Thank you Eric for posting the photos.

Bill, yes there are male and female BGs in the pond.

Some notes on the caged BG and YP (for future reference), along with the possibility of adding some useful info for others.

Stocking: Looking back, one of the initial mistakes I made was not verifying exactly what I had prior to releasing the fish in the cages. With Bill's Rule #1 for cage raising fish, minimize stress, firmly tattooed in my mind I simply added the fish to the cages once I got home. I see this mistake now in the numbers. I thought I was getting 30 fish of each species but the numbers say otherwise. Thankfully, I did not get any unwanted species in the mix. Won't repeat that one again.

Cages: So far the cages have held up well. The twine and mesh are still firmly intact and secure. I know I have turtles (snappers)in the pond but they or any other critter have not bothered the cages. When the cages are swapped out next spring, to check the extent of algae fouling, I will replace the pool noodles with plastic jugs. The noodles are beginning to fray, at least the part that is exposed to the sun but I'm certain they will last till spring.

Feeding: This is one area I need to improve upon. In the beginning, I started feeding worm bits. The way I did it, it was easy to see the pecking order getting established early on. In conversation with Bill C, he noted how this would be one factor leading to the variation in fish sizes that are now evident, both with the BG and YP. (Bill please inject any corrections you deem necessary).

Losses: To date I'm still down 8 BG and one YP. All summer long, at least during feeding, I had a handful of welfare bass and BG circling the cages, hoovering up any handouts. Could/would the presence of these fish, especially the bass, stress the fish enough to cause death? Of the ones that died, there were no external signs leading to a cause.

Goals/Grade: The initial goal of this project was to see, if in fact, I could cage raise some fish. To that extent I'll give this experiment a B+. Always room for improvement. The next goal is to see how they survive the winter.

Thanks to everyone for all your help.

- Russ



Last edited by Russ; 11/06/09 06:00 PM.