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I will provide some comments to Bski's questions about BG, and catfish. Then I will add a few comments regarding Theo's above statement about snails.

I think the currrent consensus is to omit BG from the original stocking and they can be easily added at a later date. Since LMB will not be present, IMO it will be relatively easy to get BG established in a fishery comprised of SMB, YP, RES, plus of a forage minnow/shiner/crayfish combination of one to several species. Ffor crayfish seek out Papershell crayfish (Orconecties immunis) which is naive to IL. Sunil has observed BG "dive bombing" SMB nests to feed on fry. I also watched HGB and GSF feeding on eggs and fry from their cohort nests. fish as nest robbers are common especially when forage fish populations tend to be over crowded. If BG were present in Bski's pond with SMB, HSB and some catfish I suspect that it would not take much of a fishery imbalance to allow BG to quickly get to a point of overcrowding. LMB can play a very big role in controlling BG. When BG overcrowding occurs the already fragile ability of SMB to recruit YOY could be at even greater risk. In conclusion, with SMB as your main predator, delay use of BG until they are necessary or strongly desired and you want a more complex fishery that will demand more watchful monioring and management.

Meadowlark states: ""...with due respect to your pond goals, I'm willing to bet you will have BG anyhow......" Bski, please make a permenant note of ML's quote and you might want to take ML up on his offer with a "small" wager. I am not sure if he means BG will naturally appear in your pond or that you will eventually decide you cannot live without BG and eventually stock them. Maybe ML will elaborate on this. Regardless I am very, very interested if your pond ever gets "naturally stocked" with BG or another sunfish species i.e. uninvited invaders. As time passes please keep us advised on this ML quote.

Catfish - Since Bski has at least several vehicle tire structures, these structures will serve to promote CC recruitment. As a side note, I have commonly observed CC using tire cavities for nesting. I have also seen SMB frequently utilize tire cavities for overwintering locations. Other species probably also tire cavities as overwinter deep water structure. My experience is that in a pond without LMB the CC very often produce some good recruitment into each year class. IMO the LMB with their large mouth and attitude can exert significant predatory pressure on young CC until the juvenile cats are around 10" long which can last up to two or more years. I think this degree of predation of LMB on juvenile CC would be significantly less when SMB are the dominate predator. When catfish become larger and their density becomes common to numerous, I have found the water clarity noticably decreases to visibilities of 12"-24". Decreased water claity often results in less efficient predation which can easily lead to overpopulation of one or several fish; often the mose prolific ones present. Catfish can thrive in turbid water, but sight predators and foragers will suffer. I think the best water clarity would be in the neighborhood of 3'-5' for your planned fishes (SMB,YP,RES) IMO omit catfish unless you really have a strong desire or passion for them. I think they will cause more problems than they will fix or help with your planned SMB,YP, RES fishery, i.e. more cons than pros.

If Bski wants a secondary bonus predator and since he is in IL, he should strongly consider walleye. They very rarely recruit young, are fairly easily managed, grow to 24-28" long, are very good eating, fairly catchable, and will help control YP, SMB, and RES and will never cause water turbidity. The ethology of walleye is very compatable with YP and SMB since they naturally occur together in many northern lakes. For Bski's application walleye have more pros than cons.

Theo stated " ..while CB1 has had success with YP controlling snails, I suspect RES do a much better job of this in a larger pond where the density of YP is probably significantly lower than in Cecil's fabulous fat fish factories." Theo is correct. YP can control snails but the snails have to belong to the genus Physella or else YP will not readily eat snails. Physella is a thin shelled snail and I have found that YP will pretty much ignore other species of thicker or heavier shelled snails. It all depends. A snail is not all snails. RES have the ability to forage on numerous species of snails including some of the thicker shelled species. For starters IMO for Bski needs, the most natural panfish combination would be RES and YP.