mtnlobster: If I understand your situation, you don't live at you lake (an absentee land owner).
I wouldn't create a fee fishing site. I think the more people that know about your beautiful pond, the more people will try and fish it without permission. Also, those that do fish it w/ permission may end up doing damage to the fish: gullet hooking, foul hooking, hooks in the fishes eyes, etc. Plus you may get more litter, both intentional and unintentional.
For our lake, we de-barb all of our hooks. I mostly fish w/ live bait, and occasionally gullet hook some fish. I keep those de-hooking things on me, so that I can free up the hooks and release the fish.
When you think about the potential income from fee fishing, I wonder if it's really worth the few hundred buck you might take in.
I'm an absentee land owner. However, if you lived there, that may be a different situation. In my experience, most of the people who have trespassed at our lake and land have little to no respect for the property.
For a smallie to become a monster lunker, think of all the years of TLC you'll have to put in.
