That is just beautiful! Yeah, get fish in there. You might start with just pan fish and see if you can get them established. Trout would be mighty cool, though.
Yeah, Unless you have something to prevent 80% of it freezing solid then I may not stock it...I guess it depends on how much of it is more than 6 feet deep. Trout are a pretty good cold water fish so I would imagine you would have the same issue with anything you put in there.You guys have me thinking with this stocked pond talk. I have a small reservoir that would be fun to have fish in. I think an attempt was made to stock it with trout probably 25 years ago but they did not survive the winter. It is maybe 5 acres and probably 8 or 9 feet deep in the middle. It seems like the only stocking that gets done around here is trout but it might be fun to have bass or something, but I don't know if they could survive the winter. This is Montana so it will freeze very hard. Maybe I would have to get an aerator? It is spring fed in addition to spring runoff so it usually stays fairly full. Here's a couple pictures of it.
$3335 for a 33' double bellow compressorI'm pretty sure the ice doesn't get anywhere near 6 feet thick. There is a similar sized reservoir in the neighborhood that is stocked with trout but they have a windmill driven aerator that keeps a hole in the ice on all but the coldest days. I imagine something like that would be pretty spendy though.