Thanks for the advice. Would you suggest putting the SMB and or HSB in this fall or wait til next year and how many of each?
When did you stock your forage species? If it was early this year, and they have had time to spawn, you could add some SMB this fall; you'll be hard pressed to find any in the spring to stock, and you'll want to have them present to control your BG as quickly as possible, once the BG start spawning.
As Bill indicated, you may have a lot of BG thinning to do to prevent BG overpopulation, at least until you have a strong number of smallies to work the BG numbers for you. You'll likely need to concentrate on the BG that make it past smallie forage size, usually in the 4-8" range; this size will really accumulate and prevent best top end growth for your other lepomids. The HSB have pretty small gape size, and won't help much on these larger, midsized BG.
You could consider adding some WE--they'll eventually get to a size where they'll help cull the BG.
Don't be discouraged about adding the BG. A half acre pond can be managed much more effectively than a larger BOW, and there are a heck of a lot worse ways you could be spending your time than fishing for BG. And if you have kids, you can put a "bounty" on the size fish you want to remove.
