BZ - Here are my thoughts. My neighbor and I have been kicking the same idea around for awhile. We don't have the quality fish that you do but were getting close. I belive your right in that people would like to experience catching BG the size of a dinner plate. I also believe people would love to catch large numbers of nice sized fish in a condensed time frame. From my experience, we allow 15 to 20 people fish our ponds each year. Kids and adults. Experienced and inexperienced fisherman. Sober and drunk.
Assume all fish caught will die.
I believe you could make it work, depending on your dollar expectation, if you had one fishing pond and multiple grow out ponds. Heres why I say that. Just like a pheasant farm. They release the birds you pay for. Using the same principle. Load your fishing pond with whatever number of trophy BG's along with nicer sized fish. Every fish caught comes out and every fish is paid for. I would assume the fish will die from handling, deep hooking, or simply get hook smart. From your growout ponds "reload" your fishing pond with the same number that was harvested. This way you keep your fishing pond full of lively trophy BG's, that are hungry and not hook smart all the time. Monitor the amount of trophy fish in your growout ponds and the rate of replacement to determine the amount of revenue you can generate each year.
For us we have decided, if we do this, we are going to target the business sector. Corporate day of fishing, fish cleaning demonstration, fish fry and such. Nothing for a company to write a $1,000 check for team building activity and a very unique experience. The proximity to the city is a huge bonus.
Any way just my thoughts.
