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Fish stocking recommendations.

Nrharris

PMA Member
We are planning ahead for stocking my dad's new pond this spring. Right now we are looking at north star hatchery, Jim frey hatchery, and Beemer fisheries for places to get fish from. Do any of you guys have experience with any of these places or somewhere else you could recommend? Looking at bluegills, redears, bass, catfish, and walleyes. Would like crappies and perch also, but worried about overpopulating and stunting. Pond is 6.6 acres with 33 feet max depth.
 
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Above is exactly what I stocked in my pond, about 2-1/2 surface acres, in 2017. In Nov of 2020, I was catching catfish up to 18", crappies at 13" YAY!, bass at 18" and bluegills at 9'ish inches. I see some of the grass carp swimming around sometimes and they are about 25" to 30" I would say. I am really looking forward to fishing this coming year, all species have good keeper sizes abundantly available.
 
Missouri told my uncle to start the food supply (minnows) for a year before adding fish. Then they said to put smaller fish in & then the predators.
We did put 30 pounds of fathead minnows in this past fall. We should have put more in, but the water wasn't all that deep yet and were worried they might freeze out, but the water came up a lot before it froze over.
 
Daver, what is a hybrid bluegill? And will the fish you picked reproduce in your pond? (the hybid wont reproduce?)
 
Daver, what is a hybrid bluegill? And will the fish you picked reproduce in your pond? (the hybid wont reproduce?)
My understanding is that a large percentage of the hybrid BG are male, although NOT sterile, they can reproduce. Reproduction is muted though and it is expected that supplemental stocking will be required from time to time. I would recommend going to the Blyzo Fish Farm website, BLYZO FISH FARM, for more details. They know far better than I. :)

A hybrid BG is a cross of a male BG and a female green sunfish. (Note - apparently the fish world is not woke enough yet to realize that there are, what, 57 genders! So if you don't mind catching non-PC fish, I would recommend them. :) :) )
 
I got fish from Beemer last Spring. My pond is super small (1/2 acre), but went with their recommendation on numbers. Started with fathead minnows, bluegills and channel cats. Then very late summer I put in some hybrid bg and largemouth bass. By then, I was seeing huge schools of really small minnows (newly hatched).
 
If I had that pond to play with I would do Red ear, Bluegill, Perch and Small mouth Bass. Get those established then add Walleye and some Hybrid striped bass.
Check out Pond Boss Forums, tons of knowledge on there for everything pond related.
 
The guy at North Star is great from what I’ve heard. His brother is a taxidermist I use.


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They are the closest one to us, but didn't really know anything about the quality of their fish. Good to hear a recommendation for them.
 
The previous owner of my pond used North Star. I think it was stocked in spring of 2017. The bluegills were around 8-9 inches last summer, and the bass were 18, and pushing 2.5-3lbs. Both species have spawned successfully, and it looks like we have 3 year classes in the pond. I need to call them for some more channels. The otters decimated them last winter I watched them drag several 5 lb cats onto the ice, and had as many as 6 otters on the ice at 1 time.

North Star is family owned, and I believe on the 3rd generation.
 
If had another chance at a pond it would be perch and walleyes.
Get the perch started then introduce the walleys a year after.
Everyone in the neighborhood has the typical bass, catfish bluegill pond. They are everywhere and usually acessed by permission
 
I think right now we are planning on bluegills, fathead minnows, redears, and perch this spring. Then bass and walleyes this fall. Seems the more research and places we talk to the more confused we get. Lol. Might introduce some hybrid striped bass if the walleyes and bass can't keep the perch and bluegills in check. I think we are going to skip the catfish. We plan on feeding the fish with a feeder and catfish are supposedly bullies at the feeder and neither dad or I are big fans of catfish anyways. And I think we are going to leave crappies out. Almost all of the hatcheries we talked to did not recommend stocking them.
 
We used Blyzo We did one pond with: smallmouth, perch, minnows, red ear sunfish & few others.
Another pond we did stripers & other stuff. Then we got bass ponds with all sorts stuff. Give Blyzo a call. For our ponds- they delivered for free & were great on advice before & after.
we finished ponds with rock piles, sand, structures & still adding stuff to this day.

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