Here is my thread on my 1/20th acre forage pond. I raise a lot of FHM now with it. In the past I have raised lots of RES fingerlings to stock my other ponds.
My 1/10th acre forage pond It has worked pretty well for me but I would say it is on the smallish side. Not because of lack of production, but because once a BOW gets fairly small the amount of runoff area becomes kind of critical. Too little and it will not fill. Too much and you have too much water exchanges during large rain events causing stress on the fish. Twice as big, in other words one tenth of an acre, is as small as I would recommend for that reason. For high production levels aeration is highly recommended.
I also have a 1/10th acre sediment pond that I have used as a grow out pond for various fish. Where its main design is to catch sediment it does have very high flow through rates at times stressing the fish. For that reason I would not put high value fish there again.
My sediment pond thread Some other ponds to give you some ideas.
Specialty pond thread Having multiple ponds gives a person a lot of options and interests.
My intention (we will see if I get it done) is to let the FHM's get thick in my forage pond, then use it next spring as a grow out for some HSB fry/fingerlings next March or April. Let the HSB feast on the FHM and remove some as they increase in size and stock my other ponds with 6-10" HSB. That is "the plan". Sometimes circumstances have other plans that conflict.
