Ric!!!!
I just now noticed this thread. I've been a little on the busy side.
Fat SMB and multiple spawn RES?!? How cool is that?
I guess my first question is, if the SMB are currently fat, what do you think they are eating? If it's YOY RES, then you just have to monitor body conditions carefully to see if this continues to be adequate.
Do you do any pellet feeding? It would be just interesting to see if the SMB are inclined to that sort of thing. My guess is that if they're fat right now they won't go to pellets, but who knows. The main reason that I ask, is that if you see the SMB body condition start to wane a little bit you could temporarily feed them, or you could place heavy harvest pressure on male SMB each spring. They're pretty easy to identify by their incredibly dark spawning colors. This philosophy would be similar to what we do on bluegill by drastically reducing a single sex of a particular fish, generally targeting the sex with growth potential.
Sounds like a great problem to have!
