I've decided to be patient and wait to stock SMB in the Fall of 2015 in order to give the forage base of the pond plenty of time to establish. Also I'm thinking of waiting until May of 2015 to stock YP. Would it be a good idea to go ahead and stock RES this spring or should I wait on these as well? I don't want to take any chance of the RES putting pressure on the forage fish so that's why I'm asking as I'm not sure if they will...

The forage I plan to stock can now be in smaller numbers so this will save me money, but I want to maximize this opportunity to establish a very strong forage base for the bass. So I would appreciate some help on numbers to stock give this new time line of stocking SMB later than originally planned.

The forage I'm planning to stock is FH,GSH, and calico crayfish. If someone could help me establish a firm number of each species to stock in my 3 ac I would appreciate it. I'm stocking LCS and WKF as well, but these will be stocked at a much lower rate this spring as they are very expensive fish.

I don't think its really necessary to stock 100# of FH or 50# of GSH given I have basically 2 full spawning seasons to get ahead of the game, but I don't want to cut corners either. I want all 3 of these species to be very strong by the time I stock SMB.

Any other suggestions of forage fish to try while I have this opportunity? I realize that BNM and SFM may not survive predation but I'm tempted to stock a few any way to give it a shot.

I appreciate any ones help on this!