Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Planning New Pond in Northern Waters

I am expecting to have a 1-1/4 acre pond by summer and thinking about a stocking plan, and could use some advice/insight. My wife wants primarily a sunset/water lilly pond and I am hoping for a place my 7 grandchildren, six of them boys, can fish and swim. We are not looking for trophy fish but would like some good eating.

This is a somewhat northern pond and we typically get 10-15 below and 7-12” of ice on the small lakes near us but the water will probably be too warm for trout as we will only be 9-10’ deep. My thoughts are to stock:

this summer GS, Pumpkin seed, YP
next spring SMB

Are there prior posts on this exact combination? I know that shiners are nest raiders and will eventually get too large for either the YP or the SMB to eat. I hope this will help keep the pond from getting overcrowded with large preditors. The PS are easy to catch and will be great for young beginners, as well as the benefit of eating snails and such. I plan on having spawning beds for the PS and SMB and the lilies plus eel grass, if we can get it to transplant, will be there for GS and YP.

I would also like advice on adding paper shell crayfish; pluses or minuses in northern waters.

I plan to harvest as needed, and especially YP and SMB for dinner, but do not want this pond to require a lot of management. I also plan to aerate at some pont.

Your advice, previous posts, etc. are appreciated.

If you have decent shoreline woody cover in a back area of the pond the FHM might be able to maintain a resident minimal population. Get eelgrass established first before adding papershell crayfish in years 2 or 3. Add SMB fingerlings after the 1st YP spawn.
Use rocky / broken construction waste concrete sizeable lengthy areas preferably downwind shores for papershell habitat. PM me for some beneficial eelgrass seed plants. I would allow the SMB to become established with one spawn before adding the PS to minimize their overpopulation. IMO first stocking of PS could be mature sizes of 4"-5" and around 20-50 of them should get the population started with their first spawn. Do you plan to get the PS from a fish farm or wild caught? If you get eelgrass established / planted at 1st pond filling, I would check out some local streams for trapping and transplanting some bluntnose minnows(BNM) which should be a very common creek species in NY. BNM are easy to catch in bread baited drab colored Gee minnow traps. The 3 main small fish to definitely avoid in creek minnow transfer are carp, bullheads, green sunfish and any sunfish. Very few stream shiners will spawn in your pond except goldens, spotfins and satinfins. Spotfins & satinfin are sparse in the FingerLks streams and good to have in the pond if you trap some.. Creek chubs will grow big and eat fish fry in your pond but will not spawn. I don't think any of the chubs or dace in the Finger Lk area will spawn in your pond; although never a problem if they do and will serve as diversifying the forage. Trench, Rudd and Bitterling do not occur in FingerLK area so no problem with them. .

see this for locations of BNM in NY.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/94469.html

See this good distribution map for the minnows of NY.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/85663.html