Ken,

I would be very careful about adding panfish of any kind. They are going to want to overpopulate. Aside from the potential of decimating a minnow population, they will also compete with trout. I would like to share some thoughts. I have given some consideration to having a seasonal trout pond in the south. Such would have abundant populations of small forage to include minnows at the time of stocking each Fall. Here I would expect complete mortality of Trout by May. But some benefits are that forage always can replenish and I just prefer fishing in the cold months. Down here I have given consideration to having a limited summer crop of MOZ TP or perhaps combining with limited CC. For me this would be an attractive option but there is the risk of CC recruitment and a bunch of stunted CC.

Your options will be limited for a fish that doesn't reproduce where numbers can be held in check. I don't know how big your pond is ... but just another thought. Keo Fish Farms in Arkansas has shipped HSB to a few members. The cost each is very affordable and shipping roughly doubles the cost. Seems like they ship when the count is around 400 to the pound where the cost for the HSB is around $80 and the shipping also at least that amount overnight. They have to limit the weight of fingerlings to 1 lb so it depends on the size of the fingerlings when shipped. Don't know if they can ship to NY but you could inquire and if so they will let you know. They will also let you know if you need any permits. So in a hypothetical 1 acre maybe 400 the first year and 800 in subsequent years could maintain a population. There will probably be more mortality of small fingerlings but eventually you should get a balance between stocking, mortality, and harvest. If they were overeating the food chain you could just stop stocking and eventually they would die out. Harvesting could speed up the process. Problems are that the larger HSB would be predators of small trout (if you are stocking them small). So heavy planned harvest of fish >10" and stocking trout of a minimum 8" length may work. Where you would be removing > 10 " HSB they would be very panfish-like and could achieve that length by the end of the second summer. One thing I can tell you is that you would never have to drain the pond and start from scratch to get rid of them. They will not reproduce so as you harvest you would be reducing the population without new ones persistently on the conveyor belt due to spawning.

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers