It took an hour, but I read the long Georgia Giant thread. Whew! There's some long time angst and emotion, eh?
Here's what I think about Meadowlark's experiment.
First, the goals appear to be to judge growth rates to water chemistry to feeding in Meadowlark's southeast Texas pond. Is that the thesis? If not, my opinion is to concisely define the goals of the experiment.
Then, collect the data to accomplish the thesis, and report that data from time to time.
Here's what I think should happen. You have several knowns going in. You know water chemistry, temperatures, fish sizes and fish numbers. Track lengths and weights of fish via random sampling as well as angling. Keep accurate records of feeding, daily if possible, to compare seasonal feed conversion ratios and feeding rates. Track temperature weekly, if possible. Track dynamics of the population, documenting spawns of stocked fish, and compare ratios of fish during the year, via seine sampling. Then, as you post facts, people can't argue with you, as long as you use good scientific protocol. Be sure to keep notes on facts other than empirical data. Remember, floods, droughts, water turkeys and other natural phenomenon can skew your results, if you only think about pure science. After your experiment, you should be able to offer a convincing argument to those who wish to duplicate what you did.
For example, you may find your fish grow phenomenally well, are dominant fish, but can't survive the annual pelican migration. That's valuable.
You may see these fish provide fast results, and are a great opportunity for fast-food pond managers, who want quality quickly.
You may see the stocking plan was great in theory, but needs to be tweaked from time to time. That's where I see the most value from what you are doing.
