Nice BOW and wow, huge lovely lodge!. Definitely don't want my wife to see that. She already has visions of turning our 1900 era barn into a cabin.
I stocked our new pond with 2-3" BG and FHM in March of 13, then put fingerling LMB and CC in the late fall. By the time the predators were stocked we had a pond full of FHM and some YOY BG in the 2" range. Not a lot of that size, because likely only a few of the most mature fish spawned very early in the summer. But lots and lots of 1" BG fish. We did supplemental feed the BG and FHM, even grinding up pellets and feeding the tiny fry around the edges of the pond. I think that helped speed up progress.
So from my experience, even giving those BG and FHM a half year head start can make a lot of difference in what is out there for forage for the fingerling predators. Not only the fish forage, but the pond really came along with the other resident critters like dragon fly larvae, frogs and tadpoles, etc. etc. Have some FA now around the edge of the pond and it is literally teaming with life. All sorts of tiny worms, snails, larva of different types. All this in just over a year from stocking the first fish. We stocked the FHM and BG when the pond was still filling and had not reached full pool yet, but we had wheat planted in the bottom and got lots of algae from the very beginning.
Just to let you know what we did and the results, so you have the information to use as you think best if it applies in your situation.
