Hi Macco. Just found your thread after a little nudge from Ewest.
I don't have definitive answers for you, but after reading the various posts, I do have a few thoughts.
First - on the LMB/SMB issue. Based on your initial description, it sounds like you have very little in the way of the rooted, submergent aquatic plants. I don't mean the lily pads in the back end that you mentioned. I mean plants such as pondweeds, coontail, etc. Hopefully you know what I mean. In the north country, we don't get very successful or very consistent reproduction and year-class strength on largmeouth bass if we don't have those submergent aquatic plants. In eastern SD natural lakes, we have NO largemouth bass at all in lakes that have lots and lots of smallmouth bass. The only lakes that have LMB are the ones with submergent aquatic vegetation, and we only have a few of those (the LMB do great in them). Based on your rocky description of the shoreline, I'd say you are exactly right on the lake being good SMB habitat.
I am a worrier, and I always worry that smallmouth bass won't control your panfish. They are not as effective a predator as are LMB. Thus, it is safer to have some LMB in there. However, I think you'll need to keep adding some subadults or adults, as they probably won't sustain themselves for the reason mentioned above. I can certainly see the bluegill getting overpopulated without sufficient predation, and I don't think the smallies can control the bluegills by themselves.
Our smallmouths tend to go toward high density, slow growing fish. Based only on what you told us, it does sound like a lot of 5-10 inch fish, with few larger ones. We do a lot of harvest on smallmouths in our ponds around here. Generally speaking, we take everything up to 12 inches, and release the larger ones. What worries me in your case, though, is maintaining sufficient predators to keep the various panfish species in check. While small smallmouths are often not very piscivorous (they often eat a lot of insects and crayfish), they may help the overall predation. As I said earlier, I probably manage too conservatively, but I sure hate to see the panfish get out of control. I guess if you plan to continuously add a few subadult/adult LMB to be your predators, then selective harvest of the small smallmouth bass would be good.
High densities of northern pike can indeed be hard on your panfish community. I've got examples where too many pike really decimated bluegill and yellow perch populations. You didn’t list an email address. If you shoot me an email, I’ll send you a little information on those case studies.
However, a low number of pike actually may not be bad for you. They may thin the small smallmouths, and help keep the sizes up on them. The pike probably crop yellow perch before any of your other fish (bluegills or rock bass) because they will feed on torpedo-shaped fish before they feed on saucer-shaped fish. If pike abundance starts to get high, then you’ll probably want to target them for removals (angling, trapping). Only time will tell on that one.
What is your attitude toward rock bass? I know they are disliked some places, but to me, a big rock bass is a cool fish.
OK, that’s about the extent of my thoughts.
