JPSdad thanks so much for references, I had read the first one and have to say I learned a lot that I hadn't considered... Like they say education makes all the difference... I was looking for general ideas to take out of the studies rather than the specifics and I think after a careful review some of my previous thoughts may change...
For instance I thought I needed to keep the FHM population strong to keep up the growth rate, of the gills or crappie or whatever I end up going with, but if I understood his point correctly, the FHM are to be used as a starter fish base to feed the other fish until they can start to eat their own young. So what I'd like to achieve is a pond with good sized fish for fun fishing, and large enough numbers so I can catch a bunch if I want to. So this is how I think I can achieve it... Start with FHM and BG fingerlings figure that the next spring added fingerling lmb and about 6 female CC. I really like to catch crappie, I'd like to have them in my pond as well, but I don't know how they play with bluegill. And I know they overpopulate really fast without something to thin them out. Would the LMB that I mentioned planning for, would they keep crappie numbers in control? Also would they run the bluegill out? I'd like to have both, but realize sometimes that just isn't possible. If crappie don't fit then I'll try the gill/bass/cc mix to follow the fhm starter...
I think I will learn how to fertilize my pond. Since the study was 80 years ago, have they learned a better mix? Do they do water samplings to see what you really need? I'm not doing this for max commercial production, but liked the benefits of keeping the pond weeds down. One concern i had was, I understand one of the big environmental concerns lately is too much fertilizer in the water. How does this play into the need for it to raise more fish per acre? I thought it was very interesting how the fish mixes ended up helping each other out... A mix is always for fun for kids to catch.... and me...
