The fingerling 1"-3" YP - SMB will not IMO stay on feed. They are too small, with too short of feed training habituation and when added to the pond will go "off feed" to utilize all the abundant natural foods. It is instinct overpowering pellet training. If you are lucky some will later resort to eating pellets, but I think the number will be few 10%-20%. I hope I am wrong.
Crayfish, if you can create good habitat for their long term survival, will be a better forage item than grass shrimp in your planned fishery. With good habitat, numerous other invertebrates will fill the forage item gap in the lack of grass shrimp.
If you want a strong YP population, I would stock more YP and at 2 to 3 size classes (3-5 YP for every SMB). A good option is to stock the SMB after the YP have spawned the first time. This way the SMB eat YP and other items allowing the other food items to increase and better establish. In good conditions SMB can over power the numbers of recruitment YP resulting in low numbers of recruited YP after the initial stocker YP are harvested or naturally die outin years 5-9.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 07/15/1304:15 PM.
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