
I've been stocking my other two pond the last couple of years. To these I've added channel cats and bluegill that when you get them are only a few inches long but they grow quick. I've put grass carp in all three ponds. The carp are miracle workers and have made a difference in the weeds.
my master plan is when the cats and bluegill get to be decent size I'll pull some bass from first pond and put them in the other two ponds. Same thing with Bluegill and cats for bass pond.
These ponds are like a huge aquarium for me. the fish are very entertaining. You wouldn't believe how many feet a bass can jump from the water to grab a bug.
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ILFE
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# Posted: 20 Aug 2018 01:13pm
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We have a small pond, here on our farm in Cambodia. It is 10 meters by 12 meters, by 4 meters deep. We have Red and Blue Tilapia in it. When we get a chance to fill in more property here, as most is a rice field currently, it will be expanded.
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tverga
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# Posted: 21 Aug 2018 02:56pm - Edited by: tverga
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Farm ponds are made to harvest fish, most people don't and you get an unbalance of species.
You say you have only bass, what are they eating? What do they look like, there are signs that you need to look for. Big heads and skinny bodies tell you they are under nourished. Just the presence of large bass tells you they are eating their own.
There needs to be a balance of fish and a yearly harvest. You need both adult and juvenal sunfish to reproduce and supply food for the bass. You need to remove top predators like pike and musky. And add only enough catfish to take care of the dead. If you are looking to harvest the catfish then the balance of species need to change. Most catfish ponds are fed with supplemental fish food. 2-4 Carp are fine if they are sterilized and wont reproduce. You need to retain habitat for the young bass and sunfish to many carp can decimate the plant life.
If your pond is balanced you should be able to harvest 60 lbs of fish per season for a small pond.
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hueyjazz
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# Posted: 22 Aug 2018 12:19pm - Edited by: hueyjazz
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Tverga
I'm aware my first pond was done wrong but I inherited that way when I bought the place. But my bass do appear to be well fed as they don't have skinny bodies. I got an abundance of small frog fry, insects and other thing they are eating.
All of my stocking is done by permit from the NY DEC and they tell me what I can and can't do. Fish are acquired for registered fish hatcheries and the guy I deal with there is quite helpful as well as the DEC biologist. The grass carp required a special permit from DEC as they are an invasive species. I don't know if they were sterilized but I lifted up their tail and didn't see anything hanging. I did have to prove my ponds were spring fed and land locked.
I do throw in fish food to all of the ponds since I been actively managing them. I have no pike or muskie as these pond are land locked. I do have a stream that run through property and I have minnow traps in them which I take capture to the bass. I also purchase about a thousand minnows twice a year and add them to bass pond. When I release them they think they have died and gone to heaven. Well, judging by the bass strikes for the days after that is pretty much true.
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