what kind of fish

[alco141]

a friend of mine just had an old farm pond drained and enlarged and now wants to let if refill and stock it with fish. the question is what kind of fish. the pond is in northwest penna. and is about quarter acre size. it is about 10 feet deep at the deepest part, or will be as soon as it fills up again.

does anyone have a good source of fish to stock?

thanks for your help,
alex

 

[beenthere]

Re: what kind of fish?

Seems that the answer to your question will depend on the expected food source, the temp. of the water, and a number of other things, as different fish (say a trout vs. a catfish) reside in different habitats. I would suggest you contact your state DNR or equivalent, and ask them what would survive in your pond. Some people seed different plants before filling with water, to get some food source started. But that may be also for other wild life, such as ducks, geese, etc.

 

[fishman]

Beenthere is right. Contact your local fisheries biologist to see what works best in a pond of that size in your area. Around here (TX) I would recommend catfish only, with perhaps hybrid bluegill for and extra bit of fun, but in your area things might be different.

 

[MossRoad]

Around here they usually recommend bass, bluegill and channel catfish. They stock the bluegill at a rate of 5 bluegill per one bass. The channel catfish ar egood eating and grow quickly, but don't tend to reproduce well, unless given nesting boxes to hide their young in.

Depending on the water temperature and oxygen content, trout are a good fish. You can plant them in the fall when the water cools down and fatten them up over the winter. They are so agressive that you can catch most of them out in the spring before the water temp rises and the oxygen depletes.

One thing to avoid in a small pond is open water fish like perch or crappie. They don't do well and tend to overpopulate.

They say that a given body of water can support a fixed number of pounds of fish, related to the nutrients in its watershed. That is, if a one acre pond can support 1000 pounds of fish, those fish can be 100 ten pound fish, 1000 one pound fish, or 10,000 one tenth of a pound fish(which is what alot of people end up getting after a few years). So it is important to maintain the proper ratio of bass to bluegill to keep the predators numbers high so the bluegill don't overpopulate.

Check with your local extension agent on fish ponds in Penn.

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/uh137.html>Click here for http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/uh137.html </A> It is a site for fish pond management in Pennsylvania. There is a link at the bottom for a rather large PDF file.

 

[fishman]

For ponds of .5 to 1 acre and larger, Mossroad is exactly correct.

I guess I should make myself a little clearer. For a <font color=red>quarter acre</font color=red> lake, catfish-only is the usual recommendation in the southeastern U.S. Of course, you can have a bass/bluegill/catfish population in a small pond, but it's really hard to keep the population in balance. Placing spawning structures for catfish is generally not advisable in this situation, because the ability for the fish to reproduce vastly exceeds the carrying capacity of the pond (another excellent point, Mossroad). You can address some limiting factors fairly cheaply (supplemental feed for example), but others are more expensive (dissolved oxygen) or not cost-effective (ammonia build up)

Bottom line, seek local professional help.

 

[MossRoad]

Catfish only is a good choice... especially if you want some good eating /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif