Originally posted by Theo Gallus:
1,400 lbs / acre ! And I was thinking all those invertebrates were there because there was a sparse population. Adult BG/RES/YP must just not eat that stuff at all, compared to fry & fingerlings.
OK, here's something we usually don't talk about.
With no reproduction, we have no fry and fingerlings. Fry and fingerlings together if you weighed them, and had two hundred pounds, would increase to eight hundred pounds if a few weeks. Two hundred pounds of adult fish averaging, say, one pound each, might increase to about 210 pounds in a few weeks. Tiny fish are absolute machines when it comes to hammering little invertebrates. They have to be because a two gram fish needs to get to eight grams fast so he doesn't get eaten.
Consequently, my big fish aren't even bothering with little invertebrates. They're just waiting for the little invertebrates to get big so they can just slurp them up as they drift by.
You've seen overgrazed pasture. I think that's what most ponds are that have significant YOY numbers.
That's my current theory anyway.
