Sunil, I'm an experimenting type of guy, so when they told me that smallies would never work in a pond, the first thing i did was to locate some smallies. I've had very good results even competing with LM. I like them because they fight better and taste better.
Yes i've had them spawn successfully. Not every yr. but quite often.(Pond is about 10 yrs. now). Once i knew they could spawn, I started harvesting some of them. Caught one recently about 4lbs. Lots of "pounders" for the table. I have a pretty good prey base of crayfish and will stock some fatheads every other year or so. They seem to be more aggressive then LM and dominate.