I also have fished many small ponds (overflow from rivers) like your talking about mostly for smallmouth thought, they were very spooky.

I would suggest you go w/ mabey 12-14lb florocarbon on your casting rod and 8-10lb on you spinning you really dont want to get much bigger than 14lb for little ponds especially if your biggest bass is only going to be around 5lbs. In Ultra Clear water I suggest you use only clear or florocarbon line. Use green in off colored water. I would reccomend if berkley is the only reddily avalible line not to use XT because it is very stiff I would use XL it has a thinner diameter and handles much better than stiff lines especially for spinning rods.

Taylor