hey everyone.. so i followed the advice on here and read Raising trophy bass and learned a lot from the book...
I have a 2.4 acre Pond thats full of standing timber and structure and is a consistant 12 ft deep. I also added bucket trees and dropped trees along the edge into the water. Water samples showed no nitrites no nitrates ph of 8.3 alkalinity of 125 ppm Back in april I stocked 1750 bluegill and 500 redear and 12# of fatheads minnows.

The pond is in west central illinois

My questions are
1. How long should i wait to stock bass fingerlings ( I can be patient)
2. Should I do pure northern in that climate or f1 or a mix of northern and florida.
3. Can anyone recommend a fish farm that is known for good trophy genetics that overnights fish.

Thank you -

What size were the fish that you stocked?

Are you sure that there were no fish in the pond before you stocked the BG/RES/FHM? What methods were used to determine the fish population?

For a pond that size, with those goals, that is a very light stocking for forage fish. Greg Grimes has had great success in raising large LMB fast, but he's stocking 3,000 BG/RES per surface acre or a bit more than that, and only stocking 50 LMB per surface acre.

Are there fish in the 3/4 ac pond?

hey 99% sure there were no fish in the pond we fished it several times ice fished it and just generally watched it. no evidence of beds, surfacing. ( sorry if this is not as good of an answer as you were hoping for). I did see a bunch of otters there when i first bought the property..:(

the 3/4 acre pond i have i didnt stock yet because I want to get the duckweed under control first.

the fish were 1-2 inches that i stocked and as for the ratios i just took the info from the raising trophy bass book and went with that seeing how everyone spoke so highly of it?!

Advice on LMB stocking in northern ponds often suggests stocking them before BG to avoid BG overpopulation. See some of the state DNR manuals for example and several threads here. Not saying I agree with that but it does make for a dilemma on which way to go.

For example

Stocking bass-bluegill ponds -- http://extension.psu.edu/publications/uh137/view
When small bass and bluegills of the same age were stocked simultaneously in Alabama, balanced populations always resulted. When this stocking strategy was followed in the North, the result nearly always was a stunted bluegill population and a bass population unable to spawn successfully. Research at Cornell University showed that to achieve successful bass-bluegill populations in northern states, the initial stocking must consist of bass that are at least 1 year older than the bluegills. This can be achieved by stocking yearling bass 1 year ahead of yearling bluegills or combining 2-year-old bass (over 6 inches) with yearling bluegills less than 2 inches long. Researchers currently believe that the proper number of fingerling fish to stock is 100 bass and 200 to 500 bluegills per surface acre. This stocking strategy has been shown to be successful in Pennsylvania ponds.