AR-Tenner. have you and your bride considered Hybrid Black Crappie? Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Hybrid Striped Bass and Yellow Perch could be good additions to your smaller forage, plus provide amazing tasting table fare.
Hybrid Crappie reproduce, but the offspring are inferior to the parents and are controllable by some predators.
Redear sunfish are a panfish that should be added to control snails, and the parasites snails host.
If your golden shiners establish well and have some cover, I doubt regular Black Crappie will control them, and if your Crappie pull off a couple boom spawns, the GSH will outgrow the stunted BCP that will be everywhere.
Actual carrying capacity in any pond is forever changing, but if it were static and could support a maximum 1000# of fish, it could be I, 1000# fish, 1000 one pounders, or 16,000 one ounce fish....every spawn, without balanced predation, you get more, yet smaller fish.
Thanks a lot, those are good points! I am pretty determined to go single-species, since it has been established in my other thread that yellow perch and crappie would not control one another's numbers and prevent stunting well.
We are big on having whatever species are there be delicious, and so I have essentially ruled out bass. I am wondering what you think about smallmouth, though. I find largemouth bass to taste disgusting, but I have heard that smallmouth taste better.
The only apex predator species I would really consider to control the crappie is the walleye, as they taste awesome, and they are one of only two major gamefish species I have never successfully pursued. They are supposed to be a challenge in a small lake, but I am going to have professional help in designing the BOW, it will be several acres, and I think I will be able to get them to reproduce successfully.
