I'm wondering what people's opinions are on under stocking a lake and how far you could push it and maybe still yield a decent result If you are trying to make a bluegill and LMB fishery? My initial thoughts are that if you stuck with the same ratio's of BG to LMB but stocked them at only 1/10 the normal rate, the bluegill would probably disperse around the pond making it difficult for the bass to find them. So in that sense the bass population may suffer until the bluegills reproduce enough to become a decent food source. In this scenario both the bass and bluegill would need to be put in at the same time and the goals would be to catch eating size bass in 3 years.

I've got a friend that has a 5,000+ acre ranch that has tons of ponds and lakes. Probably in the range of 50-60 different tanks between 1 to 5 acres in size. Only two of the tanks have been stocked with fish. His family does not hunt or fish however everyone else in our friend group does and are trying to encourage him to toss a few fish into these lakes so that we can come up and fish the place once a year. There wouldn't be any management to speak of, just a place to go up and harvest fish once a year. The ranch is in north Texas near Oklahoma. They have recently cleaned out several of their tanks, so we would likely focus on those since we know there is no existing fish population in them. I believe these are all rain water fed and shouldn't have an upstream population of fish that can find their way in.

Thanks,

David