Jerry, welcome to Pond Boss - this is a great site with tons of information and a lot of great people who like to share their knowledge.
I'm just a novice but there are many experts here who I'm sure will be along to help.
I also am in SE Iowa and have a small ~ 1/4 acre pond. I wish I had found this site earlier as I could have saved some frustration and had better results.
Again I'm still learning but if I could do it over I would not stock catfish. I was able to have the Iowa DNR provide the initial stocking which included catfish as per their recommendation. I like to catch and eat catfish but once they are hooked and get free they are hard to catch again. I now have numerous big cats that use up a lot of the available biomass for my pond. They may also be contributing to muddy water issues I've been fighting.
Good Luck and have fun with the project.
