As for 5000/acre, I can believe that. But only if in a monoculture fish farm scenario, as they are not sterile and would reproduce and stunt. they would need to be in a mixed population with predator species, which would then make the stocking rate far too high.
I believe I may be the first one that stocked 5000/acre in the mid 90's. What we did was stock them on April fools day and feed very heavily for 6 months. At that time the GG was large enough that we could stock hundreds of bass in the less than 2# range (small enough that they could not eat the original stocked GG). This allowed us to grow out giant original GG over 3# without over population and not waste feed on later hatches that would not get as large. The large GG also preyed on the bass hatchlings which helped keep them from getting over populated. The pond stayed pretty balanced by allowing people to fish after year 2 keeping all GG under 10" and bass under 14" all the way until year #5. During year number 5 some local kids that had got on drugs (uncle was neighbor so no one caught onto what they where doing) that new of the large bream fed and seined alot of the fish out of the pond. My father and I that normally look after things where out of town for several days in deep sea fishing tourney. They took thousands of fish out and sold them at 25 cents a piece in order to raise money for drugs (according to local authorities). If anyone has any quesion about what I have done with GG along time ago I will feel free to answer them. I however will not be able to speak on the GG that is sold today and or its current quality. I no longer have any (drained the last of those ponds a while back and have not purchased any in years.
