Bender - This will be a learning experience for you. Try out your theory. But consider this advice.
1. Since your pond is small (0.1ac) it will not be very hard to physically start over when the original fishery has problems with parasites, disease or improper density. A 1/10 acre pond can be quickly drained and refilled. Sanitation efficiency depends on the specific problem but the smaller the pond the easier it becomes.
2. AS Cecil mentioned "putting wild fish into a tank environment" and medicating them may be more stressful than it is worth compared to just catching and releasing them directly into the small pond. Keep in mind that U have to catch, exhaust, hold, and transport these wild fish. Plus the bigger they are the more the stress level is compounded. Catch & transport is plenty of stress for them to endure even without an added chemical bath stress in a confined space. Personally with your small pond, I would take my chances with disease/parasite risk and just do my best to maintain high water quality conditions, keep food forage levels high and then rely on the fish's natural ability to cope. Adding wild caught fish to a larger pond definately becomes a larger and larger problem and it is not advisable unless U can readily clean out and adequately restart a disease free fishery.
3. The fairly deep pond (15') for that small surface area will not significantly increase the carrying capacity of this small 0.1ac pond. The depth of 15ft will primarily only be a benefit to U in reagards to the amount of oxygen that it can store during winter.
4. For the size of pond that you have (0.1ac), you are planning to stock way too many wild caught (5-10) or hatchery predators (25-50 SMB) that will have to rely or subsist on natural foods. This stocking density is equivalent to up to 250-500 bass per acre which is a very high density in a non-aquaculture situation. Plus to this fish load you are likely to add as many as 50-80 adult yellow perch (500-800/ac) that were eating pelleted food. Highly eutrophic conditions are likely to occur in your small pond. Some YP will definately go off feed when stocked into the pond. This commonly occurs. This will put extra competitive pressure on all fish that are relying on natural foods either produced internally or externally added. It will be difficult to maintain adequate food reserves for these fish and maintain healthy water quality conditions due over crowding.
If you go through with this plan and after you get SMB stocked, you should check the individual weights & lengths of the fish you catch, to monitor their general body condition. Whenever they fall below about 80% standard weight you need to be making adjustments to the fishery. Standard weights are available for SMB. The fish will provide signals or indicators as to how they are doing, it is up to you to read the messages to manage and maintain healthy fish. A good way to begin is to weigh & measure each wild SMB as it goes into the pond. As these fish gain or lose weight at each respective length then this info will tell you how things are progressing. Gaining weight or maintaining same weight is acceptable conditions, if losing weight then adjustments to the numbers should be made.
Good luck and let us know how things go with your plan.
