Is your shallow fish habitat in place for the spawn?

Spring is coming and the water temperatures are rising. Fish will be moving shallow to build beds and start the annual process of making more little fish. Is your pond or lake shoreline fish habitat ready for this influx of activity? Will your fish have a successful spawn, can the fry even survive? Do you have the room ready, the Cradle set up to bring the babies home?

Picture a pristine freshwater lake, with a robust edge of weeds from 0-8' deep around the entire perimeter. This area called the littoral zone, harbors most everything the entire lake or pond needs to flourish. This is where life begins, on a very small stage for the fry, bugs and smallest creatures in the pond. When fry are hatched, they get eaten immediately by larger fish. This fact prevails across all waters and is part of the natural ebb and flow of nature. Its the few fry that survive, hide and self sustain, that turn into your large size of the species, repeating the cycle. A very small percentage of fish survive and make it to adulthood. Less than 5% of stocked fish survive, and often far less in a natural environment. This is why we have strongly encouraged folks to stock fish directly into dense cover. This has proved to increase survival two fold or more. More fish hiding spots will protect more fry, increasing your fishery, naturally. 

What happens if there are no weeds around the pond edge? No deadfall trees to protect the fish, grow bugs or create hiding spots? If this is the case in your lake or pond, then we have some ideas to help you help your fish. It is just a fact that more variety and types of cover in the form of fish habitat is best. In this shallowest water areas, our goal is to hide fish fry and bugs from 1/4" long up to a few inches. Really tiny creatures need really tiny houses and places to hide. If you can see through it, so can the bigger fish.

Natural fish habitat products you can add to help come in many forms, often for little money or even free. Logs, boulders, brush, trees, wood pallets, even adding aquatic plants. Piles of cinder blocks, gravel beds, spawing benches and rocks can all combine to create shallow fish cover. PVC fish habitat products from Fishiding.com. have over a dozen models that fish will successfully protect the young fry. Models ranging from less than two feet tall, to about four feet are used in these spawning shallows. To small yet to move into mid depth or transition type fish habitats, this shallow water fish cover will grow your fish while protecting them from the elements and predators. Dense PVC fish habitat is only available with hundreds of ultra thin and fine pieces. The idea is to create something like eelgrass, for best survival.

If you can't protect your young fish, it's a losing battle and constantly re-stocking. The goal of shallow water spawning habitat should always be to protect the young fry from predation of all types. Sunshine, birds, turtles, racoons and other fish will all try to eat them. The minute the male leaves the nest, the predators move in. This shallow fish habitat dense enough to keep out bigger fish, needs to be right next to where the fish area spawning.

Get you fish habitat in place now for the spring, your fish need. Growing and catching big fish, always starts shallow, where they all begin.Create a safe, stress free habitat fopr your fish to flourish within. More surface area create more cover, food ,shade and a roof overhead.