Been reading the forum for a couple weeks now and who woulda thought that information overload would be this great. A ton of info to try and absorb. Going to be hopefully getting a half acre pond dug in southern van Wert county this year. Supposed to be digging test holes soon to make sure clay is good. Wanting to keep pond mostly clear of algae and weeds if possible for swimming purposes. Also would like to be able to harvest fish more for eating than for trophy fish. Looking at possibly perch and bluegill and catfish and some bass to catch also. Bass don't have to be huge. What would be a good stocking ratio to include those species and would like to have big bluegill versus bass and eating size perch? Not sure if those fish are compatible or not. Will be supplemental feeding fish and also plan on putting in fhm also. Was planning on doing some sort of aeration system also. And if I have access to large bluegill(believe they are hybrid ) to stock from an old stone quarry is there anything to worry about with disease from them?
Sorry for all the questions. Just want to try and do things right the first time. Also plan on picking up a couple of the books from this site ASAP. Thanks, Scott
Pics of fish that I could possibly stock

Welcome to the forum.

You may want to rethink the YP and BG combination. To have BG you need to stock LMB, and they will really hinder the YP since they rather eat a YP than a BG. I have this in my pond and really see them struggle. The BG will be nippers to swimmers. If my legs are hanging in the water from the dock, they come up and try to pluck the hairs off. It doesn't bother me and I get a kick out of it, but some would be totally freaked out by this. There are ways to get around these problems, but usually involve more management time or money. Standard stocking combos would be either YP and SMB, or LMB and BG. Other options you might get by with are HBG and YP and SMB, because the HBG will not overpopulate as much as BG. You would have to restock them, and some folks don't want to be bothered by that. You probably should stock some RES for snail control, and you could stock them heavier instead of any BG. The pros would need to weigh in on this validity.

The photo looks like a regular BG to me. But others will chime in on this too.

Welcome to PBF! Will let others more qualified recommend stocking for your area.

Look like some very nice northern BG to me also.

You can have YP with LMB you just have to keep the LMbass small by harvesting all bass 11"-12"+. Note to maintain decent numbers of YP you will need to regularly stock 6"-8" YP because the 10"-12" bass will eat lots of 3"-5" YP. Keeping LMbass small allows you to grow big BG. Pellet feed the BG and buy YP. See your Private Messages.

Thank you Bill. That may even help me out in my situation. Initially I was told to harvest LMB when they get to 14" for large BG, and some of mine are getting very close to that. I suppose that's why the yellow perch are suffering. Perhaps I will start harvesting some of those 12-14" and see how that affects the YP in the next few years. I can only imagine that will let more BG populate for harvesting?

thanks for the responses. think I am leaning more towards a pond to harvest fish to eat. so would a mix of say bluegill, hybrid bluegill, redear bluegill, perch, catfish and small amount of lm bass be good to stock together? also thought about getting a few stripers just because I used to live on marthas vineyard for a few years and caught them all the time, well real stripers I guess. or would more predators be needed to control bluegill population? I know the redear and hybrid don't reproduce as much but am still learning.

CC are not real popular for a lot of people here on PBF (but are popular with others), but for eating and meat production they are hard to beat. Grow fast, make fillets big enough to be worth the time cleaning and if they are pellet fed taste as good as any other fish (in my opinion).

I was never a particular fan of eating catfish till I raised my own in our own pond on good feed. Some I ate in restaurants was "ok" and some I just did not care for. Subsequently I rarely ordered it.

But since we have been cleaning and eating our CC, they are as good as any fish I have eaten. You can have good eating in the second year after stocking if you feed them. Mine are three years old and in the 2.5-3.5# range. One fish makes a meal for my wife and I. Our favorite is filleted and chunked into strips, coated with a mixture of about a third cajun fish coating mix and 2/3 panko bread crumbs and pan fried. Yummmm. Baked with that same mixture ain't bad either.