We have permission to fish private stock dam in South Dakota. We recently went out and caught over 40 fish that were all on the smaller side. The owner recently told me to throw the smaller ones on shore. Instead of doing this my brother in law had one of has dams recently built and is now significantly deeper and larger. I was thinking about moving some of these smaller fish into his new pond. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Is his new pond stocked?

If so how old are his fish?

If you introduce larger fish into a pond that is new stock or fingerlings you could decimate your new stock. 

15 minutes ago, Ski said:

Is his new pond stocked?

If so how old are his fish?

If you introduce larger fish into a pond that is new stock or fingerlings you could decimate your new stock. 

The pond, where we want to stock the fish has nothing besides minnows. This pond until last year was not deep enough to hold fish. But last year Game and Fish came out and made the dam larger and deeper. There were also going to stock the dam for us but they backed out at the last minute

i'd also check on the laws as far as transporting the fish and all that... never know!

that said, i wouldn't just throw them on the bank.  Tons of families out there that could use some food for the table!

Make sure you have a good forage base for them to eat before stocking any big predator fish.  

Minnows are not enough to support a healthy bass population, you need to add something else, bluegills in a 10 to 1 ratio ( 10 bg for each bass ), 3 bgs x sq mt ( or 9 sq ft ) of pond surface.

The very first thing I would do is check with the state to see if this is legal; and I would be sure to check with someone you are sure would have the correct answer, and maybe even another person. Why I say this is, in Maine, if you transport/transplant any fish, and you are caught, you are in jail, heavily fined and the state now owns the vehicle you used, all equipment used, even the bucket. Be very careful on this topic.

Don't toss them on shore, that would be wasting the fish, in stead you should eat them.  Small bass actually taste really good, kind of like big bluegill.  Another thing is that if you want to stay legal, you should probably check the regulations.  If it's like indiana, it's not, even though if the lake already has bass it wouldn't hurt anything.  Not that I know anything about such activities of course. ?

Years ago a guy at work bought a house that had a nice pond in the front yard.. He wanted me to throw some bass in it , so I went to a pond I go to, caught 5 nice size bass and transported them in a cooler to his house.  His girlfriend loved that the pond  had coy and goldfish in it. . Let's just say that she wasn't happy with me come monday morning when i asked how the bass were doing lol..

Pond and lake management is tricky. Gotta make sure the ph. levels are good for the bass. Is the pond or lake fertilized? Or is it left alone and natural? That does not mean it's bad but how many acres mean something important. Food supply? Fat head minnows or shad? Needs a good population of blue gills. Smaller bodies of water usually need human intervention with good management to ensure a good population of bass. But not always....

Why don't you just keep and eat them yourselves? If the pond has good water quality those bass will be tasty.

 

check the laws on transporting live fish first.,in my state its highly illegal, .... then do some research on pond management there's plenty out there online.,.. there may have been a reason fish and game backed out. : like the pond may not have the potential to succeed,.. the water quality may not be up to snuff to support bass etc.

 i wouldnt just go and do it,...look into it first