Good morning, Rangersedge. I was hoping that Cecil, Shan, or Greg would respond. However, let me toss out some ideas, and maybe they�ll respond with additional help.
First of all � Great Pond!! Your design sounds wonderful. I�m not an expert on construction, so I�ll leave that for others. However, let me talk about various fishes.
The largemouth bass (LMB) � bluegill (BLG) - redear sunfish (RES) combination has been recommended to you because it is safe, tried and true. This is a classic pond management strategy, and will provide a fish community that is self-sustaining, meaning no further stocking. The LMB are your predator, the BLG are a multiple-spawning sunfish that provide lots of food for LMB (especially the young bass). For my money, nothing beats the fillets from an 8 or 9 inch BLG! The RES are �special� in my mind, and you can expect to produce 1-1.5 pound readers in your pond. These are true gems. The RES don�t seem to have as high a reproductive potential as BLG, and I�ve never found anyone who ever found a stunted RES population.
Pondowners these days always seem to want diversity, and I guess that I can�t really blame them. However, there is a lot to be said for these simple systems like LMB, BLG, and RES. Generally, people want more predator species, and the primary problem seen on the PondBoss website is too many small predators and not enough prey for them. So, I�m always leery of adding additional predators unless a pondowner is truly interested, and willing to make some extra efforts for the pond. If a pondowner isn�t that interested, and isn�t willing to invest time, energy, and money, then perhaps �keeping it simple� is the best idea.
Let�s talk about a few of those other fishes you mentioned.
Crappie � well, you get a real mixed bag of opinions on crappies. Most of the southern experts just don�t like them, and strongly recommend keeping them out of the ponds. I seem to have a little better luck with them up north, but I�m not sure this is worth your risk. If you do use a crappie, I would strongly recommend the black crappie over the white crappie. Most of the time, you need a good prey fish supply to get really good-sized white crappies. A low density black crappie population can get by eating zooplankton and fish, with some still reaching 10-12 inches.
Striped bass are a big water, open water predator, and I would not stock them. I suspect most other folks will say the same thing.
There have been some folks successfully using hybrid striped bass in ponds. However, they are not as efficient as LMB at cropping bluegills. I posted the following on an earlier thread on this website: "I also read a new study this weekend from Southern Illinois University biologists that substantiated another point made by Greg on this thread (hybrid striped bass vs. largemouth bass). The SIU study compared predation efficiency of largemouth bass and hybrid striped bass that were feeding on bluegills. In tanks with "structure" (in this case, artificial vegetation), the largemouth bass were more than four times more efficient at capturing bluegills than were the hybrid striped bass. In open water, with no structure, efficiency was similar between largemouths and the hybrids." I copied it here to save a few keystrokes. :-)
Walleye � ah, the walleye; king (queen??) of the northern fishes! Every pondowner up in SD wants walleyes in their ponds. Everyone is walleye crazy around here. Well, they are not that good a pond fish. We�ve done OK in some larger pond (20 acre stuff), but even there, they are a lot of work. You just can�t expect them to maintain themselves in smaller waters through natural reproduction. We sometimes see a few naturally produced fall age 0 or spring age 1 fish, but they are always very low in numbers. So, if you want walleyes, they have to be maintained by stocking, and then, usually by stocking larger sizes of replacement (6-8 inchers). Those can be expensive fish. How bad do you want walleyes? Also, there has not been a lot of small impoundment work on walleyes, and I�m not sure we know the best stocking rates. I�m always so darned scared of the panfish overpopulating and stunting, that I typically have stocked too many walleyes, and they then grow slowly. So, you�d be on your own, at least somewhat, in learning how many to stock. You need enough to have effective predation and keep the small panfish cropped down, but not so many that you get slow growth on the walleyes. Again, probably only truly interested landowners should consider using them. It�s a lot easier to have the LMB as your predator, and let them reproduce naturally.
Smallmouth bass (SMB) � we actually use the SMB quite a bit up here, often as the only fish in a pond (that's a safe management strategy, but usually requires substantial harvest of small-sized SMB). The SMB sure are a fun fish for anglers!! They are fighters and jumpers. The �traditional� view on SMB is that they are not as effective predators as LMB, and will not control a species such as the BLG. There has been some recent talk on this website as to whether this is true or not. However, I would be VERY cautious about considering SMB a primary predator. It would be nice if you could maintain a few SMB in your pond, just for the fun of having some diversity in fishing. I don�t think there is any harm that could be done by adding SMB. However, I would predict that the LMB would quickly out-compete the SMB in your pond. This seems especially true the further south you get. When I worked in KS, if LMB got into an impoundment with SMB, the SMB were quickly gone.
Shad � I�m assuming that you probably mean gizzard shad (they will survive your winters, while threadfins would not). If you are concerned about producing a quality BLG fishery, then I would not stock the shad. They can hurt growth rates and maximum sizes of your BLG. If you are more interested in quality LMB, and the BLG are primarily a prey for the LMB, then shad might be a good idea. I consider shad in small waters to still be experimental, meaning that we don�t know everything we should about it. However, LMB can certainly benefit from a prey species such as gizzard shad. They key is whether you get consistent reproduction on your shad each year. If so, it�s great for LMB management. Now, the one exception to the �shad hurt BLG� rule is if you plan to feed your fish. According to several of the experts here, you can still feed the BLG up to good sizes, even if shad are present. I have no experience with this.
Well, this should give you some food for thought, and may stimulate a little help from a few of the other pondmeisters!!
Again, congratulations on what sounds like a great pond.
Dave
