Alright, so last week I explained to ya'll a little bit of my situation and after doing some more investigating I've found out more about my situation.

Simply put, it boils down to this. We have a 3-4 acre tank that probably goes 8-10 ft deep at deepest part, has good bottom structure, and generally gin clear water. That all being said its, on a property that is part of a hunting and fishing club type establishment and currently has no known fish in it. I make a point of this because here is where my question comes in. What are some reliable sourced documents that can back up what stocking procedures you should take for a pond of that size? Also, could anyone point me to some specific reasons on how green sunfish are detrimental to your fish population structure? I make a point of this because some numb skull who was in charge of stocking one of the other tanks on the property thought "it was just fine" to stock it with green sunfish fish besides the fact I read frequently otherwise.

Sorry I'm so long winded, but I look forward to your responses.

A lot of this boils down to personal perferences and what your objectives are for the pond.

Some people want to raise fish for food ...others want to have sport fishing...and there are an infinite number of combinations between the two views. There are also infinite permutations, i.e. different types of food fish and different types of sport fish that make a "one size fits all" an impossible situation.

If you know what your objectives are, there are any number of documents available to provide numbers of fish per acre. An internet search will yield many such documents. One I like is this one:

http://www.sdafs.org/tcafs/manuals/tcafs_pond_manual_2005.pdf

Another even better one is a CD put together by Texas A&M on "Better fishing through private water management". It is excellent, but may not be currently available to the public.

Regarding green sunfish, again this is largely a personal preference. Some people regard them as "trash fish".

I am not one of those. I happen to highly respect their aggressive nature, their willingness to take artificials and flies, and their fight which is superior to most all of the sunfishes.

Fish simply do what their genetics dictate. Put green sunfish in a pond without adequate predators and they will overpopulate and stunt. Put coppernosed bluegills in a pond without predators and they will overpopulate and stunt.

Coppernose bluegills reproduce much faster than green sunfish and hence are preferred for ponds in which forage generation is important....again depends on your objectives.

Decide on what you want from the pond...and there are several good people on here that can offer you advice on what has and has not worked for them. The decision is relatively important because once stocked, it can be expensive and very time consuming to change directions....been there and done that. Good luck.

Agreed. I have no problem with the much maligned green sunfish.

Well I actually happen to be a current student at Texas A&M so do you know if there would be a way for me to get a hold of that CD? I am very interested in getting as much information as I can on pond stocking. Also, one idea the management at our place has is to try and move fish from one tank already stocked to the other. Is this a good or bad idea? And as far as the green sunfish go, I do agree with you on their aggressive nature making them fun to catch, just in all the articles I had read, it was suggested they put the bass growth in jeopardy because of their larger mouth. Thanks for the insight and suggestions!

The problem with that approach is that often folks don't accurately keep track of what has been moved, i.e. you can get a really out of balance situation pretty easily, unless someone enforces discipline to keep track of the numbers of fish and the pounds of fish and keep things in relative balance. In addition, having a good size distribution can be difficult to achieve.

Many ponds do get stocked that way and many (perhaps most) overstock bass and understock BG and forage. If you can avoid that, it will work.

PM sent on the CD.