Thanks Snipe, TJ, Eric! I thought this type of pond would be more laid-back and simpler to manage than the more typical trophy fish pond we talk about on here (as long as the objective isn't pushing it to the absolute max for commercial food fish production, which is what Eric noted in his comment about aquaculture), and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something substantial. You've all already added good color to my understanding. I wouldn't have thought about harvesting males heavily, though now I see how that makes sense.
Eric, you're right that I'm not thinking of going full-throttle towards aquaculture (my fault, as I shouldn't have put "Max" in the title). I arrived to thinking about this in the context of the family pond, in the event that I'm not around enough to push it appropriately to develop trophies, and if the others are only willing to devote enough time to warrant a slightly more casual pond management plan.
Bill, this is only theoretical for now; I'm mostly just trying to make sure I understand the overall system and get a fuller picture of fisheries biology, e.g., the different directions I could potentially take a pond and what is likely to happen if I pull certain levers (or even what all the available levers/tools are).
Do you plan to feed pellets?
Do you plan to keep weeds to a minimum?
How many YP in your 1 ac do you plan or desire to harvest each year?
I'll answer your questions with what I think the "right" answers are: Yes, this would be with moderate-heavy pellet feeding, keeping weeds to a minimum (to allow easier predation on the smaller YP by any WE/SMB to limit numbers and increase the remaining ones' growth; in this case pellets are probably necessary because the minimal weeds would probably also mean the minnow/shiner forage base would also be heavily eaten, so they likely wouldn't sustain a large enough thriving population in the absence of weeds). My unexperienced WAG for a reasonable annual harvest would be about 125-150 perch/acre in the 8"+ range (so not pushing the pond to the extreme as in an aquaculture operation).
Any comments on how those 3 variables (amount of feeding, amount of weeds, and harvest numbers) interact would be welcome. Also, pointing out cases where I have no idea what I'm talking about is always welcome too.
