Herons will destroy a pond and eat your fish, I have had them kill bass and not even eat them just kill them. Destructive birds and they sure are not endangered like vultures they are way to many of them. .17 hmr works nice and quite
Generally, that indicates some kind of stress on the fish. Causes of stress can be all kinds of things like poor water quality, overcrowding, etc.
It doesn't hurt to throw a few boxes of kosher salt into the pond as a mild boost to fish health.
Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:" "She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."
New fish as of 2 weeks, and water is below 50. Would be my guess as to the reason for stress. But only seen a few fish like this. Water temps are increasing. So, hopefully that helps.
Saprolegnia or other fungus form. Pretty typical in stressed fish, BG very often at 50 degs. One thing I notice right away is the size of eye on BG, it's very large indicating slow growth/lack of food. (before you got them).
Saprolegnia or other fungus form. Pretty typical in stressed fish, BG very often at 50 degs. One thing I notice right away is the size of eye on BG, it's very large indicating slow growth/lack of food. (before you got them).
Interesting! Is that something that will go away with proper food?
Once a fish has missed growth opportunity, it will never reach true growth potential. It can still grow once food is available, but not to the sizes it would have if proper forage was available from day 1.
Don't worry too much about lost potential and focus your energy on other things. The biggest loss is the length increment of the age. Hatchery fingerlings in the 1-3 sizes are often low RW and even shorter than they would have otherwise been if stocked in a fresh farm pond at 2 months of age. In a hatchery pond, within 45 to 60 days the growth of the new hatch slows dramatically. They are between 1" and 2" at that time. Most people want to buy 1"-3" fingerlings for stocking so they don't try to grow them fast but rather maintain them so they grow slowly. This is the way of industry by and large. Purchasing last years crop for stocking in March kind of ensures you will be buying fish with lost potential.
Buying fish when hatcheries have new crop at 1"-2" in the field will not guarantee that you will get new crop fingerlings. I wish I could say it would. So you will just work with what you have. There is a lot of years ahead of them and so how you take care of them from here will determine their growth path from here. You can still grow them remarkably. Your stocking plan suggests an emphasis for LMB. This is probably where you need to be focused on getting very good fingerlings (young and long). I say young and long because there is going to be a lot of forage in your pond that is too big for new crop 2" LMB to eat. Some of the BG could eat them. So if buying advanced fingerlings there is room for older fingerlings to work their way into your order. As much as possible, you want length that is appropriate for the age of the fingerling.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
No reason to buy hatch at 1-2". i pull my fry and stock out in 3 days post-hatch in heavily fertilized ponds to maximize growth rates. At day 35 I pull and put in feed training tanks. The top fish achieve near twice the growth of the other half and after feed training, these go back outside in grow outs full of forage AND supplemental feeding. I won't sell 2-3" fish to stock, doesn't make sense and is BAD business. My fish at 2-3" are FAR from low RW, in fact they are absolute pigs and again, long, skinny fish are not healthy, they have missed something from day 1 and I'm not sure where you get this notion. I've tried and tried to keep an open mind here, but I'm about to just quit posting because this is not good advice given above and apparently my personal experience is just crap. Done for now..
I have no doubts that your fish are of the highest quality that have exhibit good growth and RW. But the fact remains that you are different from most supplier in that you focus on doing just that. But most don't. The problem is that you can't supply everyone. I wish that you could. A lot of folks are going to get less than optimum fingerlings. I didn't like the condition of the fingerlings either ,... AND ... I don't understand why the seller wouldn't tell him to wait until temps were warmer to stock them.
As factual as your comments were, there is nothing he can do about other than take care of what he has. No fish reaches it potential. Ketona Lake, which produced the world record, to fish >4 lbs and numerous >2 lbs without feeding, contained ordinary bluegill. At least according to the Alabama Wildlife folks. They could not get them to grow better than their own selected strains when tested in farm ponds. They had the potential for the pinnacle of greatness, but only in Ketona Lake.
I just don't want the OP to feel discouraged. In the end, he will have a great pond where the fish reach the potentials the environment of his pond (and his management) will allow. What will determine this mostly will be populations and available foods.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
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