Tons of great information. I figure I might as well add in that the purpose of the pond is supposed to be a high catch rate LMB pond. I won't be angry at catching large BGs either and I have small kids so they get excited no matter what they catch. My pond is 6' full now and unfortunately the rain outlook isn't looking super great for filling up too much more (12' once full) but I'm hoping to add another couple of feet before our dryer season arrives. I also know that if we go into severe drought conditions, I can lose around 5-6' of water by the end of the summer. So, I could lose whatever I stock now, however it still seems like a good opportunity to potentially grow a good forage base and worth the risk. I just didn't want to spend money to put in FHM if the bluegill were going to eat them all before I even put a bass in the pond. Sounds like there is some mixed feelings on what will happen and I'm going to take the risk and do it. We tossed a few crawfish in the pond yesterday and you can already see a few small water bugs in there. I think I may pull back on what I was going to stock with my BG, this way there are tons of other creatures for them to eat and then hopefully they lay off the FHMs and let them reproduce. I'll also have a fish feeder or two going.

After reading everything though I do have two big questions, do the bass fingerlings not eat the BG fry? Just seems like they would chow down on those if they were in heavy abundance.

Second question is at what temperature do the FHMs stop reproducing and how deep will they go? Right now the surface temp of the water is already pretty darn hot.