Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Stocking an extremely small pond

If you are O.K. with feeding the fish, I think you could get some larger fish pretty quickly. With the steep sides, and small pond size, I would manage it strictly as a put-n-take fishery.

Hybrid Bluegill
A couple pellet trained LMB
A couple of Hybrid Striped Bass
Channel Cats

Rats, I just remembered you are in Wi. That might kill the HSB idea.

The LMB would be a catch and release deal, but the HBG and CC would be catch and keep, especially the CC. They will get smart quick, and once they are caught a time or 2 they won't be easy to catch a 3rd time. They are cheap to stock, so it'd be easy and inexpensive to restock when the time comes.

That pond is about quarter acre, so you should be able to handle 125# of fish in the pond if you feed and aerate. The number of fish to put in the pond will be determined by their size. I'd shoot for 75# of fish or so, that'll leave room for tadpoles, minnows (FHM, GSH or both) and room for the fish to grow.

The shallow depth might mean problems carrying fish over thru the winter. If that was the case, then I'd look at those fish species, but get larger ones in the Spring to ensure the fish are big enough to hit the table, and look into stocking some LMB from surrounding waters (if legal) because they are pretty expensive to buy 12" or so LMB every year.