5 acres gives you some room to work with. I think you can obtain your stated goals. My one concern is what fish are in the pond now? If they're undesirable species like bullheads, green sunfish or carp they can possibly cause serious issues early on or down the road depending on the species. The "minnows" you saw, it would be nice to see if you could identify them if they did survive the copper sulfate treatment. Assuming you don't have any problem causing species present I would stock the pond similar to this to obtain your goals...
Patience will be needed for this plan to come fruition... A little patience now will pay off big later!
Stocking plans vary greatly depending on the size of the fish when stocked(and a bunch of other factors) but let's assume the fish you are stocking are in the 2"-4" range as that is usually the most commonly available size at the most reasonable price.
This spring I would stock 25 pounds of fathead minnows.(5 pounds per acre)
I would also consider stocking 10 pounds of golden shiners(GSH)(2 pounds per acre) if you want to lean more towards growing larger bass and slightly smaller BG. The GSH will compete with your BG for food some, but if you feed your fish, this competition will be mitigated a bit. GSH grow to 8"-10" in northern waters and can provide excellent forage for bass, but like I said they can compete with BG for food and IMO an even bigger factor is they take the predatory bass pressure off the BG which means more BG survive to compete with each other leading to slower growth rates in that aspect as well. So keep this in mind before you stock GSH... If I was doing the stocking for your goals, I'd stock them.
This late summer I would stock 375 largemouth bass.(75 per acre) I say to stock the LMB now before you stock the BG is this. In southern waters, most guys stock the BG a good period of time before the bass. This is OK for southern waters as the bass are able to keep up with the BG reproduction and growth rates. However in northern waters, stocking BG before the bass will lead to BG stunting in all likelihood. What you want is your bass to feed on the FHM you stocked in the spring by the time they begin to exhaust their FHM food source the BG you stock later will be just starting to spawn and the bass will be there to quickly keep their numbers under control and also grow well themselves leading to a balanced pond.
I also treated the water with copper Sulfate today to hopefully kill off the snails. We had that black spot parassite pretty bad, so I'm hoping this helps.
Redear sunfish(RES) include snails quite heavily in their diet when available as they have crushing teeth in their throats known as pharyngeal teeth. This enables them them to crush their shells and readily feed on them. There is anecdotal evidence that a healthy population of RES will keep the snail population low and help reduce the presense of black spot and other parasites that use snails as a host.
RES are fairly warm water fish, but can survive in perhaps the southern third of Wisconsin. You can consider stocking some if you are in that part of the state. If you do stock them, I would stock them in the later summer with your bass at 250.(50 per acre)
If you are too far north or cannot source RES, which is possible you can consider pumpkinseed sunfish(PSS). PSS are native to Wisc and can handle cold northern waters very well. They are closely related to RES and will also feed heavily on snails. However, they do not grow nearly as big as RES, compete more with BG for food resources and reproduce more readily than RES. If you decide to stock them, I would wait on stocking them when you stock your BG at 50 per acre.
The following spring, I would then stock 1750 BG.(350 per acre) These fish should grow fast in their first spring and early summer and will be spawning by mid summer in your pond if stocked in the 2"-4" range and maybe sooner if more are near the 4" range. This timing should fit well for when your bass will be getting close to complete removal of your FHM.
Maybe Perch if they can fit into the equation also.
That spring I would also stock 750 yellow perch(YP).(150 per acre). I think you have a good chance of your perch not over populating because of LMB predation, but also not being completely removed as often happens in smaller 2> acre ponds.
Some channel cats may be fun also if you think they would work.
Channel catfish(CC) can certainly be added to this pond. CC rarely naturally reproduce in ponds, so you'll have to stock them annually. However a word of caution. They will compete with your bass when over 2 pounds and particularly 5+ pounds as they will actively prey on living fish. Also, they are total feed hogs, so if you plan on feeding, they will be sucking down lots of food. Last, they are extremely smart and once caught once on hook and line, they become VERY difficult to catch again. Most forum members are either leaving them out of their ponds altogether or only putting numbers in they can eat in a year and keeping the fish rather than practicing catch and release. If you do decide to stock them, I would only stock the number you think you, your family and friends will want to eat each year. Otherwise you end up with a lot of 8-12 pound CC taking up piles of biomass in your pond and heavily competing with your bass to the bass's detriment. Then you'll be doing lots of fishing trying to remove the darn things! Somewhere between 25-50 per acre would probably be more than enough CC to keep you busy...
In the future you can consider adding a handful of advanced sized(10"+) fingerling walleye(WE) for added bonus fish. They will not reproduce in your pond, so they would have to be stocked every year or every other year, but they could provide a bonus fish(that's great eating) without affecting the overall balance of your pond much.
You can also consider stocking advanced sized(10"+) smallmouth bass(SMB) to your pond as well. Although, they will not reproduce and be out competed by the LMB, when stocked at that size they will survive and do fairly well, again adding a bonus catch to your pond. If you do this, make sure to remove some LMB to make room for them...
Fish to avoid:
common carp
black/white crappie
northern pike(except single sex under certain circumstances)
bulllheads
gizzard shad
green sunfish(yes, the GSA will hate me)they aren't that bad in an established fishery as they usually get out competed.
These are just my opinions on the subject. I am sure others will have their ideas and what you will find is, there is lots of variance with ponds and nature in general and it all depends!
