You could stock more, but I don't believe it's necessary. I suspect a strong percentage of the YP will spawn in the Spring, you'll have plenty of YOY YP growing - you could just allow nature to take it's course.

I wouldn't worry about pressure on your forage base regardless of what you decide to do - a 4-5" YP isn't capable of eating a GSH 3"+ or your LCS or big male FHM. Are you pellet feeding yet? That will go a long way to help reduce forage base pressure down the road.

I have bred Male BG and Female RES [BRES] in a reproduction and grow out pond for several seasons with various degrees of success/failure. I do suspect stocking male BG into the fishery would lead to some hybridization with RES population. I have some of that occurring naturally in my main pond, and the F1 generation is a pretty fish, although I have yet to sample one that I would consider robust/healthy/thriving. Bear in mind the recruitment % of BRES hybrid is low, and of those survivors 97% are males - so that doesn't suggest an impending management issue if those F1 fish can even back cross.

I still think RBS would be a neat panfish to consider - Travis knows where to source them. If they truly spawn in fall [per Bob Lusk] I think recruitment in the presence of cool water species would be very low headed into Winter when SMB, YP and WE are still somewhat actively feeding unlike their warm water cousins. I think pods of 0.5-1" RBS would be vulnerable due to lack of vegetation cover to escape predation. It could be the perfect companion species for that very reason of Fall spawning and lower fecundity rendering management concerns mute.


Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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