I raked a small patch of weeds in the pond this afternoon and found 8-9 RES fingerlings while sifting through the weeds. Quite a few from last summers hatch must have made it through the winter. They ranged in size from 13/16" to a little over 1-1/2" with one that was 2". I am surpised the smaller ones overwintered so well. I also tossed back several hundred tadpoles, the tadpoles don't seem too bright when the weeds get raked as they swim right into the center of the weeds. I spent more time tossing back tadpoles than raking weeds.

For size reference the base of the glass is 2-1/4" across the bottom and the top is 2-3/4" across.

That's great! What size are the predators in your pond?

Great to hear Shorty. I think the only teeth you have are smallies right? And yellow perch.

Yep, smallies and yellow perch. I think I might be a little predator heavy at the moment but maybe not. I also had a huge golden shiner hatch last year and still have a lot of 1" and 3" GSH.

The YP range in size from 6" to 10-1/2", 7-9" is most common size. The SMB range in size from 6" to 13-1/2" that came from two sources. The first 20 SMB I stocked are in the 10-1/2" to 13-1/2" size range and the other 47 that I got from TJ as fingerlings last year are now in the 6" to 9" range.

I bet there are more ! Good work on finding them and posting pics. Up in your area winter kills a lot of yoy fish as they starve to death.

Great news, Shorty!!

Right after ice out I spotted five YOY RES that did not make it while walking the bank. My dog also found one adult RES up on the bank to roll in. In addition I found one or two small GSH as well, that was it for observed for winter kill. I was very pleased that there very little winter kill. Low water levels from the drought plus 9-10" of ice cover for two months had me worried.

I also found one relative large leech and few dragonfly larvea while sorting tadpoles out of the weeds.

Found another one.

A few smaller ones.


The larger of the two:

I saw a school of them in a clients pond the other day. For a while I thought they were last years SMB because there were a few that I saw that had a black tipped tail like LMB have. But, the next day I ended up catching a few and they were RES. About 3" long.

Great pictures!!