While fishing in my 2 acre pond in Lincoln County Oklahoma yesterday, October 15th, I noticed thousands of minnows in small schools around the shoreline. Most of them were less than 1" long, as if they had hatched recently. Some of the larger ones were colored and shaped like bass. As far as I know, bass, bluegill, and channel cat are the only fish species in the pond. Who could have spawned so late?

Most likely, they are mosquito fish.

One distinctive feature about Mosquito fish aiding identification is that their mouths are located at the top of their face since they are surface feeders (the exact opposite of the bottom-feeding common carp's down-pointing mouth).

Smitty,

I agree with Squeeky and Theo. I also noticed hundreds of tiny ones this weekend and concluded they were Gambusia or mosquito fish. Kind of nice to have a late spawn like that.

Pond semantics question: Is it still a "spawning" if it's a fish species that does live birth?

We had a late spawn of BG. Last weekend there were giant groups of .25 to .5 in. BG around the pondweed and brush piles. I had to catch some in a jar and watch for a while in amazement to be sure. No other minnows in this pond. By this weekend the numbers were down a lot. Easy pickings for the older fish. ewest

Of course not, Theo, it would be a delivery, whether natural or caesarian (or caesarean if you prefer).

Ewest, I’ve been searching for this post and finally found it, in an attempt to boost my confidence factor for a successful spawn from Overton’s prize adult female CNBG, stocked a few weeks ago.

With the current full moon maybe we will get a successful late spawn?

George the good thing is even if you don't get a late one , they will be there in the spring. We still have lots of tiny (1/4 in.) yoy BG .

I saw a school of late hatch BG at our pond two weeks ago, I am guessing they couldn't have been more than two of three weeks old. I suspect that this late hatch was due to our BG population being well below carrying capacity.