Have you thought about adding some easily removable type of structure in the pond so your YOY SMB can escape and hide from your brood fish?
From Brettski's pond project.
Not sure if that would make much difference. From my limited experience with smallmouth production they didn't have any fear of the brood fish. In fact they seemed pretty stupid.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
