Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Stocking Plan Help - attempt YP in 1.5a new pond?

Hey, JW, welcome to PB. A great source of info concerning all things ponds.
I will give you an example of a successful YP/SMB pond. First I know very little compared to many here but have been guided by two of the best, Bill Cody and Cecil. Before I dug my hole I contacted Cecil who had raised YP of 15+" YP in a pond that was around 2/3 of an acre. Not much later I made contact with Bill. Cecil was more specialized in raising LARGE YP while Bill knows everything about everything. I was told to get a good forage base well established. In order to keep a good forage going is to have good hiding places for them. I choose Eel grass as it is good for all fish and does'nt spread too rapidly. Next was to get Fat Head Minnows going which was easy. Next I got Blunt Nose Minnows and Spotfin Shiners (somewhat difficult to source) Put the forage fish in around mid Sept. Waited till May of the next yr for YP and Hybrid Striped Bass and Papershell crawdads. They flurished well with established forage and hand feeding almost every eve. When I put the FHM in I did'nt know enough to sort and inspect them so got some hitch hikin Channal Catfish, been battling them every since. They tipped the scale of predators x forage.
My pond is 1/4 acre and thus limits the size of the SMB and later added Walleye. CC and HSB do get pretty large.
If you get the right numbers and proper sequence, which I can't advise you about, your pond should grow nice HSB, YP and SMB. I would adamantly recomend aerating. Good luck, Bob-O
PS, don't know about the Pumkinseeds, may tend to overpopulate. Hope someone else will wiegh in about them.