Dave thanks for the reply back. You are right on, I am not looking for trophy bass. I am looking for something that will give my sons a good tug on the line and have fun with. The Y perch I will eat
As for the pond, I just put it in last fall. It has woods on two sides and drops from surface to a 6 ft deep 4 ft wide ledge around 3 sides then down to 15 feet in the center basin. The 4th side is a rapid slope of about 4 to 1 down to the 15 feet. I have a seasonal creek that feeds it and runs out the other side. It is a dug out pond. It has some soots and grass for side cover and have some free floating plants in the pond thus far. I also dug a channel around one side near the outlet that is about 16 inces deep and 3 ft wide and 20 feet long that I expect some plant growth in for the minnows and fry. I have embedded pallets around in 3 spots sunk in about 14 inches deep that have rock piles over them for cover for the fatheads and they drop off right over the 6 ft deep rim. I have rock structure in the deep areas as well as on some of the shelf area. ( I will try to add a pic here when I get a chance. ) I had considered smallies but I was told they would be tough to maintain in a smaller warm water realtively shallow pond.
All in all it has been fun building up the eco system, but I want to make sure that it is able to be ballanced fairly easily. I plan to let mother nature take care of most of the things it needs to ( after I install my aerator system ). Thanks agian for the advice and I look forward to any future advice or comments on how to best balance things.
