I love it when people think "outside the box." This concept is certainly outside the box.
Our company has several lakes with multi-species management. Most of these lakes are fairly large...bigger than 40 acres, up to 600.
Here's what I have seen. The more predator fish, the more dynamic the entire fishery seems to be. Different predators begin to dominate different niches in the lake. Forage fish numbers rise and fall, and as goes the "best" forage, so goes the most dominant predator of that forage fish.
For example, take Lake Kiowa, about 20 miles from my house. As threadfin shad and small gizzard shad thrive, so do white bass. As bluegill, shad, and redear sunfish thrive, so do largemouth bass.
As golden shiners come and go, with silversides minnows, black crappie come and go.
A remnant population of yellow perch in this north Texas lake exists...but without their main food, and hot water in summer, yellow perch numbers are too low for a thriving, catchable fishery.
Channel catfish numbers rise, and fall.
One absolute I have seen with multiple species of predator fish....there will be one or two dominant species, some in the middle, and some headed for extinction.
Tweaking, adjusting, managing for specific forage fish can cause a certain predator species, or certain year class of a species to quickly rebound.
Here's another absolute...your pond has a maximum production capability. Take that maximum and divide it amongst your forage fish and the different predators, and that's what you get...divided results of different fish.
A largemouth bass/bluegill fishery grows the maximum number of pounds of those two species.
But, add smallmouth, or walleye, with wipers and two or three others, that "given" amount of forage fish will still only support a "given'" poundage of predator fish. Therefore, competition amongst and between predators, their ability to survive, their mouth size, and their ability to reproduce directly influences long term survival, and heath, of that fishery.
