Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Sunfish-Including Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass SMB question

Assuming there is ample food for SMB, if stocked at the end of summer (fingerlings), how large would/should they be spring? Ones that would survive that is.

No growth in winter but if temps before winter aren't too cool you could get an inch a month. Maybe an inch in September and another inch in October?

Bill Cody would probably know better though. I've hatched, planted, and raised smallmouth, but I'm a bad one for documenting anything.

I was hoping that 4-5" would be where they are at now so that I could easily distinguish them from the FHM in the pond.

So far this hasn't been the case, but nothing seems to be swimming around the edges of the pond yet. Water temps just broke into the upper 50s.

Even small SMB and FHM should be pretty easy to distinguish from one another even when they are in the water. Both in the way they appear and the way the swim/mannerisms.

As Cecil mentioned there will be little if any growth of SMB over winter (late Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb.) Here are a few hints to help you distinguish between the young SMB and fathead minnows.
1. Your SMB by 1 yr old (in May) should be 4" to 5" long and noticeably larger and wider bodied than the larger fathead minnows of 3"-3.5". Only rarely are FHM ever 3.7"-4" long. With ample food the SMB fingerling should grow about 1" per month. So a fall stocked fingerling of 3" should be after the first summer in your pond (May,Jun,Jul,Aug,Sept) at least 7"-9" long.

2. The young smallies will usually be single and infrequently in small groups of two to three. The FHM will often be swimming in small groups of 10-100 fish.

3. Small bass will behave differently than FHM when swimming. Smallies will swim a short distance, stop, look, wait, then swim again, whereas the fatheads will usually be always moving, not stopping, starting, not stopping waiting.

4. Smallies up to 3"-4" long will often have a dark or dusky vertical band on the back end of the tail. This tends to fade as they grow to 5"-7" long. This dark band on the tail is less or not noticeable in cloudy or turbid water. It is best seen in clear water visibilities of 3.5'-6'.

Thank you both, this has been very helpful. I will look to put this information to use within the next few weeks.

I went out and fished the pond a little yesterday and the shores are lined with FHM's. I don't know if they're spawning, but they keep "flashing" their bellies. Like they are fanning the bottom. It's hard to explain.

The FHM are mainly in the shallows for utilizing the slightly warmer water and possibly the SMB are chasing them from the depths into shallow water. Normally shallow water is the only refuge for small fish when weed beds or dense cover are lacking. The flashing can be either the fish are swirling the bottom sediments looking for small dislodged food items or twisting to dislodge parasites.

I've observed that swirling motion too, and no external parasites were observed on the FHM, so the ones that I saw must have been feeding.

Some of the external parasites my be irritation could be related to bacterial or slime deposits. Or it could be similar to when you have an itch?

I'm absolutely blown away at the amount of forage I have coming out of winter. I would have thought my forage numbers would have dropped quite a bit now that I have HSB and SMB stocked. I guess the fact that neither has spawned yet has limited their affect on the forage base just yet...

My SMB have spawned twice, likewise I am amazed at how much forage I have left after ice out this year.

If you will throw some sinking fish pellets out to the depth you are seeing the FHM or a little shallower, you can observe this flashing as the fish twist and turn trying to eat the pellets, as the pellets are too big for them and they have to whittle them down.