Thank you all for the input.

Esshup, that is our stocking plan for bass, "small" bass we catch in neighboring ponds will go in ours, at least until we get the small bluegill under control. I'm not sure how many we should strive for though. I caught one small LM the other evening on a popper that might have been 12" and so fat he looked like he was going to pop. 2-3 times in the last few weeks I've had a bream hooked up that was grabbed by a bass while playing it....both let go but it was a wild few minutes on a 2wt fly rod. Incidentally both bream were around 5". I do want to mix in some HBG simply to find out if they are indeed more aggressive as some say. I REALLY appreciate the confirmation that the Cutrine+ will help prevent recurring growth after manual removal. That is going to be our main plan of attack for now to see what effect we can make immediately/short term. After the Cutrine we will be budgeting for a few grass carp just to see if we can keep it under control with predation.

John, I'm not a fan of chemicals either but we are at the point of an epidemic in my opinion and I think for the immediate future I need to do something drastic to get the weeds under control. Maybe the GC will help keep it under control.

As far as Talapia, they are illegal to stock in ponds/lakes in GA. You must have a special permit and very controlled conditions to keep them in anything other than an aquarium, and then even then you are not allowed to keep them in a pond/lake, especially with an outflowing water source. We also see a couple of weeks per year with lows in the low teens and sometimes less. Not as cold as you guys in IN but cold enough for a southern boy. Even though the pond is spring fed, it usually gets a thin crust of ice on a regular basis during the winter so even legalities aside, they would have a very short growing period here.

Kelly, I am going to risk a few GC after we make some progress with manual removal just to see if they will help. My hope is the Curtrine+ will help minimize re-growth and the areas that we may miss with either method will be eliminated by the GC and overall new growth will be controlled, or at least minimized, by their appetites. There's not much else growing in there now besides FA and Chara so they will either resort to eating it or we'll have expensive fertilizer after they float.

Again, thanks for the great input guys, every little bit helps steer me towards a better decision.