Good morning, Pondenvy. Big Pond is certainly right -- we have many disucssions along these lines on this forum.
I've been on this web site for a couple of years now, and the biggest lesson I have learned is just how much interest there is in diversity of pond fishes!
When I started here, I sort of preached the same thing that you hear from most fishery professionals and most university extension programs. In the past, we really tried to keep things simple. Thus, many, many recommendations were as simple as the largemouth bass-bluegill combination. The bass is the predator, and the multiple-spawning bluegill is both a good prey species as well as a good food fish. It works well, and it's pretty safe under most conditions.
However, I do believe you can have a more diverse pond fish community. I'm not sure where you are in Iowa. However, if you have a 5-acre pond with a 20% rim of submergent aquatic plants during midsummer, and water transparency is at least 15-18 inches for a good part of the year, then something like the following may work. I'd suggest you establish the largemouth bass as your primary predator. Keep them in the crowded state that is so commonly discussed in so many threads here on the Pond Boss forum. Crowded largemouth bass can keep both bluegills and yellow perch in check in your pond. Also, crowded bass will create a low density black bullhead population (they'll really thin the schools of small bullheads after spawning each year), but you'll catch some 12 inch and longer bullheads. Expect to see an honest 2 pounder. Everyone in the North Country wants walleyes. In fact, I just wrote an article on use of walleyes in ponds in the January/February 2005 issue of Pond Boss magazine. Without repeating all of that information here, let me say that you'd be better off to have a secondary or low-abundance population of walleyes to sort of be a bonus fish in your pond. That may fulfill your wishes.
When it comes to diversity, there is another side of the coin. Because much of this is relatively new and outside the scope of traditional (simple) management recommendations, there are differences of opinion. For example, one of the best pondmeisters on this forum is NOT a fan of yellow perch in ponds, especially in very small ponds. His caution comes from practical, personal experience.
I suspect some of the reason for these different opinions is due to a simple fact: what works in one place under one set of pond conditions will not necessarily work in other places or under different pond conditions. Ponds can be big or small, clear or muddy, deep or shallow, have submergent aquatic plants or not, be warm or cold, thermally stratify or not, etc., etc. So, experimenting with diversity is a little dangerous. What I've found, however, is that a pretty good number of folks here are willing to take a few risks, realizing that it might require some "fixing" in the future. :-) You can get lots of input on your thoughts by interacting with folks here before you take the plunge.
Dave
