My new Grady county GA pond

Hi all. I started a thread here many months ago about rehabbing my neighbor's pond. I didn't do much over the winter, but I'm working on it again. Here is that thread, but that's not what this thread is about.

The purpose of this thread is to ask for advice for my own new pond which was completed about 3 weeks ago. Last week we had the wettest 4 day period in several years the pond is already full. The pond I'm managing in the earlier thread above is directly upstream of my pond. Like my neighbor's pond I would like to keep mine native, but I ultimately don't have control over what gets stocked above me. I'll do my best to keep them both native, but in the end I'll have to make the best out of what I'm given.

Even though my goal is an indigenous pond, I've already stocked Fatheads into both ponds. I did this with the belief that the FH won't survive for more than a few years after native predators are added. I've only added about 100 adult FH to my pond so far, but I will be moving more from my neighbor's pond soon. I could stock Gambusia which are native, but my impression is that Gams will work against the diversity that I'm aiming for. OTOH, they usually show up in ponds around here on their own anyway. So, vote if you care to; Gams or no Gams.

Warmouth, Redear Sunfish, Florida Gar, and Chain Pickerel are on the list of preferred fish with lunker WM as my highest goal. I will consider all native fish, but I do want to keep good angling in mind. For example Spotted Bullheads are native but I'm afraid they would dominate the pond and the fishing, interfering with my goal of trophy Warmouth fishing.(?)

I'm in the Ochlockonee river basin and here is the info I'm working with currently:

Ochlockonee fishes

To be honest I'm confused whether the fish listed at the link above are truly indigenous species or not. Now that I think of it, the terms native and indigenous are only relative to what area you're discussing. For example, are RES indigenous to Grady county, or are they simply a native (U.S.) fish that has spread to include Grady county? Maybe I'm being too picky...


Anywho, here are some statistics for the pond:

-1/3 to 1/4 acre

-8 ft at deepest, 5 ft average depth

-water is supplied by 15 - 20 acres of woodland, cultivated land, and cow pasture (30-40 cows)

-the primary spillway is a siphon system that drains excess water from 6 ft below the surface

-it's surrounded by tall oaks and pines which will shade it about half of the day

(clickable thumbnail)


Thanks.

Edited by fish for brains, 24 February 2008 - 10:34 AM.

cut the gar they get way to big and for the most part they prevent those warmouth from geting to big for they eat them

if I were you I would add either RES or warmouth not both
stay away from largemouth bass rock bass and crappie

for the gams I would add topminnows if you get a good number of them they can normally compete with the gams
another option woud be sliversides I dont know how well they would do but if they colonized you would have a large stock of forgage food

Thanks killier, you're the second person to warn against combining WM and RES and I'm struggling to understand the reasons.

Florida Gar max out at less than 10 lbs and average around 5. Can you tell me why you think that might be too big? I'm going to need to keep WM numbers on the low side to encourage larger size for the survivors so I need some larger predator I would think. From what I've read FG wouldn't be likely to overpopulate a small pond, but I could be mistaken about that.

I've seen plenty of Florida gar in the 3-4' range. That said, there's a pond just begging for gar to be put in it!

Thanks Irate Mormon, do you think they'll spawn much? I see that the world record is 21 lbs!

The gar will only help your cause. They will help keep populations in check, and prevent stunting. There is no way that a large florida gar is going to predate on a half pound or larger warmouth. They will not hurt your adult population in the least. I think it is a good choice.

Since you are shooting for a "sportfishing" pond, I think splitting hairs over forage fish is a waste of time. Fatheads, gambusia, golden shiners, all will serve the same purpose. They will get the pond up and running. In a mature pond your primary food base will end up being your juvenile Lepomis.

Gambusia may give you a better start being livebearers. You will not have to provide them with any specific spawning habitat.

I doubt that the gar will spawn much at all without water flowing into the system.

Thanks Skipjack. I worry about adding shiners before I have a good population of predators because they have the potential to get 9" long. One neighbor has a huge population of big Shiners in his pond and that's just about all he catches. If I had predators established I think I might consider this deal.

I don't know if you have done this or not but you can add a wood pallet or two and the fatheads will spawn using them.

Large square clay drain tiles will work just as nicely as a spawning medium, will not degrade like wood pallets, and you can't snag them. Good surface for periphyton attachment too. When I was an undergrad I made a lattice out of tiles and they seemed to attract bluegills and bass immediately. I had a great study designed as an undergrad to compare periphyton growth/biomass, how fast fish colonized, use by fish (floy tagged an assload of bluegill and LMB), and it just never got off the ground and wasn't carried on long term like it was intended.

Good ideas. Would PVC pipe work as well? It sinks, and is easier to find nowadays than clay pipe? It also cuts into short pieces pretty easily.

I've put pallets in my neighbor's pond upstream for his FH. I stocked 700 FH for him last October and now the pond is loaded with them. They're the only fish in his pond at this time. He's letting me trap some for my pond and so far I've taken about 100. The FH are either spawning now or getting ready to do it real soon.

Here's some pics. The fish pellets you see are 3/32 inches in dia.

What is the bigger fish looking thing in the third pic by the piling?

It's an adult FH. There was one there for several days in a row. It (they?) would generally keep it's dorsal fin against the post. Once I saw it doing what I assume was spawning behavior with a smaller fish.





Here is a video of me releasing them last October:

You could might also try bowfin as a predator.

But bowfin get big

Bowfin was first on my list but they aren't native to the Ochlockonee basin. The one map I looked at for Bowfin distribution showed them all around me, maybe as close as 5 or 10 miles, but the NatureServe list doesn't have Bowfin on it. My neighbor is 85 years old and grew up in the creeks and ponds around here and he didn't know what a Bowfin was even after I described it in detail. He did catch a Gar once however.

Maybe I'll relax my position on non-native species...

Shoal bass?

I think bowfin would be great, but they will eat much larger fish than gar will, which might be counter productive for you.

I guess I'll pass on Bowfin.

I think Shoal Bass are river fish only.

I've done a fair amount of playing around with ponds and my own pond has a similar community to what your shooting for. I have C. Mudminnows, Golden Shiners, and Tadpole madtoms in there as small fish and then for sunfish I have Warmouth and Pumpkinseeds. Then top predators are Grass Pickerel and Bowfin. Even with all the Pickerel the golden shiners are doing well, this is likely due to their large adult size wich makes them too big to be food for the adults. I think the Bowfin must be too slow to catch most of the larger shiners as well. There are a lot of frogs and I have a feeling they make up a big part of the Bowfins diet. If I did it again though I'm not so sure I would have put the bowfin in. I think they may in the long run keep my sunfish population lower than what I want it to be and may target the largest individuals.

I appreciate the feedback smbass. At this point I've decided that if I'm going to add Bowfin it won't be for a few years at least.

Are your GP reproducing?

I'm curious about the Golden Shiners. A neighbor has them in his pond, probably survivors from a bait bucket, and they have multiplied significantly. Now anytime he goes fishing there he mostly catches the Shiners. I'm thinking that if I stock them I'll wait until I have a healthy population of predators. OTOH I could always buy 250000 of them. http://www.andersonm.../foragefish.htm