Hey Stickleback! Im from the Puget Sound area also so I may have some helpful information in regards to stocking options for our region.I managed a few small ponds growing up mostly by trial and error and have an idea of what works.I believe your best bet for a pond of 1/2 acre or less would be to stock either RBT or cutthroat trout with supplemental feeding and prior stocking of FHM if you can find them. RBT would be my choice beacause they normally grow bigger and faster than cutthroat but a combination of both would be fun too. Plus RBT are extremely easy to find and very inexpensive. As far as summer water temps go you shouldent have a problem. RBT are fine up to about 70 degrees and water temps here rarely reach that even in the summer. Aeration if possible is a definite plus but not essential. In every pond ive stocked them in they have done very well and depending on how much you feed they can grow quite large. Easily 3-5 lbs after a few years. Another plus to RBT will be that you will be able to control the population because they dont have the ability to reproduce in a pond setting.

As far as a BG pond goes it is definitely possible in 1/2 acre but it will take a lot of management to make it work. Unless you want a pond full of 4" BG you will have to cull extensively and keep the population thinned down to allow the remaining fish to utilize the available food and grow. You could add LMB to keep the BG in check but again you will have put in a lot of work culling smaller LMB so you dont the run the risk of the LMB reproducing like mad having a pond full of tiny LMB and BG due to overpopulation. A 1/2 acre pond in our area is realisticlly only able to sustain a handful of 2-3 lb LMB wilh BG as the main forage. If you are dead set on a BG pond I would go with the pumpkinseed. They only spawn once a year, they are the very pretty looking and they can get up to 8-9" in the right setting.

As far as catfish go i wouldnt recommend them. The only species of catfish that I know of in the puget sound area are of the brown bullhead variety and while they taste great they easily stunt to about 6" in ponds without an apex predator present. There are no hatcheries that I know in the state that have CC and due to our relatively mild water temps they probably wouldnt grow very well anyway. The only successful area in the state for CC that I know of is in Eastern WA which has a far different climate than we do out west.

Ideally I would love to try HSB in our area but I believe they are probably illegal to stock and like CC next to impossible to find in Western WA

Ive tried SMB in ponds but they normally cant keep up with the reproduction of BG and the BG end up stunting. YP may be a better option for that route. Although ive never attempted it a SMB PKS combo could be a possibility but would still require considerable management of both PSK and SMB populations to prevent a disaster.

At any rate I definitely think the RBT with supplemental feeding would be the best and most productive way to go. Good Luck!