We dug a new two acre pond in the north east. I had a whole stocking plan ready, but turns out there aren’t many places around here that stock fish (I’m near Toronto Ontario).

I am ultimately hoping to have Walleye and SMB as the top predators. I found a minnow supplier but all they supply is a “grab bag” from the local creeks, so I am a bit worried about what species we might get. I also did find a SMB hatchery, but they suggest the minnows wouldn’t last, even with structure and a year head start, so they suggested I just wait a year and then just do SMB next spring once the pond has naturalized further and frogs/insects/ etc can be the forage food. They also suggest that their SMB are pellet trained, and suggested I could even do the SMB this year if I fed them. The SMB are 1” long and they want $3 a piece, which seems pricey,

I’m not quite sure what to do. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there are any other sources of minnows around here, so I’m tempted to say “screw it”, and just add the minnows now and see what happens. But maybe I’ll end up regretting that. What do you all think?