gregWV :

First welcome to the forum and good luck with your ponds. You have many options because you have 2 ponds next to each other. This is limited by the fact that they are 1/10 acre each (40x80= 1/14 acre).

What fish are in the ponds now? How do they get their water (well,rain,run off) and does the water level change much over the year?

Will fish be taken out of the ponds? It is very hard to keep a pond in balance (fish populations) if no fish are harvested. A small pond can quickly get overcrowded or fished out if not managed at all. In my opinion there is no stock and fish and forget pond. They all require adjustments to the fish populations.

A basic rule of thumb is that a managed pond can support 300 to 400 lbs of fish per acre. Of that 300-400 lbs 25% by weight will be predator fish like LMB or catfish. With an aquaculture type operation you can have more fish per acre but it requires much more knowledge and effort to run one without serious problems. With that in mind you could have 7 to 10 lbs of predator fish per pond and 21 to 30 lbs of forage fish like BG or minnows per pond.

These are your ponds and your goals so you should decide what to do with input from this forum. Having said that if it were my choice , which it is not, I would not have a breeding population of LMB in ponds that small but would use 1 female LMB per pond(at the right time) to help control the BG. I would stock BG , fathead minnows and channel cats (CC) with the one LMB later in one pond. I would seperate the 2 ponds and use the second pond for RES (redear sunfish)and BG and feed them and add a few CC and 1 LMB.

I don't know if you can do this by catching your own fish. That would depend on how well you can ID them , keep them alive and transfer and do so at the right time. Minnows go in first then BG then catfish. It is to cold now but you would start in time to finish before it gets to hot.