I’ve done some reading and have seen some mixed reviews of adding adult or sub adult smb to my pond. There are currently lmb, native bg, cc and soon to be fatheads. I have seriously diminished the lmb over the past year. I have access to some smb in the 10 a 12” range. My plan was to add a few each year as a bonus species recognizing that they are not likely to breed or recruit. wondering if anyone has had any success with this. My pond is about an acre and fairly deep (16’+) and the bottom is all shale. I do not currently have any crayfish. I’d appreciate your thoughts or experience with this kind of thing.

Very doable, I have added them in the 8 to 10" size in a LMB heavy pond.

I have had success introducing them into my main 3 acre pond where LMB were already established.

Here is a Dedicated to RES thread about a new pond build that was dedicated to raising only RES (page two in the thread is where consideration of stocking the SMB started). But a year or so into the project, based on some positive experiences Shorty and NEDOC have had with RES and SMB combinations, I added SMB as fingerlings. The fingerlings did great and in this pond without competition from LMB and reproduced to the point I had a lot more SMB than I needed in this one acre pond.

So I transferred a bunch as 6" fingerlings into a sediment pond and forage pond to raise up big enough so my LMB in the main 3 acre pond could not eat them then at 9-12" transfered to the main pond. I also transferred some 9-12" directly from the RES one acre pond into the 3 acre main pond. I'm probably around a total of 50 fish transferred to date to the main pond over the last two years.

The SMB take to pelleted feed easily (I do feed both ponds) and grow quickly. We now catch SMB in the main pond along with the LMB that were in there all along. So I will tell you that stocking 9"+ SMB in a pond with already established LMB has worked very well for me. A friend caught one out of the main pond that was just over 4#, so I would say they are doing just fine.

I had another big spawn SMB this year in the RES/SMB pond and am thinking about transferring a bunch more to my sons one acre pond later this fall. They are a fun fish to catch.

Adding small adult SMB into a pond with LMB can be done. As you realize do not expect them to recruit any additional smallies. Stocked SMB should survive well if there is ample food available.

Thanks for the input. I just released the first five in my lower pond today. They looked much happier in the pond than they did in my transport bucket.

They should do fine, I have a few in mine as well. They tend to live out deep around the brush I have placed aside from in the early spring I have never caught one up shallow.