Right at a 1/3 of the pond is 12'+ deep & with a strong spring, I'm thinking/hoping YP will do well, along with the SMB. I toyed briefly with the idea of a couple WE as a bonus fish, but not sure I want to tie up that much biomass in a little pond for as long as it would take to grow them to table size. Besides, SMB are way fun to catch & durn tasty in their own right.
I intend to hand feed once per day & aerate (method TBD) & would like to be able to harvest ~100 lbs of fish per year. I'm positive I'll have a ton of questions on the way. Wife specifically wants "bluegills" for table fare, but I suspect the first time she tries YP, she'll be wanting them to become a larger proportion of the pond's population. Certainly hoping they'll thrive & guess we'll see in a year or two if my little experiment works out. Augie's successes so far have me hopeful.
I've spent hours upon hours here, digging through old threads & trying to educate myself the best I can & very much appreciate the input & advice from the pros & smart folks on here.
I do intend to keep a journal or log of the pond's progress & keep y'all posted. If nothing else, it'll provide some good data points for an atypical stocking plan for the area. I do think it's kinda fun that a bunch of us MO guys are going the HBG/RES/YP/SMB route.
