If you can get 4-6"+ CNBG you should do that so they survive and can spawn next spring.
Making this simple, if you want big cats they're going to need a lot of food.
First, feed pellets if you can for the cats AND the CNBG. And second I'd treat them like kinda like bass. The old 10 to 1 ratio on BG-bass is now 20-30 to 1 for large bass. Same issue here. So I'd want a bunch in there, but with 1-3" you're going to suffer predation from both the cats and the bass that are left.
If you're only target is the cats then remove all the bass and all the hybrid bluegill you can. I'd replace a hybrid bluegill with a CNBG any day if your goal is to have the BG create food for your cats.
You might want to stock some golden shiner brooders that would be big enough to spawn in the spring. As ewest said with the BG, the goal is to get enough mature fish that you can have really good spawns.
Any guess what the current population is of bass and BG?
