I think if I were in the same position ... I would be reluctant to pull the trigger on GSHD. My worry of doing so would be that there are too many small bass. This from Bill Cody:
As a general rule for every bass harvested it leaves behind in the pond 3-8 pounds of panfish that will not be eaten by the bass that was removed.
My sense is that you have lots of forage but still too many LMB mouths. What if you held a tournament or something like that? Squeezed 4 boats with 8 anglers in that 8 acre pond and took every LMB under 14" out of the pond. That might get you to a sweeter spot for introducing GSHD. But even if you didn't add any GSHD, this would help your bigger bass profoundly by reducing competition.
I recall that you had a horrible time getting an electro-survey to harvest LMB and was disappointed in the results. You could probably earn some feed money doing a tournament. Charge $15 for a lease 1/2 day and then let them do what they want for entry and prizes. 8 anglers ... $120 for feed instead of $1000 out for electro-fishing.
OK so one pound of LMB harvest leaves behind 3-8 lbs of panfish ... BUT ... these surviving panfish can grow and will grow if they survive to grow a little longer. So the effect is to give the bigger bass more than 3 to 8 lbs of panfish. Another way of looking at this is that the mean weight of prey is ~ 1% of the LMB. This means that each pound of LMB harvested leaves 300 to 800 prey fish to grow for consumption by other bass (among which are your larger ones). IMHO, there is nothing you can do or add or spend that will have such a profound effect.
