lake managment Want to stock small pond with large mouth

[ATA]

Guys, My new GF have a pond in her property, It has Catfish, Blue gills and minnows, The pond have water from rain and seasonal streams but it is mostly enclosed. I want to have large moth bass in it, Here are the questions:

1-should I put big bass in it to have babies or baby bass to grow up in it?

2-if any of above, How many and what size?

3-Is the pond big enough for bass or I just enjoy catching bluegill and catfish in it for fun?

this is the picture of the pond

[txchaser]

Defintely big enough for some bass. 

https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/bob-lusk.html

Call Bob, he's the real deal.

[geo g]

You must first have a healthy population of bait fish or they will starve once the bigger ones deplete the bass population.

[BrianAllan87]

There is a great episode of the Alex Rudd fishing podcast just a couple weeks ago where he talked to a fisheries biologist on how to correctly stock ponds in order to ensure your bass will grow to be huge and it will thrive. Episode 137. I HIGHLY recommend giving it a listen before you stock anything! I took a lot away from it. 

35 minutes ago, txchaser said:

Defintely big enough for some bass. 

https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/bob-lusk.html

Call Bob, he's the real deal.

Someone like this, yes! 

[txchaser]

Oh yeah check out the podcast "Sitting Dockside" - it's biologists and pond guys talking about all this stuff.

 

[AlabamaSpothunter]

Okay I'm gonna be the guy and say it, what kind of epic lottery situation did you just find yourself in? ?

 

That place looks epic, and costly.

47 minutes ago, txchaser said:

Defintely big enough for some bass. 

https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/bob-lusk.html

Call Bob, he's the real deal.

Love this dude, he's answered lots of my biology questions. 

Steven Bardain, who does the biology stuff for the MLF tour is another great wealth of info

[TriStateBassin106]

If you have the app instagram there's a guy named aquatic_biologist who always talks about pond stocking and the dos and don'ts of lake management. Always open to direct messaging very nice guy

[ironbjorn]

49 minutes ago, AlabamaSpothunter said:

Okay I'm gonna be the guy and say it, what kind of epic lottery situation did you just find yourself in? ?

 

That place looks epic, and costly.

Love this dude, he's answered lots of my biology questions. 

Steven Bardain, who does the biology stuff for the MLF tour is another great wealth of info

I've gotta be "that guy" too: I wouldn't give my time or money over to this until she's no longer a "new" girlfriend. 

[Hammer 4]

Also, you may want to contact the DFW about how, where, and the legal stuff about getting bass in there.

[ATA]

2 hours ago, txchaser said:

Defintely big enough for some bass. 

https://www.bassresource.com/fishing/bob-lusk.html

Call Bob, he's the real deal.

his website is not working.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

9 hours ago, ATA said:

his website is not working.

I don't use his website, go to Bob lusk on youtube and facebook, and just start watching the videos he puts out.   Amazing stuff, but it's way easy to just watch him than read stuff he's written. 

 

He does lots of live question and answer sessions, try to schedule to be around for his next and he'll answer all the questions you have live.  

[webertime]

She have a sister?

[1984isNOW]

Time to go ring shopping 

[a1712]

14 hours ago, Hammer 4 said:

Also, you may want to contact the DFW about how, where, and the legal stuff about getting bass in there.

Absolutely correct. They might end it before you even start. Our local F&G, which is Private, can't do anything with the lake without the State signing off on it. Brian. 

[ATA]

1 hour ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

Time to go ring shopping 

She would like that idea but let's keep it slow. 

[WRB]

Not “legal” to transport* live bass.

You said it has Bluegill and catfish, what kind of catfish?

1/2 dozen 12” LMB would be my choice plus a bucket full of crawdads from local streams.

*Don’t bother with the DFW, not going to issue you a permit!

Nice property!

Tom

[ATA]

3 minutes ago, WRB said:

what kind of catfish?

going to catch one next weekend and share pictures, I am not expert to identifying them.

[airshot]

How deep, when I put my pond in, I was tokd at least 10' deep.  If the bluegill population is established and not over run you can start with bigger bass.  I worked with a number of guys that had ponds, so I put in small bluegills and minnows, following year started to add bass from other private ponds.  Varied in size from 8" to about 11 or 12 at the biggest.  Bluegills and bass fed on minnows until the gills started to multiply and after a couole years so did the bass.  20 years later, I have a great population with none over run !!  I do watch and thin the small gills every so often.  Neighbor had a pind company stock his at a big$$ and his is over run and not well managed.  Just use common sense and remember what eats what...  

[ATA]

They been here for three years as far as I know and the lake is pretty stablished with what in it. So I think I'll go with @WRB suggestion and get half dozen 12". I just need to know where to buy them, Or I need you catch them in nearby lake and transfer them, It will be 40min drive and I think good live tank with good oxygen will do the job.

[Hammer 4]

It's Illegal to catch any game fish and transport them, this includes Bass.

[ATA]

then I am going to look for buying options.

ill get two females and four males.

[Jleebesaw]

I'm not going g to pretend to k ow anything about raising big bass in ponds, but I know it's harder than it seems. I know some people with a 10 acre pond on their hunting land. They have biologists from a nearby college that helped them for free. There was all kinds of water testing. The biologists recommended what type of plants to put in it and everything. They buy baitfish a few times a year to put in it. It seems like a lot of work. They've been messing with it for like 15 years. They did catch a few 10lb LM out of it though. This is in upstate NY, so a 10lb bass is pretty d**n impressive.

[AlabamaSpothunter]

19 hours ago, ATA said:

then I am going to look for buying options.

ill get two females and four males.

A quick google search found this place in CA with Bass for sale, I was just looking to see if anybody even was allowed to sell them.   With CA nothing would shock me lol.

Available Fish For Stocking | Willow Creek Fisheries (wcfisheries.com)

 

If you want to stock Bass in an existing pond with other predator fish, you're gonna need way more than 6 fish, and they aren't going to be able to sex them.  

 

You really need to understand what's already in the pond, because the biomass per acre is everything when it comes to growing trophy fish of any kind.   If it's got a bunch of cats and big bream, they'll hammer most of the fingerling Bass you stock in it.   You basically only want X (amount of Bass) + Y (forage) = 100lbs of biomass per acre of pond....this becomes much trickier when starting with a pond that has an existing fish population.   Many times people start fresh and do a fish kill, I'm not recommending that, but it's an option if you wanted a dedicated little Bass factory and the pond currently has a bunch of stuff you don't want in it. 

[Big Hands]

Are you absolutely sure there are not bass in there already? ;~)

[airshot]

When I wascready to put bass in my pond, I caught vass from otger private ponds with the owners permission and a letter in case I would be stopped.  Talked with a local sheriff and got the ok.  I used a large cooler with an aerator and made the half hour plus drive with no issues. Only 4 bass per trip, about 8"-12" avg length.  Made 3 trips.  Bass are over 16" now and quite a few 6-8" home grown bass over the past ten years.  Not looking to grow monsters, just a healthy population.