Salt thanks for the update. A couple of observations from your description. Nutrients in most ponds come from the dirt , with a small amount from fish unless the fish are at very high densities. The dye prevents the plankton from using up the nutrients. Raking out the FA (including that on the bottom) helps as it removes nutrients from the pond via it being locked up in the FA.

If you have lots of healthy BG in all sizes then you probably don't have to many yet. You could severely injure some small ones and put them back to feed the skinny HSB rather than feed the coons. Aging LMB from size alone is not easy or necessarily right. If you have widely divergent sizes (3in and 12in) of LMB they are probably from at least 2 different year classes. Well conditioned 12-14in LMB should spawn.

Can't help much on the CC - catmandoo knows more about their behavior in a pond than me.

Nice house and place. Feel free to ask questions with out checking all the archives.