Emerald shiners are a great shiner for open water habitats, however the big problem with them in ponds is they will not produce young ones. Many around the Great Lakes have tried to get them to spawn in ponds for the bait business and very little success occurred. Other pond spawning shiners that that could be possibilities are the golden shiner, spotfin shiner, satinfin shiner and steel color shiner. The big problem is the last three are almost impossible to source from fish farms. A few isolated growers are now raising the spotfin shiner for the bait business around Lake Erie. As forage for smallies in ponds think diversity of natural items including yellow perch, crayfish, and using pellet trained smallies. A little research was done with lake chubsuckers (LCS) as forage for SMB in small waters. Again, problem is LCS are hard to source from fish farms. It seems much of the good forage items for smallies has to be collected from the wild. Dr Willis here is doing some work with pumpkinseed sunfish as forage for SMB. See Jul-Aug 2010 Pond Boss back issure article " SMALLMOUTH BASS AND PUMPKINSEEDS". Will Schreck, Brian Graeb and Dr. Willis look at some test results about smallmouth bass growth before and after introduction of pumpkinseed sunfish.
See this article that I wrote for Pond Boss magazine about the topic:
http://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/growing-smallmouth-bass.html
