All the YP will be capable of spawning April 2007. Assuming the YP came from a hatchery, then smaller YP 5"-7" were mostly males and larger ones 7"-9" were mostly females. If they were from a mixed wild population then youprobably got close to a 50:50 male female ratio. If from a hatchery removing the larger perch between now and spring will result in lowering the male to female ratio which could be good or bad - depending. I don't think you have too many YP for an ititial stocking. Fatheads from earlier stocking should be common to abaundant.
Next steps will depend on if YP were pellet trained and if they were eating pellets this fall. Non pellet eating YP will not likely return in a large pecentage to eating pellets. Non-pellet eating YP as adults are diffciult to train to eat pellets. Non-pellet eating YP will in themselves be predators on YOY fish because the BG and RES have very likely depleated or greatly reduced the invertebrate numbers thus forcing YP to be more piscivorous. My experience says that the size of YP that you have, will not put heavy predation pressure on a fall stocking of fingerling SMB at 3"-4" unless the minnow numbers are quite low. Fatheads overall will be much more abundant and easier to catch for YP than SMB. If you have ample fatheads then almost all SMB will face low predatory pressure untill the fathead numbers are low. By then hopefully the fingerling SMB will be a little larger and adapted to your pond setting. To be conservative you might want to stock 10%-15% more SMB numbers and then thin them if necessary when they are 8"-10" long and BG,RES and YP recruitment is too low. Expect to see fatheads dissappear in 2007. I recommmend a fall stocking of SMB if you have YOY minnows. If fathead numbers are relatively low then stock 10-30 lbs of fatheads with the SMB fingerlings. Locating SMB in spring can be quite difficult, stock now while they are readily available.
As previously mentioned, SMB will probably control BG and RES better than HSB. Always keep a close watch on the BG-RES numbers (2"-3") and manual thinning may be necessary esp one or two yrs after a poor SMB hatch. Do not harvest SMB until you notice recruitment of BG is lacking. Assuming forage fish densities are fairly equal SMB will forage on YP and minnows before BG or RES.
