Great advice so far. The 5 ac pond in its current condition grows quite a few fish, there are just not very many larger than 15". Maximizing production with liming is maybe not your best approach for your stated goals - "My goal is to have a pond that I can take the grandkids fishing and enjoy catching some decent sized bass." Even catching numerous BG can also be lots of constant active fun for kids and adults.
The pond in its current condition can achieve your goals as it has worked for Bocomo and many others. Maximizing production (liming) will make it more labor intensive to achieve your goals by later causing more recruited small bass that should be removed. Having more fish using increased fertility is not necessarily better as jpsdad already noted a couple times above. Your pellet feeding plan is a form or increased fertility without liming. Removing smaller predator bass allows for more BG to survive & reproduce feed remaining bass. I have calculated and estimated that EACH 10"-12" bass can eat around 250 small 2.5" to 3" BG per year. Follow closely the advice provided here so far and your pond will improve toward your goals; although it may take a few years as it did for Bocomo. Removing 20 LMB per acre for 5 acres (100annually from 5 ac) of water for several years takes quite a bit of time and effort. 10"-13" bass are basically one pounders so 100 smaller bass essentially weigh around 100lbs. Removing 100 smaller bass results in an extra 25000 more BG in your 5 acres. 25,000 added BG is 5 times more of extra BG than your pond management consultant recommended above that he suggested you buy and add. Please keep us advised as to your progress.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/13/20 08:57 PM.
