Hi Everyone,
My parents have a farm in Hume, Virginia about an hour west of Washington, DC. In order to get my wife and I to bring the granddaughter over to the farm more on weekends they are having a pond constructed (I am an avid bass fisherman who spends most Saturdays out on his bass boat), the farm is short of activities that draw people down there (it gets boring to put it bluntly) and a trophy fishery will definitely help!

The pond is almost finished and will be approximately .75 to 1 acre with depths as deep as 18'. The pond is fed by a creek and a spring. Construction should be finished this week. The pictures below were taken yesterday and when finished the dam will be 4 feet higher and the bottom will be dug out more. We will be adding several large stumps, rock piles, a "fish house" made of cinderblocks and concrete slabs, a few large logs, and 4 of the porupine fish structures (1 large one for the far shore bluff wall and three small ones for the sloping shallow shore) and a wooden dock which is being constructed as I type this. The area around the dock will not have any stucture as a swimming area will be set up around the dock.

Here is the pond as of yesterday:







Sloping shore:






My hope is to grow trophy bass (around these parts anything over 6lbs is a trophy) but I have not decided on largemouth or smallmouth yet. I know I need to get the forage base going, my intent was to wait until the pond was 4-5 feet deep (should be mid-March if not sooner) and stock 40-50lbs of fathead minnows, 20-30lbs of shiners, along with crayfish/snails/tadpoles/daphnia. Then wait until fall before stocking 500 bluegill, 200 RES and 50 bass of either largemouth or smallmouth variety.

Would threadfin shad be a better forage fish than shiners? I have seen people suggest that a few goldfish will be helpful for alge removal, is this true? Should I stock catfish (I don't plan on eating the catfish but I hear they do well at cleaning up the pond but hurt the bass)? We will be adding a feeder if we can get sufficient power to the area but that is not a certainty, can a feeder be run off of solar panels? I know the stocking numbers I proposed are on the high side but I know the FHM will get annihilated by the bass and bluegill and I figured too many pieces of bass candy would not be a problem and would get the bluegill and bass off to a good start. Am I right?

I have a bass boat and fish tournaments on the Potomac River regularly, I hope to catch big bass but I don't see myself ever throwing worms under a bobber for bluegill once the kid is old enough to graduate to a spinning reel. If the bluegill get big and provide bigger bass then great but I am not looking for a trophy bluegill pond at the expense of the bass. I am sure my daughter will catch bluegill but I will get her into bass fishing so she can join me out on the river; hopefully she will be casting for bass in the next three years just in time for these pond bass to be in the 3-4 pound range.

Any help or advice is appreciated! I know I wrote this post in a hyper manner but thinking about this pond gets me psyched!!!