I believe that I can back up several of the very good comments made by Bill Cody.
I live in SD, and walleyes are king up here. I really like to use smallmouth bass (for fun fishing) or largemouth bass (primarily as a good predator to create quality panfish opportunities) for our small impoundment management because both bass species will naturally reproduce (no more stocking).
However, because of the popularity of walleyes, landowners constantly ask for walleyes. Over the past 6-7 years, we have managed a 20 acre pond for a local landowner using walleye and yellow perch. Let me pass on our experiences, including some mistakes.
I was extremely worried about the yellow perch overpopulating and stunting in the pond. So, I'm afraid that we overdid the walleye stocking densities. We stocked for three years at 100/acre of advanced fingerlings. In years one and two, we used those more easily obtained 2-inch fingerlings. In the third year, we went to 6-8 inch fall fingerlings to avoid them being eaten. Well, we overdid the walleye density. The walleyes grew quite slowly, and the landowner was a little disappointed in us "professional fishery biologists." He wanted big walleyes and lots of them, which may not be especially feasible in small waters with a limited number of fish species (i.e., prey items). We actually had to do some thinning of the small walleyes just to get their growth rates up.
On the positive side, the intense walleye predation really thinned the yellow perch reproduction. As a result, we had phenomenal growth on the surviving yellow perch. The initial year class grew quickly, with quite a few even reaching 13-14 inches!! Truly amazing fish. Now that the fish community is more established, we don't see those trophies very often any more. We're primarily producing 10-12 inch perch, which are nice fish anywhere.
We started a second pond for this same landowner, and we are trying to keep the walleye densities to a lower level. I'll see how this goes. However, just as Bill said, this is VERY intensive management, with us adding, removing, netting, electrofishing walleyes. Such management strategies should not be undertaken unless people are really willing and able to pay close attention.
Finally, I am not very confident about walleye reproducing in small impoundments. I've learned never to say never. However, even when we see reproduction, it seems very limited, and I believe it would unlikely support sufficient future walleye density to control the reproductive potential of the perch. So, I tell interested pondowners to plan on stocking walleyes, and probably using 6-8 inch walleyes.
Hope this helps!
Dave Willis
