Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Stocking sequence

A lot of this depends on (relative) sizes. I believe the bottom line to all stocking schemes & sequences is 1) you should have appropriately sized food available for the fish you add and 2) the fish you add must be big enough wrt existing predators in the pond so as not to end up as snacks.

For your scenario, if the FHM do well this Summer and multiply as they should, I think it would be fine to stock LMB this Fall in a size that will utilize FHM well. 3" - 4" bass fingerlings in reasonable numbers should do fine on the FHM. That's good. 6"-9" bass, OTOH, would want to eat nominally sized BG/RES stockers (2" - 3") instead. That's bad.

CC in the sizes normally stocked (say, anything up to 9") should not be a problem for the smaller sizes of BG/RES/LMB mentioned above when those go in this Fall, particularly if the cats are fed pelleted feed. Given that the pond is new, feeding the cats would give them much more to eat than the still developing invertebrate food chain as it currently exists. It may also help the FHM both directly (if the FHM eat some pellets) and indirectly (helping keep the CC off their backs).

P.S. This is where I make my usual "Go conservative on catfish numbers when stocking, to avoid getting way too many once they get to be big fish, and because CC are cheap to add later on as advanced size fingerlings" speech.