Hey guys,

 

I can't find a definite answer online so i was hoping one of you could help me out. I live in a gated community and presumably the ponds in them are private. I was wondering if it would be legal to purchase bass fingerlings and bluegill and stock them in my pond. I probably won't do it, i was just wondering if it was legal.

 

 

Thanks!

 

Hey guys,

 

I can't find a definite answer online so i was hoping one of you could help me out. I live in a gated community and presumably the ponds in them are private. I was wondering if it would be legal to purchase bass fingerlings and bluegill and stock them in my pond. I probably won't do it, i was just wondering if it was legal.

 

 

Thanks!

 

No that is not legal. Consult with FWC and/or your HOA before you do that. 

Private ponds under 20 acres are not regulated by the FWC.   Any stocking would have to be with the approval of the HOA as you have ownership only of your home and the lot it sits on.  There is a community not far from you where the residents have fishing platform as well as stocked with bait fish, I've heard stories of 10#+ bass there.

In Florida you really don't need to stock the pond.

 

The way it works around here is natural stocking.

 

Developers dig out retention ponds all the time for business and neighborhood development. When they dig out those brand new holes in the earth there is not one fish in them or anywhere around them.

 

But within 1 to 3 years you can catch fish. Birds are the most likely culprit. They fly around to all sorts of lakes and rivers and wade in the shallows and often pick up fish eggs on their webbed feet and then fly to another pond and do the same thing wading in the shallows releasing the eggs into a new retention pond.

 

It is amazing how fast this happens. Turtles crawl around from lake to ponds and rivers and can carry eggs with them too. Alligators also do it. So in a matter of months here in Florida a once barren hole freshly dug out will start to show signs of life.

 

And the life that forms in those holes will only grow to the point of where the habitat will allow for growth. If you overstock a pond nature will correct this by killing off what can not get enough food to survive and the life in the pond will reach an equilibrium point and balance right there.

 

So even if you stocked your local pond, there is no guarantee what you put in there will survive.

 

That being said, I am not sure of the laws concerning buying wild game fish, but there is no law preventing you from catching bass and bream legally in other waters and carrying them to your pond if you want to. People do this all the time here in Florida and it is completely legal. I mean if you can catch it and take it home to eat it, what is there to stop you from not eating it and simply putting the legal catch into a pond?

 

I have seen people catch bass and put them in their homes in an aquarium until they get too big and have to release the fish.

 

Also be aware that an entire pond and lake can be populated with bass just from one pair of mating fish. So if you have bass and bream in the pond already and they are reproducing there is no real need or reason to increase the amount of fish in the pond beyond what it can naturally sustain.

 

The state of Florida has a fish hatchery/stocking program you can contact them and possibly get some free fingerlings from them, but if it is just a small pond the state generally won't have any interest in stocking it for you. They concentrate on public waters where we can all benefit from the stocking program- of which I make great use of!

 

I go to the FWC website and download all of the annual stocking reports and then three years from the date of that report you can begin fishing for them. I wait the three years to allow the fish time to grow to a decent size. You can try your luck in one year or two years after the stocking, but I have made my own time of 3 years for this. Here is the website for it:

 

http://myfwc.com/fishing/freshwater/stocking/

 

Just remember if you overstock your small pond that is a death sentence for the fish who can not get enough to eat because of the limited space and lack of food. It will balance out quickly. Just let nature take care of it and fish it!

 

And I would recommend that you contact the FWC and do some legal fact checking with them on what you can or can not do, but I do believe what I said above is correct according to the laws of this state.

Thanks guys!