The pond is only 'good' for panfish up to a certain size, that is info from another thread stating that every year they think the panfish are going to get bigger, but instead they remain plump, but the same size. If you want to grow bigger panfish you need to do something different or something has to change naturally.
I usually take a more aggressive approach on removing undesirable fish and think the faster I can get the resource wasters out the faster I can start to see changes.
There definitely will be ramifications to taking out the big predators that may need addressed once removed, but if for some reason the big pike are the limiting factor to growing bigger panfish, more than likely you won't be seeing bigger panfish in that pond for the life of those fish. Which could be a very long time.
Now on the other hand if the stick and others are happy with how everything is currently than nothing really needs changing or a more cautious/slow change can be implemented.
Back to the smallmouth/walleye- the actual weight of those fish upon stocking isnt really going to be very much. Its not like you would be throwing the pond completely out of balance by adding 15 lbs of smallmouths and 10 lbs of walleyes. Any additional weight gain that they make will just be converting biomass from the pond itself slowly overtime. Will create a nice bonus fish to catch from time to time.
