I highly recommend you do stock minnows now and wait till you can practially walk across the pond on their backs before you put anything else in. Your pond will be the better for it.
I agree with this!
If I had it to do over, I would have stocked as many types of minnows and other small forage species as I could right away. I would then wait a year or more, allowing the water to clear up, grow some cover, and stabilize before adding BG and RES. I would wait yet another 6-9 months before stocking the LMB. That would give the BG and RES a chance to spawn. My thinking is, you would get larger, healthier base of BG and RES. A side benefit is, you don't have to stock as many fish, they'll be wall-to-wall in a year. The LMB will thin them out quickly and get large, even in such a small pond.
I guess I'm more patient than most, so take this with a grain of salt!
