I've never heard of any state game and fish agency, or university fisheries degree program, that recommends waiting a year from the time of stocking forage to stock bass. I just think this is an idea that doesn't play out in reality the way it sounds in theory, and is just needlessly causing pond owners to waste time with no benefit. Any forage species that can sustain LMB over a period of years in a pond, whether that species be bluegill or threadfin shad or golden shiners, does not need a head start on bass to fill a pond and keep the pond filled with all the forage a bass could ever eat; conversely, a forage species that is going to be denuded by LMB (FHM, for instance) is not going to be any less denuded by getting a head start. I'd certainly be interested to hear if any of the fisheries biologists on here disagree with me, but I've never once heard of any respected authority recommending this.
Regarding stocking bluegill in the South a year before bass: I live in the South. This is a really, really horrible idea for any pond owner that cares anything at all about catching decent-sized bluegill. TWRA stocks bluegill in the fall and bass the following spring; but they never wait longer than that to stock the bass, because bluegill stocked in the fall will most certainly spawn the following spring and again that summer, and with no predators in the pond to control the hatch, the pond would be overrun with thousands of bluegill by the time the bass were stocked. It has been noted many times by biologists that bluegill often spawn several times throughout the course of spring and summer. Even if bass in the 8-10" range were stocked at twice the normal numbers a year after the bluegill, they would not be able to get the bluegill in check; by the following spring when the then-thousands of bluegill spawned, even if their numbers had been significantly dented by the bass, the thousands of bluegill would spawn again, and at this point the pond would be overpopulated to the point that nothing would right it short of a heavy stocking of pike or muskie, or poisoning.
There's a half-acre pond near me that I have permission to fish, that the owner thought was going to be an acre but which ended up being a half-acre due to a leak. He stocked according to recommendations given him (not by me) for a bass-first pond, though he also likes to catch large bluegill; he was told to stock 1,000 bluegill, and he did. He has an automatic feeder on the pond feeding twice a day, and the pond has dozens of bass in the one- to three-pound range, and more than a few in the three- to five-pound range; a six-pounder was caught there a year ago. Despite the pond having an armada of young bass to the point that the owner asks anyone who fishes to keep all bass under two pounds, the bass have made not so much as a dent in the bluegill. And the bluegill average about four ounces, which is pretty poor for a pond on which an automatic feeder has been running for four years.
I don't think you realize how quickly bluegill can overpopulate a pond, CJ. They can do it just from a pond having a few too few bass. I fished a pond a few weeks ago that two years ago had big bluegill. At my most recent visit, I saw a handful of yearling bass swimming about, but not as many as the pond once had; by no means was the pond devoid of bass; and in two years' time, with still having a bass population, the pond has gone from big bluegill to a pond swarmed with runts, badly overpopulated. Giving bluegill a full year in a pond with no predation whatsoever is a horrible idea for anyone that cares anything at all about bluegill size, which the originator of this thread made clear he does.
