Good morning, Josh.
I want to try and word this carefully: are you really set on having northern pike in your pond?? In my opinion, they are not the best fish for pond management.
Here are my two primary concern. In most cases, a pond can support perhaps 10 pounds per acre of northern pike. So, I suspect that at most, your pond can support 40 pounds of pike. Do you want those as four 10 pound pike, or eight 5 pound pike?? See my point? That's not very many fish in a pond, either for catching or for eating.
My second concern is that northern pike are "eating machines." Did you plan to include a prey species for them to eat? Let's say you decide on yellow perch. What you can expect is a low density population of small perch. They pike will crop off everything that reaches 6 inches or more. You certainly will not have any numbers or sizes of panfish to harvest and eat from your pond.
Is it possible that you already know this, and have thought it through?? If so, pardon me. Pike can have a place in some pond management strategies. If not, then hopefully I at least gave you a little food for thought. I don't mean to be so negative, but I thought you might need to know this information.
Dave
