Well, it's been 5 months, and most of my original fears seemed to just be impatience on my part. I had a work day at the farm yesterday, and there seemed to be thousands of CNBG swimming happily around the small pond. The sizes ranged from 1 1/2" to 6", and there was a good mix of both stocked and newly hatched fish.
They all seemed to eat well now that the Summer heat has eased up a bit, and the FHM were still there by the thousands.
I had purposely left some Naiad and Primrose around the edges of the pond to have an easy visual of the fry's interaction with it, and it was as I expected. Both FHM and CNBG were clustering around the vegetation, so I added porcupines to the deeper part of the pond. Almost immediately after sinking, the FHM moved away from the bank and started ganging up around the added structure.
With my water clarity at around 18" I was able to see large numbers of the larger CNBG in the shallow water that I had graded for a spawning area. To me, that was a good sign.
I also had to load the feeder with Sportman's Choice fish food since I was unable to get my Aquamax 500 prior to the trip. They seemed to eat it well, but hopefully I'll be able to get my Aquamax this next week. My feed store has only been receiving short orders of Purina fish products for the last month or so, so I'll be curious to see if this trend continues. Not sure if the recipe change is causing this, but this has never been an issue before.
I did remove 2 LMB that apparently swam up into the pond during the Spring, when the pond flooded. That's a total of 6 that I've removed since June. They were reluctant to leave to say the least. Unlimited forage, and no protective cover made them fat and happy.
So, other than the few LMB that swam up into the pond, which was my fault, the brood pond is looking to be a huge success. I should have the ability to self stock my big lake next Spring, and that should pay for the dirt work within 2 years.
Lot's of fun, and a good investment also. This has turned into a win win for me.
