I have a 3/4 acre pond in my backyard with bass and want to add bream. I was raised in MISS/ALA fishing and we had bigger bream than I catch at Toledo Bend or Livingston What would be a good Bream to stock hoping for a good size

Buy some adult Coppernose bluegill. If you don’t stock bigger fish they will be a snack for the Bass before they can reproduce and do you no good. Put a few redears in there too. From the lakes you listed the fish farm in Tyler is probably the closest.

If you have bass with no bluegill they are probably stunted and you’ll need to catch and kill a bunch of them.

Yup. About half and half coppernose and redears in my opinion. BTW, T-Bend has some of the biggest sunfish in the country if you know where to find them.

I would say Coppernose Bluegill and Redear. Like mentioned above I would stock adult. A member of the forum that goes by Meadowlark is a pond management professional. He if he replies he will give the right information for sure.

Thanks I will try to stock both

Yep, as mentioned Coppernose is a good all-around choice. Hybrid bluegills can be a good choice in small ponds in which people aren't really interested in bass except as a predator.

Depending on where you are located, Tyler Fish Farms is a great source of Florida strain copperrnose and they include I think 15% or so red ears in the order for coppernose. They have a drive up business on certain days.

Also depending on your pond, you may need to stock larger sizes to help reduce predation from the bass initially.

By the way, Livingston sucks big time for nice bream but Toledo Bend is excellent... and Conroe is also excellent for big 'gills.

I had the good fortune to grow up on a ranch that had several ponds of varying size. These guys mention red ears and whatever you choose I would make the redear a part of the stocking regardless of your desire to catch that particular species. They are snail eaters and many marine parasites have a first stage life cycle in mollusks like snails. The redear helps control parasites by controlling snails. Below is an article on the subject and an internet search can produce multiple other articles. I can tell you from my families casual observations the red ear presence in the pond does effect in a positive manner how often you find "worms" in the fish when on the filet table. I also second the notion your bass maybe overpopulated.

https://www.solitudelakemanagement....ent-red-ear-sunfish-and-parasite-control

I do not know the first thing about pond management. I do however love fishing ponds especially with a fly rod. It seems to me that ponds that have a nice healthy population of nice size Copper Nose Bluegill have a nice healthy population of Large Mouth Bass! Just my two cents.

Based on what I read in this forum I would say Copper Nose Bluegill are a must!

do you think the shell crackers are feeding on the Zebra mussels

Check this out --

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=do+red+ear+sunfish+eat+zebra+mussels&t=hk&ia=web

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Lake Raven (Huntsville State Park) is also loaded with big gills. As before mentioned, Coppernose and Redear are the choice!