Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations minnows

I still have swarms of babies (1/2" long or so) around the dock and the edge of the pond...it's January and the water temp this morning is 52 degrees.

Can these still be baby BG's, or do I have volunteer's of some kind of minnow species?

The only thing I have stocked is BG's and shellcracker in Oct '04 and LMB in Aug '05.

The LMB are not complaining, but I'm curious about what they are.

Thanks, Tom Parker

Tom, it is my observation that tiny BG usually try to hang around cover and minnows will roam around banks. Shellcrackers generally like deeper water than BG so it's not likely that they are shellcrackers. If they are BG, I expect they were a late spawn that survived and didn't grow over the winter.

Hard to say about volunteer minnows. Some on this forum believe the stork brings them and others believe in minnows by immaculate conception. I believe in neither. If they are minnows, I expect you either got them in a load of stocker LMB or by helpful "friends". Had they come with your forage stocking in '04 you would probably have noticed them before now.

Buy a cylindrical minnow trap or 2. If you have been feeding, put some pellets in the trap(s) and see if you can catch some.

Thanks Dave,

I agree with your take on it. I will get a trap and see what they are.

Tom

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dave Davidson1:
"Hard to say about volunteer minnows. Some on this forum believe the stork brings them and others believe in minnows by immaculate conception."

I like the immaculate conception theory. That sure as heck would help out our profit margin at the hatchery. Imagine all the minnows we could have. Of course it would not fair so well with sales if this hypothesis worked in all of the customer's ponds.

Here's another thread on small, mid-Winter BG:
weird observation

Tom check out the informations about small fish in the link that Theo posted or see them in the appropriate dublicate link below. Once you catch some of them, your small fish should look like these. If not get some photos of them for us.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000290;p=1#000004

Theo and Bill :

Thanks for giving Tom those links and Bill for size and dating them in the first place . That is why I posted the pics to start with so we could see very small BG. In the summer I am going to get some small RES and LMB and post. A thread with the many types of small/young fish will help us all.

Tom as per the link we have loads of very small BG that are almost clear in the water. Your temps. are warmer than ours so you could easily have even younger BG fry.

Thanks for the links

I think I'll throw in some floating goldfish food that the babies seem to love and net some and see what they look like

Tom

Okay, they are all bg's, about 3/4", stripes clearly visible...just like the second pic from the link

Thanks