I have been reading some of the other posts (which contained links to other previous posts), so now I have some questions. First things first:
Pond -- unstocked 3/4 acre, south of HOU, 12 ft max depth, 7 ft avg depth, clay bottom, gravel spawn areas, hills, rock piles, tree islands already in place, aerated (single 9" diffuser).

Goals -- right now I have two young kids (10/12 yrs) who like to fish, but obviously this pond can not be my main time user for a few more years. Would like to have quality fish that they can catch and release, and bring friends over on weekends for something to do. I would like to have some kind of large (5-6 lbs is fine by me) predator type fish to go after occasionally on a quiet evening (without waiting 2 hrs for strike).

So here is my concern after reading the other posts. I recently posted the question "too many fish to start with??", and got great suggestions on proper ratios/types to stock -- THANKS!! However, in that post it was not mentioned about the potential hook shyness and lack of biting by LMB, plus stunted growth possibilities. I see that some of yall are using HSB as your predator. I grew up chasing LMB around TX, and my pond certainly looks like many of the places I caught them. However, the only places we caught HSB was in 30-40 ft of water chasing shad near the dam (Lake Whitney, Ray Hubbard), so I was not aware that they would make a good fish for 12 ft pond.

Do yall feel that HSB (75 2-3") stocked at the same time as 500 2-3" CNBG, 100 2-3" RES and 10 lbs FHM would make a "fun" pond for a while, or replace the HSB with 50 Norhtern LMB (more active) and 25 F1 LMB (larger size) in summer 2008. I plan to feed with fish farm hi protien food for remainder of this year, then slowly ween onto game fish chow next year.

My other question would be how do you ever convert from HSB to LMB or LMB to HSB after one of them is established, so that the new fish type does not become the prey?

Any thoughts on using golden shiners instead of FHM ?

Thanks,

Darryl