Anyone at least in Texas experiencing a cnbg spawn yet? I have thousands of fry up to 1 inch cnbg all over the edges of the pond and my 12 -13 inch lmb are having a festival on them!! Knocking them up on the bank even. Hard to believe I have already had a spawn probably before February!! How rare is this?

could they be from a late cct - Nov spawn? I have seen small BG this time of year but always thought they were from a late season spawn.

Your probably right Bobby and that brings up a question how old is a 1/2 inch to 1 inch cnbg? Maybe that would tell me when they were hatched. I know my Florida lmb are lovin it!!

November spawn gets my vote.

Flame, I am not too far from you in East Texas and we have definitely had a late January or early February cnbg spawn! I have seen the fish on the beds and thousands of fry in the shallow sun warmed water! I guess our early spring has turned on our forage makers. I think it is a good thing.
Tom Sterling, Shelby County.

Flame, do you see beds right now? Our water hit 65 degrees yesterday, and the CNBG were extremely active and shallow. I'm thinking you guys a little farther south may have fish on the beds right now. Just curious more than anything else. You guys could be looking at 10 months worth of CNBG spawns.

I wonder how many days with water temp at 65 and above does it take to make BG fry survivable?

Full moon in Feb is not uncommon in deep south. March full moon is almost a certainty for a large BG spawn in the deep south. Water temps 67-74 are optimum. Several threads on this at Rolling Spawn.

Al I never see cnbg on their beds. Visibility usually stays at about 18 inches. Lord knows they are spawning every year...just don't see the beds. Must be just a little deeper and just out of sight. I am seeing 12 inch lmb cruising the banks but I believe they are just feeding right now but I am sure hoping for my first bass spawn this spring. My darn plum trees are blooming early again! Get a freeze now and no homemade jelly this year again. Guess I could pickle some bluegill instead or herring.

Flame, I haven't tried this, but no saying it won't work.
A few years ago our local electric co-op had a buy back of incandescent christmas lites when you switched to LEDs.
In a conversation with one person who works for the co-op, I discovered they tried stringing the old christmas lights on assorted fruit trees. In spring when the trees are blooming they fire up the lights. The little bit of heat produced prevents the blossoms from being damaged by frost! We typically have apricot fruiting failure a few years out of 10 and poor crops a couple of other years. The lights have led to successful fruiting nearly every year.
Something worth trying on your plums?

Wow, 4 corners... never thought about doing that. I have plenty of those lights.

Flame, like u, I never see any beds due to fertile water with 18" visibility and sometimes less than that. I have seen some Tp beds at the shoreline in the past years. They were large beds and have seen the male guard the nest, but have never seen the cnbg nest. And since u brought up lmb cruising, I never see that ether. I do see the lmb at the feeders feeding on the cnbg, in fact I saw around 12 of them at three different feeders yesterday. They were feeding on the cnbg. Busting the water big time. Nice size lmb, looked like some 17" sized fish.

Last spawn of cnbg, not sure, but I see 2" fish or less. The water surface water temp yesterday was 70. Fish were very active and I found a dead and floating TFS. A very small one, maybe an inch long, so that tells me we had a late TFS spawn and my TFS have made it through this winter (so far) and that is GREAT NEWS to me.

Tracy, aren't you close to Flame, and Shelby County? I think y'all are about 90 miles south of us, and I was wondering if you saw CNBG beds in January too? (EDIT: TRACY, JUST SAW YOUR POST)I think the full moon was around the 12th of Jan, and I know you guy's water had to be warmer than ours.

Eric, the reason I was asking about the CNBG fry survivability time table, was that the guys just south of us may very well have had that January spawn. What I can't find any ballpark info about how long it takes once the female lays her eggs, before the fry swim off and the male abandons the nest.

I checked the Nacogdoches TX weather history for January 12th , and it was pretty interesting. After weather in the teens on the 9th, there was a very quick and dramatic warmup to the 70's, that lasted at least 5 days before it dropped off a little.

I may have to rethink my previous November spawn statement, and I'm good with that.

pond temp was 71 degrees this weekend. I saw a tilapia nest. I wondering if I am getting a Feb spawn down here. I hope so, I think my fish are hungry.

Checking surface water temps daily and have been for some time now. I did see some cold water around the time Al mentioned, the cnbg shut down for the most part during that cold snap, and I worried about my TFS at that time. But for most of the past 30 days I have seen surface water temps in the 60 to 65 range. And with the full moon we have had this week, I am sure something like the Res are spawning and the cnbg may be spawning also. And walking the pond last afternoon, I saw around 6 to 8 lbs of schooling fhm's swimming off the shoreline a few feet. I bet they are starting up their spawning mode soon. Two and a half years ago I stacked 120 lbs of fhm's and with the warmer water I still see many schools of them in the pond. Yesterday was a great day walking the pond.

Any thoughts on the RES spawning with these water temps?

Generally speaking (depends on factors like temps , weather change and photo-period) BG nest and the eggs are deposited and fertilized and hatching occurs in 1-6 days @> 70 F and the male guards for about 7-10 days (includes hatching time). At that point the larval BG start swim-up. They stay larval for 20-30 days at temps above 70F. They can be 2-3 inches in 60-100 days. There is a lot of variance with this as noted due to conditions specifically including food availability and water productivity. The time period from first nesting to initial swim up should average from 10-12 days @ 70 F or above.

Saturday water temps. On my 6 acre pond's south shore at 10:30 AM the water temp at 6 inches was 70F. At 2:30 PM it was 72F in the same spot.

Eric, thank you very much for the BG spawning info. We always talk about regional differences on the forum, but I forget sometimes that we've got regional differences within our own state.

Thanks for the bg spawning info Ewest, good to know. Yesterday I decided to test the cnbg out and so I fished (from a boat) a couple of hrs for the bg. Using light tackle and a float with 1/32 jig head and pearl white Gulp wax worms. My first was a 9" cnbg at one of the feeders. That was the only large one I caught. and I have a lot that size. The bigger ones are smart and not caught so easily. I caught fish all around the pond in most every size, down to 4". Only a few of the larger ones looked to have what I might call an egg sack or extended belly. Smaller ones were caught in the water less than 2' and the larger fish were in the 3 to 4' depth or deeper. The majority of these looked to be female. I am no expert when sexing but I caught few (sure enough) males out of maybe 50 plus fish caught. Does that mean the males were guarding nest? I did manage to catch a few 5" res in 2' depths. Not sure if that means anything or not. This is just a fishing report. I was looking to see if they might be nesting but after the fishing trip, I am still not sure if nesting was going on. I did not spend a lot of time in one spot but was looking at the whole pond.