Looking for sage advice. My partners and I have two small ponds that were professionally dug about 6 months ago. Both filled quickly and we're close to the Okefenokee so water table shouldn't be an issue. Each is about 1/4 acre and we are looking for light personal use, self sustaining ponds. Pretty much settled on channel cats and Bluegill/Sunfish/Hybrid as fish stock. Are 1/4 acre ponds too small to combine fish populations? Also looking for recommendations for plants to set up in/around the ponds. Finally, how mature do they have to be before we stock them? Thank you for any help you can provide.

Welcome to the forum!

For a "self sustaining" pond, I don't know if that's possible with that combo.

CC need a cavity to spawn in for reproduction. If allowed to reproduce without a predator, they could become overpopulated.

Bluegill/sungish/hybrids all need a top of the line predator that has enough appetite and mouth gape to eat them, but the predator then has to be kept in check to avoid overpopulation. Without the predator, you could end up with a bunch of 4" sunfish in the pond in the future and no large ones.

Large ponds can be self sustaining, but small ones are almost impossible to create. It takes us as pond managers to keep it in balance. It's been said on here, and it's true. Keeping a pond in balance is like trying to balance on a knife edge. One little push and it's out of balance.

CC, unless they get over 3#, don't have a large enough mouth gape to eat sunfish. Largemouth Bass do, but once they are large enough to spawn, they will overpopulate the pond and eat themselves out of house and home. You can stock single sex LMB, but the problem is finding them and one wrong fish will be disasterous for a "self-sustaining" pond.

It's going to take some management on your and your partners part to keep the ponds in balance.

In a pond that size, without supplemental feeding, I'd stock single sex LMB, CC and Coppernose BG. I would make sure that the CC didn't have spawning habitat. CC would be a catch and keep proposition, and replenish the number of CC removed annually. Determine if you want to manage the pond for large BG or large LMB. If large BG, remove all LMB that are over 14" long. For large LMB, remove as many male LMB as you can see once they are large enough to spawn, and remove all the LMB that you catch that are under 14".

You may have a chance at doing what you want with CC and Hybrid BG, but you'll have to keep an eye on the HBG population. If the majority of HBG are under 6" then you need to get serious about removing a bunch of them.

Oops. I forgot.

Plants? They'll show up on their own.

How mature? I'd stock each one with 2#-5# of FHM from a reliable source. Make sure that only FHM are stocked, and there are no unwanted hitchikers in the mix (like GSF or Bullheads). Let them reproduce until the Spring before stocking the other fish. Stock the FHM as soon as there are a couple of feet of water in the pond.