NEOHIO - I THINK all your local hatcheries are using the standard BG (forage) stocking recommendations for Ohio, IN, PA climate. These stocking densities were/are strongly promoted by DNR & University Extension Services and adopted by most northern fish farms.

jpsdad has good alternate stocking options. As he says stock to produce what goals YOU want to happen in the first several years. After that the resulting fishery is how you manage it.

The current higher stocking numbers suggested here of 2000-3000 BG/ac were developed in more southern pond waters to grow double digit LMB or fast growing trophy predators. NOTE the associated predator stocking densities were also reduced from traditional 100/ac to around 50/ac. This high panfish: lower predator stocking ratio densities philosophy or concept does make sense to me if one wants to grow bigger predators FASTER.

Also I think these high stocking panfish densities are based on using highly productive ponds where fertilization and/or ample pellet feeding occurs. Something has to feed these high fish densities. If biggest predators faster are not your goal then stock the lower standard DNR / Univ densities. The more forage fish available the faster and bigger your predators will grow before their growth rate "hits the wall" due to a forage fish shortage.

Note IMO when the higher BG numbers are used, then I question if the pond is also or will it be producing trophy class panfish. Normally with real high densities of panfishes are present,,,, they tend to be too dense to produce really large panfish types.

The other important factor in all trophy fish production is proper fish management, monitoring, adjustment and harvest. Producing a high quality fishery for the long term takes lots of wise fishery management effort. Producing big fish from the original stocking I believe is relatively easy. The really hard thing to do is maintain the high quality big fish populations for the long term of 8-20 years.

The older stocking numbers of BG for southern waters was around 1000/ac. The relatively recent higher stocking densities of panfish was found to produce faster growing bigger predators in southern climate. I personally have not read, heard about or witnessed how well this stocking philosophy performs in north central USA.