A couple of thoughts.
I don't personally know anyone who has been successful with SMB in Texas. Heck, I don't recall anybody who has tried them other than Chris. That may be my ignorance/memory speaking. But, if Aaron did it in Phoenix, I guess it could be done. But, he had a well and aeration. Since he quit posting some time back I have no idea about his long range success.
Yes, harvesting a ton a fish in a year from a .10 acre BOW certainly requires expert handling. WOW! I figure a well was a very handy tool in that it may have provided significant water change capability or at the very least a source of clean, cool, highly oxygenated water as a refuge in a portion of the pond. Notwithstanding his success I will not have that tool at my disposal.
You guys have me marking the SMB from the list. I am just north of Dallas and I intend to be flexible with regard rain. A drought like we had a few years back would probably shut it down till the rains return. This is just part of the reason I am leaning towards harvest of 0-Year and 1-Year fish. If we get through the "rainy season" with insufficient rain, I'd probably forgo stocking the BOW with replacements in that year and double up harvest hoping my forage would survive it. With LMB there would be little I could do about them producing a new crop of YOY in such a year though ... something I might have to consider.
I doubt that HSB could control BG spawning in a small pond. Lusk says that only BG spawn enough to feed bass and only bass con control BG.
I agree. Don't know if you noticed but I will only try to maintain 10 or so adult male BG or LES. I don't actually want BG reproduction. I will rely on harvest to ensure the predator doesn't eradicate the prey. The minnow species won't support large LMB the way BG can. But they should be optimal up to the length the LMB would be harvested. I wouldn't let LMB stagnate at that size I would try to remove them while they remain well fed.
I am just unsure as to whether the concept would work with LMB as I would hope it would. In the ideal world 12 or so overwintered LMB would spawn in the spring and these YOY would be whittled down to around 60 to 70 >8" LMB by late September. Now when I say whittled and ideally, I mean I did nothing special to reduce the number of 0-year LMB surviving the summer. Hopefully, the over wintered 12 or so Year-1 LMB would eat them and YOY would eat their siblings to such a degree that only enough remain that they could grow to an average of 8" by late September. At this time I would try to harvest all Year-1 LMB and all but about 12 or so 0-year LMB which should gain sufficiently to spawn the next spring starting the cycle all over again.
This scenario (as imagined) would be able to produce about 25 lbs/year of LMB or about 125 lbs/acre-year. Since that is below the harvest goal, I could supplement that harvest with CC and tilapia. Tilapia would provide a forage benefit to the LMB and the LMB would help to reduce competition among tilapia.
Alternatively, I could completely control the predator recruits by stocking a predator that doesn't successfully spawn. The stocking would need to recur annually. In the case of HSB, I am concerned that they might inadequately control tilapia recruits which would impact the harvest size of original tilapia stockers I would hope to harvest in the fall. Success with HSB in part depends on their successful predation of tilapia YOY. I guess perhaps the comparison should be made between tilapia and BG. If BG are more prolific than tilapia, then perhaps the HSB might be sufficient. Vice versa .. perhaps not. Any thoughts on that?
My favorite small pond stocking scenario for hot and dry country is CC with HBG and feed.
This is an interesting and promising scenario. In your case do you use catfish feed? Also are the CC meeting your expectations with regard to the predation of the HBG recruits?
