I would have to agree with Greg. Until I see hard numbers in a scientific study showing a clear benefit from waiting a year, it just seems like a nice theory to me. I've read multiple posts on here in the past month about pond owners in AL who are getting three pounds a year growth from their F-1s, in more than one instance catching ten-pound bass that are three years old, and I'm pretty sure that the bass weren't stocked a year after the bluegill and other forage in any of those. Wasn't at least one of those ponds a client of yours, Greg?
If you want a pond full of forage, stock a bunch of forage (lots of FHM, 1000 or more bluegill per acre, threadfin shad) when you stock the bass. Just stocking 1000 bluegill per acre will give a pond a bluegill-heavy dynamic that the bass will never be able to tip short of very heavy fishing pressure on the bluegill coupled with no bass ever being kept for years. Unless a different strain of bluegill that isn't known throughout the U.S. for overpopulating ponds, is being mentioned in these recommendations, all it takes for bass to have all the forage they can ever hope to eat is to stock heavy on the bluegill initially and not keep any bluegill. And if a pond owner wanted to stock threadfin, or gizzard shad in a larger pond, if good numbers of those are stocked initially, especially in conjunction with bluegill, the bass are going to have all they could possibly eat. If it's better initial growth that this method aims for, that's easily accomplished simply by stocking a large number of FHM initially. By the time the bass have gone through the fatheads the bluegill will already be well on their way to ubiquity.
I would be all for this idea if it were proven; even as a theory I probably wouldn't have any opinion one way or the other if it weren't for the fact that it requires a pond owner to wait a year that very likely is just a wasted year said owner could have bass growing just as fast in his pond as they will once they're finally stocked. I know that there was an article (in Pond Boss?) on this management plan; I don't remember any data in the way of a study. And, if the study wasn't done with prolific forage such as bluegill and shad, then here again it would be flawed. If, on the other hand, I just didn't read carefully and there has been a study or studies in which ponds stocked with prolific forage a year before bass were compared with ponds stocked with prolific forage at the same time as bass, and the delayed-bass ponds had better growth, I'll eat my humble pie and consider myself a little wiser.
