Impressive project!!!!
Something to consider if you want to have the best fishing pond possible is that for your predator fish to grow, you need feeder fish to survive. For that to happen, they need hiding places, and ways to escape the predators. A bass will only get as big as the fish it eats, so if you only have minnows, or fingerlings, you will only have small bass. Catfish will do better in a small pond, but they are always hungry. Another rule of thumb is that you can only have 100 total pounds of predator fish per surface acre. With .6 acres, you want to keep your total predator weight to 60 pounds. That' ten fish weighing six pounds, or 60 fish weighing one pound. This will give you the ideal balance of predator and prey in your pond.
For my ponds in East Texas, I use fathead minnows and copper nose bluegill for my prey fish. I have tree trunks, stumps, and rock piles in my pond to make it as ugly as possible, which is ideal for the fish. I also have huge ditches and holes dug into the bottom of my pond to help the feeder fish escape, and improve the habitat for my bass and catfish.
My half acre pond has produced channel cats weighing as much as 13 pounds, with plenty of 10 pound fish. My bigger pond has plenty of 5 pound bass with the current pond record being 7.5 pounds, which was caught about 4 years ago. We mostly fish to remove smaller bass to get our total weight of predators down as much as possible. If you catch a bass, you remove it. No catch and release!!!!! On a good day, my wife and I can catch 20 or more one pound bass in an hour.
If you want a dock, get it done before the water fills. You will never have a better time to do it then right now.
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