Welcome to the forum beach79...
Alwives are an option to stock. However, they may have severe winter kill at times in a lake that is only 35 deep that far north. That may not be a bad thing though as alewife can really take over. However, I would highly recommend you NOT stock alewives. They are HIGHLY predacious on zooplankton and especially of fish eggs and YOY fish young like walleye, YP, bass and others. Read about their introduction into Tennessee reservoirs and the mess they made of the walleye population at this
LINK. They make great forage, however they compete very strongly with sunfish and cause their growth rates to drop greatly leading to bluegills and other panfish to not reach desirable sizes. They also compete with YOY and fingerling game fish for resources as well, causing the growth rates of game fish to be slow until those fish reach a size where they themselves can feed on the alewife. Also, blueback herring have in recent years been stocked in many lakes and are very similar to alewife with similar results on the fish community. So keep that in mind as well...
Gizzard shad maybe a better option, but again they will compete with your panfish and cause their growth rates to be lowered. If your fishing committee is not interested in quality panfish and more interested in faster growth rates for your predatory fish, they may be an option.
Golden shiners(GSH) maybe the best option. However LARGE and I mean LARGE numbers would have to be stocked to have a reasonable expectation that they would take hold... You may also want to look at a couple other Cyprinid species to stock if you can source them. In a lake your size, emerald shiners should do well as their should be ample open water areas for them to live which is their preferred habitat. Also, if you have extended area of sandy shores, you may want to consider spottail shiners. They are also a larger lake fish species. Both the emerald shiner and spottail shiner have been introduced by many state fish agencies as an additional forage species into larger lakes. They both reach 4" or so as a maximum size and would certainly help supplement your food chain without overly affecting your panfish population. The toughest challenge is finding a commercial source for either species.
