I had a very nice surprise this morning and it has lead me to give a BIG THANKS to PB and all it's members. I little background...

I stocked my little BOW with HSB, HBG, and RES late April (2018). The 42 HSb were in the 4 to 6" range. Here's what I thought was a good representation of the stockers (about 5 inches long)...



Now, fast forward a whole 3-1/2 months later, not quite 20 to 30 pounds of Optimal and...BAM!!!


11 inches long and 3/4 pound!

Holy Smokes! Thanks everyone, at this rate, this time next year 6 pound test won't do it.

REALLY...THANK YOU ALL! I'm Stoked!

EDIT: Week of 8/20 I caught two more HSB. One was 0.9 lbs while the other was just over 1 lb.

Congrats - do it right and a very good fishery can be had relatively quickly. Nice work!

Fantastic!

Do you have your Optimal Bass and Optimal Hand Throw yet? Better get some.

I got mine.

Nice work !!

One thing for all to keep in mind. HSB can use carbs from fish food while most other predator fish can't. HSB can become morbidly fat on just carbs in fish food.

Eric this is about CC and not HSB but wife and I had experience about the difference fish food makes while filleting four nice CC.

We had caught a couple on the east side of the pond opposite the dock. One could have easily been a 4# CC but it likely only weighed an estimated 3#. I feed all around the pond but I do not think this particular CC was getting much if any feed. Long and slender.

Then we moved to the dock and wife caught a couple more. I have been feeding the fish around the dock GSF I have been trapping from my forage pond as well as Aquamax MVP, Optimal BG and some Optimal Hand Throw pellets. The CC at the dock have become almost pests if not pets. The two she caught here were fat and sassy. The biggest was guessed at 3# (based on others we have filleted that we did weigh) but was a few inches shorter than the long slender one caught on the opposite side of the pond. Just a couple weeks ago we did catch a 4.1# weighed one that was about the same length as the long slender one that was probably only 3#.

Feed definitely makes a difference.

CC are omnivores and can definitely use carbs from fish food.

The funny thing is that I purchased Optimal Jr and Starter #4. These food sizes have been too small for the HSB from the beginning and the #4 is way too small for the HBG now. The FHM's seem to be the only ones excited about the #4. The HBS really have not shown up to feeding time with much noticeable enthusiasm. Surely they were there, just not breaking top water much. I have a feeling that they have gained a lot of their growth from the FHM's that really push the #4 around. At any rate, I'll be buying a larger size of feed next go around.

That's incredible! Great looking HSB