Pond Boss
I am building a one acre pond for my kids and plan on stocking it with fish next year. I plan on making it a trophy bass lake in the future. I am looking to stock 10,000 FHM in the April along with 1000 bluegill/red ear 1-3". When would be the right time to introduce bass and would adding catfish be a negative for a trophy bass pond? Everything I stock will be fingerlings.
Indy, if you live in south Indiana then you might consider stocking feed trained F1 LMB a year after FHM & BG. Maybe one LMB per 30 BG. One acre is small for trophy LMB, but if you can supplement their diet maybe you can pull it off!
If you want big bass I would stay away from catfish, they will eat the same food ( your bluegill and minnows ) as the bass. A few channel cats would be okay so long as you kept them out before they got too big. Blues and flatheads I would avoid at all costs.
Anybody know if tiger bass can survive in southern indiana and if there are any fish farms that would deliver?
"Tiger Bass" are F-1 LMB (see anthropic above). They are a northern/Fla cross initially created by American Sportfish. The question is not if they could survive IN winters but rather if they would grow to their potential in IN. Survival does not mean reaching their potential. If under winter stress they survive but don't grow well then nothing has been accomplished.

My limited info on F-1s in southern IN is they may well survive but not flourish. Genetically it is a real "it depends" question. Different stocks of Fla/Northern crosses will deliver different results at the margin on cold tolerance.
What size do you consider several trophy bass in a 1 ac pond?
Anything over 6 lbs. I'm prepared to feed train and keep plenty of bluegill/ minnows around. Will also cull the bass that aren't doing as good after year 3.
Indiana, if you are diligent I see no reason you can't get a northern LMB to 6 lb. Especially if you begin with feed trained! But you will have to pump up the BG numbers and cull skinny LMB pretty ruthlessly.

See what you can do to enhance spawning opportunities for BG, along with habitat nearby where their YOY can survive.
Minnows will not be any good for growing 2lb-6lb bass. as bass grow bigger than 14" they need larger and larger food to eat and keep growing efficiently. Work to get them eating Aquamax bass pellets. Each pellet is supposed to have the nutrition of a 5"-6" trout. Your best plan is to have a small forage pond where you grow shiners and crayfish and BG if the bass are keeping the proper sizes of BG numbers lower density. Trim the tails or a fin of feeder BG before tossing them into the bass pond.
Thanks for the help
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