Problem orange spot sunfish never get bigger than five inches and so many. very small(size wise) large mouth population biggest caught 12 inches biggest seen 16
I did some literature digging and if you are growing orange spotted sunfish longer than 8" you have some state record if not world record orangespotteds. You must be doing a lot of things right.
Freshwater Fishes of WI says the maximum length is 5.0"(125mm). Carlander said the maximum was 6.9"--7.0"(175mm) from AL.
Wikipedia said maximum recorded length was 5.9".
Iowa indicates they are rarely longer than 4".
Zimmerman who grows them as Aquarium fishes says the maximum is 6"-7".
If you have lots of small sunfish plus numerous smallish bass then I suspect there are too many hiding places for the small fish. I doubt very much that adding walleye will help effectively control the orange spots. I think LMB and lots of smaller ones for sunfish control will be the predator of choice If there are ample weeds present then weed control will help the fish balance. However weed control in larger water bodies such as 8 to 12 acres is not easy nor cheap. Basically the fewer weeds you have the larger the panfish become.
I think adding crappie will complicate the ability of fishery management and likely make all the panfish more overcrowded.
