Originally Posted by DrewSh
Saugeye could possibly be a good idea as well and may even open up the ability to add BG to your mix. From the sound of Snipe's research, they seem to be aggressively targeting that small sunfish shape.

As for esox, I love the idea because I love musky, but Theo is very correct in their ability to eat much larger fish than say a HSB of similar size. I'd lean towards Tigers over pike as I'd be concerned about pike reproduction. Adding Tigers in would also make me evaluate the present forage for them and you might need a little more prolific of a spawner like BG in the mix. Which circles back to Saugeye as well. IF you decide to add BG into the mix as well because you really want esox, I'd think about adding a few saugeye at some point as well if the esox cannot keep up with BG recruitment. A lot of the nice OH musky lakes seem to be stocked at 1 musky/acre. I wouldn't go more than 2 tigers to begin with.

HSB and walleye would be the "safest" adds currently with what is in your pond as these are pretty commonly used with YP/RES/SMB. Saugeye could be a bit of wildcard depending how aggressive and how much of an appetite they turn out to have. Esox would be the biggest wild card as I would guess it would most definitely cause you to reevaluate your forage base with the eventual ability to eat your biggest YP and RES.

Lots of options, I tend to err on the side of being more cautious.
I will soon (sometime this week) have 14 years of research that I can post that was conducted on SAE (in KS).
Here's the bottom line on SAE vs WAE.. WAE seldom ever achieve 100% RW in a pond setting that does NOT have shad present where SAE do well without shad, prefer sunfish and grow much faster than WAE, handle higher temp, lower DO and survive better than WAE in less than ideal conditions.
SAE also have a slightly smaller gape than a WAE of the same length but most folks catching SAE (and eating them) didn't know they were not WAE.
I add a couple SAE to my pond every year and a couple of WAE, it's very easy to see what happens in 1 full year because the SAE are longer, maybe 4-5" longer in 2 years and my BG are controlled in an acceptable number.