Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose temperature tolerance in Small mouth Bass

TyW33 Lakedoctor is your main guy for an experienced answer for SMB in combination with Bgill. But I haven't seen him post much lately.

If bgill populations are normal and not overabundant there should be very little problem with Bgill driving SMB off nests. However SMB are not real reliable at producing lots of young each year. Weather plays a big role here. Also predation of fry even by abundant bgill can drastically depelete the already low fry densites from only one or two successful nests. SMB fry are quite dark in comparison which makes them easier targets. Some yrs you will get little or no recruitment even with spawning adults alone in the pond. Then this will be a good opportunity for the bgill to get "ahead" of the bass. You may have to supplimentally stock SMB or manually thin YOY bgill when this happens.

I think in small water bodies LMB drive the SMB males off the nest sites and then the LMB uses the pre-dug nest for himself. In larger water bodies there is enough diversity and ample spawning sites available that some of the SMB do not get driven off the nest and then produce a sussessful spawn.