Bski- Here are a few thoughts about your stocking plan. Firstly, I very seriously doubt the SMB in the presence of normal densities of underwater forage items, will ever eat a duckling. Possible but not very likely. If SMB are eating ducklings, you have some trophy class SMB worthy of Cecil's big pondfish contest. If you keep your SMB crowded, I doubt that the pond will ever produce trophy class SMB capable of eating even day old ducklings.
Lake Doctor, who we hear very little from recently, was very pro SMB-BG. As I recall, he was about the only one here who had some experience with this combo and felt strongly about the benefits of it. I and dave-in-eldorado and probably others, question how well SMB will control BG. I am not sure of the reasons why D.I.E.D says it is a poor choice, but I have doubts about it primarily because of the high variability among pond habitats and the common occurrence of poor SMB hatches and the ability of BG to quickly grow to a shape not condusive to being eaten by a smaller mouthed predator. If you do decide to go with SMB and BG, then reduce the problem of SMB recruitment by providing ample optimum spawning habitat for them. Be prepared to supplimentally stock some SMB when YOY recruitment is very poor. SMB-BG obviously can work in some situations or else Lakedoctor would not have been so positive about the combination. One very impt thing we never gleaned from him was the amount of weed growth present in his successful ponds with the risky SMB-BG senerio. I think the SMB when in crowded conditions (low harvest, with high densities) can very likely hold the BG to reasonable densities. There is a small pond near me that has SMB YP and a few HBG. Here in this moderately weedy, 0.3 ac, the SMB are overcrowded and they RULE where largest SMB here is around 16-17" and most are below std weight. Almost no recruitment occurs for YP or HBG in this pond. Grass carp may be a way to feasably manage weed growth for you and minimize the amount of natural refugia in your 5 ac pond. Minimizing weed growth will "open it up" and reduce the hiding spaces for small fish.
Now, if you go throwing in other forage species such as YP, shiners, crayfish, that manage to survive long term, then the SMB may resort to feeding on other spp rather than BG. It gets complicated. As others have suggested, when BG get out of control, the ability of adding LMB would allow you to get the BG back to normal densities. IMO if the SMB have BG under control, I doubt very much YP, at the same time, will ever be over populated. I think small YP (2"-4"), if commonly abundant, will be a preferred item by SMB.
There has been recent discussion here about the ability of larger YP to control or heavily prey on BG esp the ones smaller than 2". Ewest & Cecil (I think) emphasized in a recent post this ability of YP to prey on small BG esp during winter. I dug deeper into the published research about this topic. After examining it, I was still doubtful about how much impact YP will have on controling BG. I intreperted the situations where YP ate significant numbers of small BG were the exception rather than the rule. Also YP ate small BG more when other winter forage items were usually "slim pickens". However I do think YP when present at significant numbers at 8+" can consume significant numbers of small BG during cold water periods, but again it depends on several or even numerous interrelated variables as to how many small BG get eaten by YP. I repeat absensce of other forage items is important for this behavior to occur.
Bottom line from me for right now, is I would not be afraid to stock SMB-YP-BG along with appropriate forage fish. Initially go a little heavy on SMB numbers. You want to start out at least for the first several years with overcrowded SMB populations.
But first, decide why not to initially try SMB-RES-YP and forego BG. YP and RES should be able to provide a very adequate panfish fishery. Some HSB and or catfish can be added later or almost anytime in a 5 ac situation as the fishery becomes established. If the combination gets out of hand then make some adjustments with LMB and-or BG. It will not take very long for BG and LMB to become major players in an existing combination of SMB-YP-RES.
Maybe we can entice the LakeDoctor to revisit the forum for more of his insight on this topic after he has had time (3yrs) to gather more experience with SMB-BG in his client base. I am not sure that he is still in business?.
Postscript - Obviously there are other very acceptable combinations of fish for your new pond. Other members should lend their opinions to broaden your choices.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
