Consider alternative apex predator like SMB or HSB - both will allow your YP to perform much better. Your BG will become a management issue, but through seining, trapping an angling it can certainly be achieved - then you can repurpose those BG to feed your other species. Leads to significant growth in fillet trained fish and is an absolute blast!
+1
I would just add this. The inclusion of BG with YP seems to be sourced to a desire for angling diversity. YP and BG play the same role in their respective biomes as prey and so the benefit they provide as forage is determined by the species complex you will be stocking. TJ rightly warns that the BG will become a management issue. This is a when ... not if ... scenario. Rather than creating such a management issue, you may consider an alternative that allows you to have cake and eat it too.
Consider BG on a put and take basis where they play the role as small predator and bonus fish for angling. Once they have reached 7", BG are fairly easy to sex. If you stocked only males on a periodic basis harvesting them only after having reached a minimum length of say 10" then you would have BG ... but only BG that are on track to becoming trophies and that do not over produce the SMB/HSB food chain.
In our neck of the woods adult BG > 6" can be purchased for $16 dollars a pound and I think for young, healthy, disease free fish this is a bargain. I've yet to check whether they will allow the purchase of sexed fish but I can certainly see why some pond owners would want primarily female BG as remediation and so I don't think it would be problem. 21 7" fish would weigh about 7 lbs and so for ~$112.00 a year you could eliminate the management issue of trapping BG. I've attached an annual stocking scenario for BG at the rate of 28 Males/Year (21 for your 3/4 acre pond). The BG in this scenario achieve a maximum standing weight of 95 lbs/acre (if harvested at 10"). And so if your pond supports 350 lbs of fish, then there would still remain 250 lbs/acre for the (SMB/HSB) -- (YP-RES) biome.
Bump** some additional on the BG growth rates. The assumption of growth at .35 lbs/fish-year is not unreasonable where the BG niche is under populated. In other words, these growth rates are doable. That said, the balance of the (SMB/HSB) -- (YP-RES) biome will play a role in BG growth because a high degree of competition between YP and RES will cause additional overlap of their niches with BG. But if the balance is very good for predator and prey and the YP are making good growth the scenario for BG growth may be conservative.
Last edited by jpsdad; 03/26/2008:01 AM. Reason: a couple of typos-- and add spreadsheet
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