MNFISH2, at least to many on this forum, shrimp that can tolerate cold water (stay vigorous in the conditions you found them under the ice) there is a quite an interest for them.

We would love to see pictures to get an ID on them. Did you happen to take pictures or would it be hard to get the pond owner to drill some holes and get pictures?

Again, he or someone else would have to face the challenge of harvesting at will, in numbers that folks want, then store, package, and ship. This time of year shipping would be easier as temps are cool. Harvesting large quantities through ice may or may not be easy. I have no experience there.

I believe unless you have lots of established vegetation the shrimp may struggle to get established. But with adequate vegetation they have places to hide. They can move remarkably fast. There are a few on the forum with experience with them living in a small aquarium with predators (sunfish, perch) and they managed to find places to hide and avoid being a meal.

If his 8 acre lake has little fish then at least the sorting part would be fairly easy.

If he has thousands upon thousands of them, he certainly could be charging less than a quarter a piece and still be wealthy.