Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Show off your catch Cool evening, hot bite.

Male HBG coming up out of the Aquashade. Those yellow tipped fins really stand out against the blue dye.


Same shot with a big male northern strain.


Another shot of the HBG. One pound five ounces.

Awesome photos of some killer fish!
CMM

Beautiful pics, Sparkie.

Beneath that summertime layer of bearing grease and 30wt oil there lurks an artiste.

If I may offer a humble suggestion, I would title the first photo "Counterpoint", the reflected, airy grace and beauty of the lofty heavens being perfectly offset by the gaping maw, malevelent gaze, and misshapen countenance that marks even the diluted presence of cyanellus genetics.

Or, if you prefer modernism to the Baroque, I suppose you could go with "Still Life with Cloud and Mutation."

At seeing that first photo, I thought Spark lost another fish and he took a picture of it as it rose to the heavens.

.... As always, Nice fish. I can only dream of one day coming half that close.

Spark,
You have Pure and Hybrid together? do you ever see evidence of back crosses or are you managing the offspring so well you rarely even see any?

Ooh ooh. He talks about that in his article in PB.
We bow before the published author...

Those first two pics are EPIC!!!!!!!

Jeez I hate to say this, but Sunil is absolutely correct.

I'm flattered that you approve, Yolk, but I fear my own meager comprehension and interpretation skills cannot rival yours in situations where the art meets the eye. After all, it was just earlier this week when I was convinced that I saw Bruce Condello's smiling countenance looking back at me from within the slimy folds of a floating mat of FA. After a great deal of trouble, I was able to retrieve it and box it up. You should be receiving it any day now, please take a look and give me your honest evaluation.

It may be a little dry after transport, so feel free to place it into your pond and allow 48 hours for it to re-hydrate. It makes Bruce appear aged beyond the norm when it dries out.

I eagerly await your critique.

There are a few male, northern strain in the HBG pond also. I haven't noticed any instances of back crossing, but then again I have yet to catch a hybrid that I didn't stock.

At certain times I will see fry and minnows in the shallows, so reproduction is most certainly taking place. And there are surely individuals (F2's) that have managed to grow to a size that allows them to escape predation, but I believe their numbers are extremely low.

This pond is predator heavy (LMB), and that, coupled with an aggressive program of plant management, appears to dramatically reduce recruitment. I have never seen those misshapen and/or stunted F2's or F3's that are often touted as the eventual result of having HBG in your pond. I'm only in year five of this experiment however, so perhaps they are planning a surprise appearance in the near future. But I think it's doubtful.

Later in June, you're gonna find out how deadly I can be from the fetal position....

Those fish gotta be fake. Plastic ones clear acrylic painted. They are just tooooo picture perfect!

All kidding aside, those are some great looking fish. I can only hope (and feed) that I have something that looks that good coming out of my pond in a couple more years.

Fish are finally starting to feed good here. Have been sluggish and slow to bite a hook. (could be the guy on the other end of the hook )

We did not buy any hybrids, but about five or so of the approximately hundred fish we have caught so far this spring have been obvious hybrids. One that I hope will look like sprkplug's bottom photo in a couple more years. It had the definite yellow tipped fins and larger mouth but only about 6.5" long after being in our pond for a little over a year. Put that one in my daughters pond to finish growing up along with a nice RES/GSF hybrid. If that is not what the latter one is in the picture below, help me out and identify it.

I gotta learn how to hold fish properly for pictures. The fish never wanna cooperate for me.

Oh great, now I have THAT picture stuck in my head.

Well, Al, you already know how deadly I can be while passed out sleeping.

I don't see any RES in your photos snrub, but there's a LOT of GSF showing through. The mouth looks a little small to me for a "pure" Greenie, I'm thinking there is some BG in there, somewhere or sometime.

I was looking at the reddish margin to the opercular tab. Or is this just the whitish/clear extension that the GSF has? The picture does not look very red but it was noticeably red in real life. Both pictures are of the same fish.

The local GSF are noticeably shorter in stature than a BG. Less dishpan shape than a BG. They almost take on the overall shape of a LMB.

Another mutt?

Edit: I went looking for more pictures of RES and GSF, and found this artist rendition and description. It says the GSF can have "gill flap is black with a pale-red, pink or yellow edge". I did not realize the GSF could have the pale-red edge to the opercular tab. I think you are right. Pretty green sun-fishy. Although it does not look comnpletely like our native GSF of which I have some in our old pond.
Gallery of Penn fishes

I keep learning.

Here is a picture of a native GSF I trapped out of our old refurbished pond. You are right sprkplug, the other fish I posted does look to have a LOT of GSF in it.



Sorry about the dirt on the fish. The picture was an afterthought after I noticed a tail in its mouth and pulled out one of my FHM's from the GSF. Now I know why the FHM's that I put in this old pond have not thrived like they did in my new pond. The FHM was completely swallowed and when I opened the mouth of the fish to see how big the gape was, there was the tail of the FHM.

Well at least some good came of the GSF (and the FHM). I used them as bait in my fish trap and trapped two bullheads with it.

I think this old refurbished pond is going to become a kids pond, filled with easy catching but less than desirable fish.

Did not mean to hijack your thread or take away from your beautiful fish catch. Wow, those are some great looking fish. It is guys like you with pictures of fish like yours that get me excited to see if I can have some pictures like that a couple more years down the road.

Snrub, I don't feel like you hijacked this thread at all. And even if you did, in many cases a PondBoss hijack is usually informative if not downright entertaining.

Post away. I look forward to the day when you're showing us those big fish pics....I'll wager that it isn't far off.