"Their more elongated shape make them pretty easy for bass to control. Now, in a sunfish only pond, it goes back to your goals. "
Many years ago I had permission to fish a large ranch in Oklahoma. The ponds on the ranch that I fished all had GSF and none that I fished had bluegill. Most ponds also had large populations of small bass. A typical green sunfish was comparable in weight to a typical bass or perhaps a bit heavier. There was one pond (about 1/3 acre) that had no bass. Even so it had many harvest size GSF greater than 8". This would never happen in a bluegill only pond but 8" GSF have a large enough gape to consume 2" YOY GSF. Maybe equivalent to a 6" bass for gape but having much greater weight (and consumption needs). With enough of them, GSF can control themselves.
Here is the catch. If you harvest them, the average size of the population will decline. At least that was my experience where I had great fishing for a year or two before the big ones were not replacing themselves sufficiently to control recruitment. I realized it was my harvest that caused the decline and I sought to correct it by moving a dozen 8-10 in bass in the fall. The next Spring those bass had grown to ~ 13" and were much larger than the average bass of the pond from which they came. I released all bass that day and it was the last time I fished that pond due to moving to another state. Today I would bet that it is more like the typical pond in the area where there are small bass and nice GSF. That seems to be the trend with the combination in that neck of the woods. These are very productive fisheries however and it isn't bad combination if one likes to keep LMB 10+ " and 8" plus GSF for eating. These ponds are able to sustain heavy cropping of these classes of fish and are fun to fish.
