Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Stocking Adult Bass - Unconventional

My pond is 9 months old, roughly 1 acre in size, and 11 feet deep and growing. While I use a lot of information off this board, I tend to lean to my fathers advice, most comes from trial and error
managing his 2 acre pond. My goal is to have a 5+ acre lake, 22 feet deep with a small population of catfish (100 channels/100 blues) and 25 hybrid stripers. The main predator will be bass (native/F1 mix), and yes I will introduce the controversial black crappie. Here is my intent, please feel free to lend advice, and point out where I'm set up to fail. My forage base is in place, last Fall and again in early
Spring I stocked adult Bluegill (5"-8"), mosquitofish minnows, golden & emerald shiners. The water is full of baitfish now, I plan on adding 20-25 bass ranging from 8-14 inches in size next week, along with 20 adult red-ear (I realize the redear are late, but they were hard to catch before they hit the spawning beds). Additional rainfall should hopefully double the size of my pond by Fall when I intend to stock the catfish/wipers. After next Springs spawn, juvenile crappie will be added. The intent is to
let the small bass and mosquitofish pressure the reproduction of the crappie. Here is a picture of my pond, please forward advice before I
learn from trial and error. p.s. don't try to talk me out of crappie, try to help me control them They taste too good !

http://www.geocities.com/russeldean2002/lake.jpg

If you put in 8-14 inch bass in now they will be big by the time you put in catfish and wipers. Then you will have to buy the large expensive catfish and wipers. Why not at least put the catfish in now? They won't be very predatory while they are small.

Sounds like a neat pond, but I think you'll have too many predators in your lake. Are you going to feed the catfish and wipers? I would. Also, unless you really want blues, I'd eliminate them and go strictly with channels. The blues get too big and will prey on your bass. As for the crappie, you know as well as anyone that a 5-acre lake is a little small, but there is a chance it could be successful. With the water depth you have, you might be able to get a threadfin population established which will help feed your wipers and more importantly, your bass and crappie. It can't hurt to try.

As far as adding the bass now, that'll work, but you'll need to add larger crappie this fall. Those bass will really grow and even a 6" crappie will be vulnerable.

Sounds like a neat approach. Given what you are trying to do, I don't know that I would do anything differently except eliminating the stocking of blues.

Thanks for the feedback, it's appreciated. I'm going to follow your advice, stock 100 channels now and eliminate stocking that many blues. I would like to get my hands on a select few...maybe 5-10. I do plan on feeding, and I'm not too worried about wiping out my forage base, I can easily transport huge bgills from my fathers pond when needed. I also
love fishing for "anything", so species maintenance isn't really a problem, it's fun. I really appreciate yout input on threadfin, I'm going to start a separate post for my questions about them there. Next Spring, I'll also stock the largest crappie size avaliable to reduce the number that will get eaten, good ideas !