I rec'd a package of FH's from Anderson's today and after giving them a half hour to adjust to the water temp in my pond (still lots of ice) I put them in. Most of the fatheads were hopping up on the ice or swimming up the shore and just kind of laying there, like they were getting a tan. Do fatheads like to sun themselves or are these little guys gonna be dead soon?

Most likely not being suicidal but avoiding being eaten. Did you release them in the open or near cover?

Open, most of the cover is on the other side of the pond. I guess they dont know there are no other fish in the pond

Did you check the temperature of both the pond water and the water in the bag? My guess is there was a significant difference.

This is what they did when I put them in a fishless pond:

Maybe there was still a temp differance. If they were " poured" in like in the video above rather than being allowed to swim out on their own, as is recommended, they may have had the normal fight or flight reaction triggered. In this case it seems flight was the option.

Thanks for the video GW, I guess thats pretty close to what mine did, except for jumping on the ice lol.

I see a lot of yours just sat there in the mud for a while too. I was expecting these minnows to take off like shiners do, but they did the exact opposite. There are still a few hanging around in the mud, but the rest seem to have dispersed now.
Thanks

Mine seemed stunned for a while after releasing them, but I think all of them recovered eventually. I floated the bag of 15 minutes and then spent about 15 minutes changing small amounts of water back and forth between the pond and the bag before releasing the fish.