Yolk, I don't consider targeting big BG to be any inconvenience at all. In fact we really like to fish and that is one of the reasons we considered stocking BG. Although 3 1/2 ac is a lot of water to fish. Id probably invite a few friends to help out as well if needed. You have a very similar sized pond, so ill ask how much fishing does it really take to control the BG with SMB and HSB as the only predators?
With the presence of the GSF what would happen if BG were added to the mix?
How would adding BG affect the existence of the unwanted GSF?
I'm really not sure how much fishing is actually needed--I'm removing every BG between 3-8" I catch, and any larger that don't appear to be completely healthy. I would guess I'm removing 60-75lbs/year, so I would say that would be a minimum number. Our BG down here may be starting spawning earlier and stopping later than yours, so you might not need to remove quite so many; I would say that it is a good sign that your predators seem to be controlling the GSF pretty well.
Have you considered adding HBG as an alternative to BG? Since you've already got GSF, downsides would be negligible IMHO, you'd get some increased production of sunfish for forage, and great fighting, aggressive panfish to complement your fishery [Man, I sure hope Sparky doesn't read this; current political climate has reduced my appetite for hyperbole, even where it may be so richly deserved by various and sundry cyanelloids.]
WRT addition of BG to GSF containing waters, tradition has it that GSF are usually outcompeted and eventually replaced for the most part after the addition of BG. I've experienced this in a couple ponds, but currently have one in which the two seem to be cohabiting very well. I'm really not sure why this is, I mention it only to note that I think it would he somewhat hard to predict how the various sunfishes would mix, and what the results would be. This might be another argument for adding HBG, instead of BG.
