Carp are really not an option since I prefer North American natives. I grew up catching chain pickerel so they have nostalgic value to me. Maybe grass pickerel? My ponds overflow to a local impaired creek, so I would like to stock fish that could help this creek out.
I think either pickerel would be fun and your earlier thoughts about combining them with pumpkinseed or RES sounds very reasonable to me.
The grass pickerel might be a little more difficult to balance. It does serve as apex predator in some biomes. If you were to go with it you should select a prey mix that would balance well with it. Some of the smaller lepomis might match well with it. For example, orange spotted sunfish or LES. With the grass pickerel I think you want prey that grows slowly after sexual maturity and that reach adulthood in their first year of life. A shorter life span of the prey might be a plus too. The grass pickerel would infrequently live past 5 years of age.
https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=383https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=388Some minnows to consider:
https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.aspx?SpeciesID=520https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=690There are probably others RAH that might be local and colorful additions. I'm not very familiar with your neck of the woods ... I wish I could be more help than this.
