N Beach,

Lots of questions, and it's a bit of a dynamic situation. Let me give a few thoughts:

LMB - the more you take out the less pressure on your newly stocked forage. You probably can't remove them all - and that's okay. What's left will spawn and be your target bass for years to come.

BG spawning - yes, they'll spawn this year - as long as they don't get eaten.

BG stocking - you want them to be big enough to not get eaten. If you transplant you're going to have to put in a lot. If you transplant 3" BG, you're just feeding the bass. Various recommendations is 200-500 adults (4-6"+) per acre if no BG present in a situation with LMB. The reason is if you have 10 BG they'll spawn, but the change that their fry will make it to adulthood is slim. Granted, 10 BG is better than zero, but 1000 is better than 100. In a balanced pond you'll have BG of all sizes and year classes from fry/1" to 9-10". You currently have none of that, so you've got to get as many big BG as possible to avoid predation.

Feeding - fed BG will do better, grow faster, spawn more, than non-fed BG - especially in non-fertile water. A problem that ewest stated above is these tanic ponds aren't fertile so the BG don't necessarily thrive. Feeding can help that (see the picture that Theo posted of the Lusk BG, it's fed) However, you don't need to feed to have a nice pond. You might just have less fish.

This will take time to correct. You've got to get a health base of multiple year classes of BG going, and all the while you've got hungry bass swimming around in the pond waiting to eat everything they can fit into their mouths.

While you're doing this, keep good records. You want to see your LMB Wr start creeping up - but again, it will take some time.