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Here is a long series of comments of your pond plan.

Welcome to our pond management advice forum. In all, there are lots of experienced pond owners here, numerous ones with SMB & HSB as primary predators. Hopefully they will add their experiences to your thread.

It sounds like you have a good start of the prey fish/food community.

My first question is for your goal,,, can you provide an idea of what you consider “large as possible SMB and HSB”.?? What makes you satisfied with a top end size for each?

Second question is do you plan to feed the fish good quality high protein fish food? And will you use appropriate sized pellets for the medium to large predators?

Large predators of 16”-18”+ will grow bigger in a small pond if they have larger pellets as in a bass pellet hand throw 1” size although with focused low predator density special pellets for predators would not be required.

IMO - you will be able to get the HSB to a significantly larger size (26"-28") compared to the SMB(20"-22") especially if you feed pellets. If you feed only small pellets to sunfishes, then the larger predators will not benefit very much from small size pellet feeding and they will mostly have to resort to feeding primarily on forage fish items for growth. This can be good for growing predators and reducing forage density, however IMO the pond will not be able to support as many large predators if their diet is not supplemented with large pellets. Appropriate sized pellets can grow more fish biomass and larger fish per acre of water – esp in smaller ponds when density is managed correctly.

A large 1” pellet was created to be close to the nutrition value of one 5”- 6” trout!. As your predators grow in years 4 to 6 they will need more appropriate sized food consumption to keep growing well. Remember that a 2 pound fish eats more than a 1 pound fish and a 5 pound fish eats more than a 2 pound fish to maintain body weight. For increased growth, it then requires even more food beyond just being healthy and standard weight which is another 10 lbs of fish to gain one pound. Food for producing growth is significantly more amount than the food amount for just a maintenance diet.

How many large predators and total pounds possible per acre are the main unknowns that have not be extensively studied. Basically in my opinion the fewer stocked per acre the more they have to eat and the better and larger they will grow. Your plan will be an atypically stocked pond. This pond plan project will be a learning curve for you and us if you keep us advised of your pond progress. Ponds with different basic soil fertilities due to higher soil alkalinities and nutrients result in higher amounts of plankton and are able to support a higher total fish biomass. Expect clear water (vis5-7ft) to produce around a total of 5-12 lbs/ac of predators and fertile - fed ponds can produce around 50-60 predator pounds per ac for natural diets. In reality, this is not a lot of large predators at 5 to 8 lbs each PER ACRE. See later.

If a pond owner is routinely adding forage fish this is a very short term benefit. There are good reasons for scarcity of proper amounts of forage fish and the reasons are probably due to too many predators and not enough adequate habitat. Lack of habitat and too many predators results in the forage fish are eaten too quickly. Good quality fisheries that maintain stable and optimum forage fish density have 20-25% of habitat on the entire shoreline distance that results in potential for high quality fisheries

I have initially one main concern where you use BG - HBG as a primary forage for SMB & HSB. As already noted, these two predators are not the best suited predator for consuming a can lid shaped sunfish. They will eat those smaller sized sunfishes, however they may not help achieve your goals of having numerous large sunfishes because the predators may not eat enough of the smaller sunfishes to reduce their total density.

Traditionally for having more large sunfishes, the pond usually requires having lots of smallish predators that eat lots of 1”to 3” sunfish. Lack of lots of or maybe numerous smallish predators in your 1/2 ac will likely not result in producing numerous large 'trophy-like' predators that you state is your goal. Plus The large predators will not grow well if they are primarily eating 2” sunfish. Generally a low density of smaller sunfish allows more remaining food reserves for growing the medium sunfishes to BIG bull sunfishes. If you don't mind having lots of small sunfishes and not an abundance of large sunfishes,,, then your stated goal of fewer large predators becomes IMO a more 'doable' possiblity. As predators reach the 5+ lb range they do not grow best when eating small sunfish. See next.

Predators always grow best when utilizing the optimum foraging theory or concept. This basically states that as predators grow they need to eat larger and larger prey so the predator does not waste unnecessary energy and food reserves chasing and eating too small forage fish. Thus a 6 lb bass does not grow well eating too small of fish such as FHM small shiners and 2”-3.5” sunfish.

