Thanks for all the helpful replies. I talked to Fender's yesterday and picked up a bunch of great information. I talked to my father-in-law last night and we started forming a plan.
First, we made an error in not putting enough cover in the shallow water for the forage fish/spawning. We need to gather up some brush piles/artificial cover/etc. and drop them in the pond. The only cover in there now is in 10+ feet of water. Before we can drop the new stuff in, we need to purchase a small jon boat. The grade on the sides of the pond is too steep to wade in. The one shallow area they want to preserve for swimming, so they do not want a bunch of structure cluttering it up. After we get that done, which should be by March at the latest, we are going to stock.
We plan on going directly to the hatchery (as opposed to local pickup at the truck). Hopefully, we can avoid some of the problems mentioned above about unwanted species.
A few questions on the stocking. We definitely want LMB and BG. We are going to pass on SMB (thanks for the article). Other interests are Black Crappie (although it was suggested above to avoid them - why?), Perch, ShellCrackers/Red-ear, Hybrid BG, and potentially cats. Any suggestions? For the cats, if we decide to do them, are channels or bullhead better? The goal is to have a more consistent fishery as opposed to having one dominant species that gets huge.
A few other pieces of information - the pond will be have a pellet feeder and a bottom aerator installed prior to the stocking.
Any information would be great.
Thanks guys.
