I don't know of anyone in Texas who has smallies in their ponds...it may be, but I don't know of anyone. Just too hot here.
Now, HSB may be a different consideration. They do well in our ponds and generally prefer open water, but again if you have lots of 8 foot water, I believe it would be ok.
Stunting of fish, especially LMB, is caused not by lack of water depth, but lack of forage. The LMB tend to overpopulate small ponds and then become underfeed and "stunted". To my knowledge, water depth has nothing to do with that.
The reason most ponds are built with the 20 foot depth and then 2 to 4 to 6 as I described is because it is cheeper to construct the dam from the clay closest to the dam...not from clay located across the pond. In order to get a preferred construction, i.e. 8 foot depth through-out (at least IMHO), you have to pay more for moving clay that isn't located right next to the dam...but in the long run it is worth it.