Concern 2. Producing “large as possible BG/sunfish”.
IMO this could be difficult because the pond will need lots of small BG rather than large BG to adequately feed the larger predators. Plus the predators you are choosing are not well adapted nor suited for capturing and eating can lid sunfish. This means they have to eat small ones what have less body mass and nutrition per catch effort. Thus the largest SMB - HSB having to thrive mostly on sunfish, IMO the growth rates will not be optimum – growth maybe good but not optimum.

If the SMB-HSB are preferring the GSH as optimum forage this takes pressure off the sunfish density and they proliferate. Overabundant sunfish or shiner will prevent successful SMB fry production which could be good and bad. All this is a balancing act and a management challenge.

It is historically difficult to produce trophy BG and trophy predators (bass) in the same SMALL pond. Small pond volume, limited habitat, forage base complexity and importantly, predator feeding habits all combine to put limits on the entire system. INITIALLY,,,,, the pond could produce larger Sunfishes and good sized HSB & SMB because the INITIAL stockers will be adults that could continue to grow for several years. After several years as the old predators die and you are able to add some same size as the initially or new pond stocked young ‘adult’ predators,,, then IMO your plan becomes more of a possibility or reality. It evolves more of a put and take fishery as noted above by Sunil.

Regardless, I think one has to keep large amounts of a blend of appropriate sized small forage species always abundant for your chosen small mouth types of predators so they grow well every day each year. It can be a definite management challenge. Every day a predator does not FILL its belly above maintenance diet is a day it does not grow. It lives, but does not grow if it doesn’t get EXCESS food daily.

Over time - too many crowded small sunfishes as good predator food make it very difficult to grow large Sunfishes due to the lack of appropriate food items for the large sunfish because all the over abundant small sunfish eat and detract significantly the needed food reserves for producing large trophy sunfishes. The recent PBoss mag article noted that growing trophy BG requires a yearly DIVERSITY of natural invertebrate foods. Premium good items are often different for biggest sunfish compared to small and medium sunfish. Overcrowding of fish in a small pond significantly results in lower water quality, more fish stressors, and overall lower fish growth rates. At this point one is again balancing on a very sharp knife edge with this type of fishery that can easily and quickly CRASH.

EXPECT annual SMB spawning with probable recruitment especially since you have some adequate spawning habitat and a fair amount of added rocky/tree habitat to act as refuge for the SMB fry to get them off to a good start for recruitment. As mentioned,, overabundant and crowded forage fishes can significantly limit fry survival of all fishes. Something to always monitor and watch for. This can be a pro and a con. It all depends. You will only need one successful SMB nest to produce 40-80 fingerling SMB per year. The more young and growing smb in the pond, this will detract from the overall food source and the adult growth potential for how big the larger SMB will grow to. As food becomes limiting this limits growth rate. Often with too many predators / ac the adults 'hit the wall' for food reserves and their resulting growth rate is less than it could have been.



My general belief is the fewer predators there are per acre the larger top growth is that they achieve. Your plan is IMO a pretty good starting point of 50 adult predators per ac (25/0.5ac). However as they grow toward the larger sizes I would be prepared to remove some if their relative weights (RW) drop below 100%.
With lots of current food supply your stocked predators will initially grow fast.
Example 5 HSB at 22” will 6lb ea = 30lbs.
20 SMB at 16” should weigh 46lbs. + 30lbs HSB = 76lbs of predator 152 lbs total predator/ac.
20SMB at 18” should weigh 68lbs. + 30lbs HSB = 98lbs of predator at 196 lbs total predator /ac.
Note these total predator lbs /ac is significantly higher than my above reference for normal predator pounds per acre.
“.. fertile - fed ponds can produce around 50-60 predator pounds per ac.
As the predators get to sizes more than the examples above expect to have fewer of then in a 0.5 ac pond. The bigger they become expect to have fewer of them per acre.
It all depends on carrying capacity.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92440#Post92440


Be aware your fishery is above normal productive poundage levels and the ecological system is stressed and vulnerable.