I've been reading, enjoying and learning from this board for quite a while, and I'd like to thank the contributors for sharing their knowledge and experiences.
I just built a fairly small pond about .6 acre in size last fall. In Feb we stocked with 400 HBG, 50 BC, and 10# FHM. In addition we have access to a farm pond which we've caught and added about 75 adult native BG 5-8" to provide forage for future LMB stocking. As of this time things are going great. We feed pellet food once, sometimes twice a day and the HBG are growing rapidly, some have tripled their size. The native BG we put in have been spawning and I've noticed several schools of baby BG and a few schools of FHM. Was origionally planning on waiting till fall to add LMB but since the BG are already spawing and the HBG are large enough to avoid predation, I think it might be a good idea to stock now. I'm thinking 25-50 LMB would be a good number to stock. Also, since since I expected to see more FHM spawning, I may also want to stock another 5#.
What do you guys think about this plan? Too many? Too few?