There have been great threads here about people who had wall to wall shiners and FHM. Numbers in the 10s of thousands, you would be hard pressed to buy and stock that many. Then one season of active predators (whether that be RES, bass or even perch) and not a FHM to be seen.
With larger bass the go to forage in southern ponds seems to be young CNBG so getting several spawns in is really going to help the pocket book. Tilapia are very popular forage fish for the bass and again getting a head start on natural reproduction is going to save money rather than buying and trucking them in every year.
Some threads discuss gizzard shad, etc you can read those and see if they apply to you or not.
The other Texans will have much more real life southern pond experience. Be sure to read everything in the archives by the late George Glazener as well as he gave great insights into HSB in ponds your size.
Up north I gave the FHM and GSH a year all by themselves. The GSH seem to be well established now after our 3rd summer and we have some nice plumping adults 7" or more and hopefully lots of them will start pumping out the eggs. The 2nd summer I put in a small amount of RES and LES and a few crayfish. The 3rd summer I put in a few perch. They must have put a real hurt on the FHM as I don't see any anymore. I was sure the FHM had 2 summers to spawn but no matter the head start, they seem to be gone.
There is no way to add them back in now unless I had a separate smaller forage pond to raise them in and then stock them as 'snacks' for the fish.
I can't imagine how long it takes to get forage built up in a 2+acre pond but with your warmer water and longer seasons for spawning you should be able to see several spawns for FHM and CNBG. Tilapia as well may have more than one opportunity to add to their numbers.
To me although waiting is hard (I still don't have predators in my pond), it is very satisfying to know that for 2 years the fish were having a free for all in eating and mating without any fear for their lives and the only limit in their numbers was the carrying capacity of the food chain in their surroundings.
I also was amazed at how fast the freshwater shrimp (we used P.K. shrimp the cold water variety) can multiply. In a single season I went from about 100 shrimp to the bottom crawling with them when walking around the pond at night using a flashlight.
