Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Went with HBG and RES

Man o man I have been beating myself to pieces with this stocking stuff trying to decide which way to go, I went down to the fishery and picked up my "3-5" hbg and res they were smaller than I had exspect but were between 3-5" none 5" though. Here is the hybrid
And here is the res. The res were much larger on average, I only lost 1 fish a hybrid
The fishery water was 64 degrees when I got them to the pond and my pond surface water was 69 so I just let the 2 equal out then set them loose, I lost the one in the bag.

here is some of the little guys about a hour after I set them loose

i'll echo Bruce's sentiment on yer other thread trials guy......."i love posts like this", especially the bottom pic, i know how you feel watching yer new brood.....you are a proud papa tonight, and this to me is what pondmeisting is all about. good luck w/ the snappers.

Thanks! I spent all day around the pond clearing trees and brush and didnt see the snappers and only a couple of fish, Spent the evening by the bug wacker and 1 fish showed up but wasnt eating, a bunch of fh were hanging around, I was hoping to get more in there then throw in a few fish pellets to try and get them use to it. Not alot of big bugs though it is pretty chilly here tonight.

Will the res and hbg cross breed?

Possible but doubtful.

One of the forum's top mad scientists has been attempting to get Redear-Bluegill crosses for many years with very limited success. It would not work any better with HBG.

Here is a link to a discussion on the matter. See Dave Willis post near the end wrt what might be expected with some of the lepomis crosses.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=000143;p=1

Really?

Good luck trialsguy and enjoy those babies.

Deb

I been married 23 years, Deb. I wish this was the first time a lady pointed out I was wrong.

How long has that mad man been trying with isolated sexes of BG and RES ?

We have a few RES X BG which occur naturally. But I agree that a HBG X RES should be more unlikely in normal ponds because of the skewed sex ratios, sexual selection and reduced fecundity. But it depends. Note the comment in Dave's post about " Redear sunfish typically live off-shore and are most easily caught with bait from a boat. Redear crosses with bluegill and with green sunfish exhibit the same preference for deep water. I don’t know about other redear crosses. ". If the preference for deep water includes RES spawning preferences for deeper water and this possible factor is present in or is exhibited by HBG frustrated by few HBG females. Well you get the idea -- there are sneaker/cuckholder HBG. Here is some additional data which I believe to be correct. When reading it backcross is essentially the same as cross and F1s as HBG.

When sexes of F1s and pure species are isolated in ponds - we got natural backcrosses produced without problems - same for F1s when sexes isolated. When F1s are mixed with pure species, however, we often see low to no backcrosses or F2s produced. Reason is a mixture of two things I believe: 1. Sexual selection - male F1s seem to spawn outside of BG colonies - It could be that much of backcrossing actually occurs because F1 males act as cuckolders 2. Reduced fecundity - I also believe that there are definitely lower sperm counts among F1 males. Speculation ... it seems like hybrid swarms are more common in small SE ponds than northern natural lakes.


BTW Deb good to see you posting again. I hope a more often occurrence. We need to see little pink fishes some to keep the maleness in check. If Theo is wrong then are you giving away secrets today !

If a RES and HBG get together, you just MIGHT get a GG lookalike.

That would be cool, my main reason or atleast my thinking on this is with the res and the hbg together they hopefully wont over populate so fast that I cant keep a handle on them and they seem to be the rookie starter fish, right? *weakly asked* I havent hardly seen hide nor scale of them since I put them in but man have I had a time with the snappers I have disbatched 3 already and there are 2 left at when I first noticed I had a snapper I thought I only had one, I think they have rang the dinner bell for there buddies and they all came a crawling, I have witnessed once two of them coraling some fish into a shallow area trying to snag a 65 cent each dinner. I disrupted there dinner plans. the other 2 are very weary, i plan on baiting them this weekend, these suckers are as big as the bottom of a five gallon bucket.

I'll take the 5th on that one ewest. Sorry to have been away for so long, but the pink fishies are back to keep the testosterone levels in check.

Of course I did not say the GG are snail crushers ... but then again I did not say they were not either. Oh, how the riddle continues ...

Missed you guys too,

Deb

Did you mean "OH , how the [Giant] riddle continues.. "

Lets see .. BG + GSF + RES ; what was the % of males in a batch of F1s ?

I was thinking of adding some res to my pond it was already stocked with hbg. I didnt want to have too many cross bred fish. Sounds like it should be ok to add them. Thanks.