SOME IMPORTANT BAIT FISHES 



or by using a combination of all 

 three. Fathead brood ponds aver- 

 aging an acre in size should have a 

 minimum incoming flow of 25 gal- 

 lons of water a minute during the 

 warm summer months. 



During the latter part of April 

 when the water temperature ap- 

 proaches 65° F., spawning activity 

 can be observed. AYithin a few 

 days, small fry will be seen swim- 

 ming near the surface, a few feet 

 out from shore. As soon as these 

 small fish become numerous, they 

 can be captured by a small bobbinet 

 seine and transferred to the grow- 

 ing ponds. The stocking rate in a 

 growing pond should range between 

 300,000 and 600,000 fry for each 

 acre of water. At this rate of 

 stocking, the successful operator 

 will harvest a minimum of about 

 150,000 salable fathead minnows 

 annually for each acre of water. 



Growing -pond operatimi. — Dur- 

 ing the first few weeks of life after 

 the fry is transferred to the grow- 

 ing pond, its rate of growth is very 

 rapid, and sometimes individual 

 fish attain a length of li/^ inches. 

 Within 8 to 12 weeks, many of these 

 first-generation fish will mature and 

 begin to spawn. When this occurs, 

 and it frequently does, the propa- 

 gator is confronted with a major 

 problem: If he allows this repro- 

 ductive activity to progress unat- 

 tended, he will soon find that the 

 growing pond is overstocked and 

 that all of the fish are stunted. 

 When this situation arises, there are 

 two corrective measures available. 

 One is to remove the excess fry by 



seining or by draining the pond, 

 and transfer the fry to another 

 pond or destroy them. The other 

 solution is to introduce predacious 

 species, such as the creek chub or 

 the golden shiner, to forage on the 

 small fatheads. This method 

 should not be used unless a minnow 

 propagator has had a number of 

 years of experience in fish-cultural 

 work, because he may find that his 

 introduced predators are too effi- 

 cient at control, resulting in nearly 

 a total loss of fathead production 

 for the pond. If it becomes neces- 

 sary to resort to this method of 

 population control, a successful 

 stocking rate is 50,000 feeder (1- to 

 2-inch) creek chubs or golden shin- 

 ers for each acre of water. 



Intensive culture of fatheads re- 

 quires many daily tasks. The water 

 level should be checked each day in 

 the ponds assuring the operator 

 that both the inlet and outlet valves 

 are in operation. It is necessary to 

 feed the fish each day and to fer- 

 tilize the pond when food alone 

 will not maintain a desirable plank- 

 ton bloom. A productive pond 

 should have a plankton turbidity in 

 the water sufficient to blank out a 

 white surface at 12 inches. A feed- 

 ing ratio demonstrated as success- 

 ful for fatheads consists of 6 parts 

 gray shorts, 1 part low-grade flour, 

 and 1 part cottonseed meal. This 

 diet is fed at the rate of 1 pound of 

 food for every 20 pounds of fish in 

 the pond. By feeding only a few 

 pounds of feed at first to a pond con- 

 taining fatheads, an observing fish 

 culturist can easily determine each 



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