Mdave - Okay I assumed that since you said that you lurked here for years that you knew most of the things that were discussed.
When you mentioned sweet horse feed I again assumed incorrectly and thought you ment manure. As far as I know, adding Sweet Horse feed will not fertilize the pond unless it goes through the horse first! To stimulate a plankkton bloom you need an influx of nutrients - primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, N-P. If you prefer your clearer water and fishery is satisfactory in your opinion then - don't fix it. Clear water can raise large fish, just not as many fish as water with a good bloom - visibility 16"-24" - white disk reading. Fertilizing the water if done properly can have the same affect as fertilizing your garden,more and bigger plants, although veggies and weeds both can grow better, depending on use and management.
A secchi disk is a standard water clarity analysis tool that is a white & black disk about 8" diameter that when lowered into the water until it is just barley visible canprovide a depth mesurement. A pure white disk at 6"-7" dia has close to the same visibility reading as the 8" blk& white disk. This is called the secchi depth. It provides a lot of information to those that understand water quality.
http://www.mlswa.org/secchi.htm You ask ""But why keep the females? And more importantly, how many to keep? .60 acre pond."". There ought to be an Archives on this. (See below) Again I assumed lurking and reading taught you this. Leaving more MALES in the pond puts suppressive maturation, pressure on smaller males where they continue to grow and delay puberty. Mature BG do not grow as fast as immature BG. Thus immatures grow larger before maturing - a very good thing. Only a few females in a pond can provide more than enough young BG to overpopulate a pond. Removing mostly females skews the BG toward generally larger, later maturing BG. Number of adult BG to remove will depend on fertility of the pond. More fertile the more the harvest can be, similar to fertilizing the garden - more crop with more fertilizer. Feeding the BG high quality
Aquamax carnivore fish pellets is in IMO better than fertilizing the pond, i.e. fewer potential problems while providing more fish. BG growth will not be as good in 'generic' 32% protein pellets are used.
There was an archive post on growing Big Bluegill. Guess who wrote it?
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189988#Post189988Ask if the fish delivery guy if the YP are pellet trained. I would have
ONLY bought pellet trained YP. If so they will do tremendous on Aquamax carnivore pellets. You will have some real dandy YP in rapid time. Plus BG will also grow better, larger, and more of them. Not so much so, if you use the 32% protein pellets (any brand). The fish don't even eat the 32% protein pellets as well compared to the Aquamax. I checked this feature numerous times.
