Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Smallmouth bass in new pond?

I have a client that is just starting to stock his 3 - 3 1/2 acre pond. He wants to have SMB as the main focus of the fishery, so we are going the YP/RES/FHM/GSH route. He wants crappie and that will be a possibility a few years down the road with Hybrid Crappie. We are also adding some HBG to the mix early, and don't plan on restocking them. This pond will be stocked with as many species of feed trained fish as are available, and there will be 2-3 feeders on the pond from day 1 of stocking.

The concerns are that regular northern BG will not be controlled by the SMB, and if LMB are added to the pond to control them, then the SMB fishery will go away after 5+ years. Finding advanced sized SMB that are feed trained and are large enough to avoid predation by 5+ pound LMB isn't easy or inexpensive.........

The pond is designed to have minimal spawning areas for the BG, but still there's the chance that they WILL reproduce in numbers that can't be controlled.