I went bream fishing this weekend with my grand daugther. She caught a bunch of GSF that self stocked in my new lake. I stocked it with FHM,CNB bass last year and HSB and tilapia this year.
Should I throw the GSF on the bank or will they become bass food in a couple of years?
It all depends on your goals for the pond. Some people hate GSF like the plague. Myself, I like to catch stuff when I get a chance to go fishing. Not real particular what I catch as long as it fights and for their size GSF are pretty sporty. I bet your grand daughter enjoyed catching them too.
I stocked 25 GSF a couple weeks ago. A week later I caught 3 on a small spinner. Each time, I thought I had a small LMB on. Yesterday I was casting a small spinner and thought I had a GSF on. It turned out to be a CC I had stocked a couple weeks earlier than the GSF. They're all fun to catch.
Your BG will out spawn them and they will naturally have a smaller influence in the future. But I would pull them now to keep the BG genes as pure as possible. In the future, I would use them as bait if I found them and your LMB are big enough to eat them.
I have been pulling ours and using them as bait for a few years. Our pond is five years old.
Hope this helped.
Brian
The one thing is the one thing A dry fly catches no fish Try not to be THAT 10%
In my old pond I return any GSF over 7" to grow bigger and anything under I clip the tail fin so they can not swim fast and put them back in for an easy meal for the LMB.
The usual rap against GSF is that they reproduce too fast, steal all the food from the other fish, and never get big enough to be worth catching. I like the aggresive way they hit lures, and it seems like they could be fairly easily controlled in a small pond by catching and keeping. I wonder why most species of SF are stocked more. Most get big enough to be fun to catch on light tackle, an SF pond should be relatively easy to manage if it is fished fairly hard, and variety is the spice of life.
I meant to say, I wonder why most species of SF are NOT stocked more. I can see why a predator such as LMB would be useful. If only the larger fish are kept by fishermen, the number of smaller fish may rapidly grow too large. The right number of the right predators of the right size can control that problem in a nice way. Which gets us back to the clasical BG/LMB scenario. But maybe by stocking only SF species that aren't such prolific reproducers as BG, the need for a top predator could be eliminated if someone didn't want to go that route.
I think the problem is when they get established early before other fish are stocked. With their large mouths (basically the same size mouth as a LMB of the same length) and aggressive nature they can get ahead of the other more desirable fish and keep them from establishing properly. They eat up everything in site just like an over abundance of LMB of that size would do.
I'm actually adding a few GSF to my main pond as well as a few natural hybrids that I'm getting from my sediment pond. But I already have a well established BG population with a gazillion (maybe two) BG. Not much chance of the GSF getting ahead of the BG. Friends grandson today caught a few of the GSF and hybrids I had put in earlier. I showed him how to tell the difference between GSF, HBG and BG. In our neck of the woods, they are all just incorrectly referred to as "perch". Been that way as long as I can remember.
Snrun, So you feel that GSF can fill the role of top predator by eating most of the fry, and BG will control the number of GSF by out competing them. That sounds like it may work. I wonder how many members have experimented with SF species without stocking bass.
No, the GSF are just a novelty fish for me. I have LMB for the top predator. If I have the same outcome as Dave Davidson with GSF he puts in his pond, the LMB will eventually wipe out my small number of GSF.
Nearly every pond around here has GSF in it unless it has been stocked specifically to try and exclude them. Fish in the creeks and 95% or more of the sunfish caught will be GSF. In a pond without LMB they will over populate and stunt. At least that is the way it was 30 years ago when taking my small kids fishing in a pond with only GSF (that I know of). Could not bait the hooks quick enough as was fish on instantly when it hit the water and biggest GSF was maybe 4".
So in my opinion, a GSF only pond is going to end up with lots of small, stunted GSF over time. I would guess the original stockers would get big but when they die off from old age the pond would be full of small GSF. Basically the same trajectory as a BG only pond but maybe taking a little longer since the GSF do not spawn as often and the larger mouths would eliminate more of the offspring. My un-expert and WAG opinion only.
I need to run a seine through my smaller pond to remove some of the excess BG and GSF. I do it about once per year just to keep the numbers down. I have 25 CC, about 12 inches, that I stocked last year. No way they can keep up with BG or GSF spawning.
Some will go in the spring fed creek that dried up during our 5 year drought. Then a bunch into my main pond as forage.
I'm hoping that I also get some of the redears that I put in last year at 1-1.5 inch. I need them in my main pond but haven't caught any while fishing. The GSF and BG get the feed as soon as I throw it out.
It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.
Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.
Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
