ShortCut - For your goals I think you will be very happy with the bass from Harrel Arms Farm. These bass with abundant food will easily grow to 5 to 7 lbs which seems to fit your goals nicely. You can also check with Arms' staff as to the average top end growth of their native bass stock. Also the northern non-F1 bass will be
easier to catch and catch more frequently compared to bass with Florida genetics. I think the F1 fancy bass will not grow much larger than the Arms native bass
if or when each doesn't get enough of the proper food consistently. Fish growth is closely related to amount of food the fish eats.
Remember a fish grows bigger as long as it lives providing it gets abundant food. Not enough food - growth slows or even stops until the "feed bag" resumes.
Important note: a pond with mid-range size bass (2-6lb) will support more angler catch-able bass compared to the same pond skewed with more larger 6lb-10lb bass due to nature's natural carrying capacity. Plus the pond with the larger bass will usually result to fewer bass caught per angler hour of fishing primarily due to few bass present. Most every angler enjoys catching numerous 2 lb to 5 lb bass on a regular basis. Very exciting for most.
Your main management goal is to keep lots of food available for the bass and manage their numbers wisely. See this lengthy link-subject for appropriate topics to study and learn:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255372#Post255372 Stocking the wetland with minnows, shiners, BG, tilapia or other forage will help a lot in providing a good ample food source for what ever bass you stock. Since the wetland periodically drys this will allow you a an easy way to shift the fish combo in the wetland. It would be good if you could periodically return to this thread and give us an update to your pond's progress. Other members can learn and benefit from your pond experiences.
