I wonder what the current thinking on mixing BG with HBG in a conventional LMB BG pond is.
My reading on this forum is that having both HBG and BG in the same pond (or at least stocked together) is generally frowned on.
I like the HBG that I have in my mostly BG pond and am actively trying to increase the HBG through natural hybridization in my sediment pond. And it appears to be working (perhaps to my self induced detriment????
). I have transferred hundreds of CNBG from my sediment pond to my main pond. During this transfer (both by trapping small 2-3" fish and fishing with hook and line) I regularly see both a small number of GSF and a slightly larger number of hybrids. Not sure if the hybrids are CNBG/GSF or RES/GSF (or reciprocals). But they are definitely hybrids of some sort. They have some markings of GSF but are too tall and too small of mouth for pure GSF. They are easy to spot in the minnow traps lying by either a pure GSF, CNBG or the occasional RES fingerling.
I have been catching some of these transferred fish from the main pond now that they have grown from fingerling to the 4" to 7" range. Had a dozen kids over yesterday at wife's family reunion and my job was putting bait on hooks and removing fish from cane poles with lines. Something between 100 and maybe up to 200 fish were caught in a few hours. I did not get to see every single fish, but of the ones I saw I saw a lot of BG, one CNBG, a few GSF and a several of these hybrids that were naturally produced in my sediment pond. I like them...... so far at least.
Some day I may see the down side of encouraging having hybrids within what I an trying to manage as a panfish pond (don't really care to have trophy LMB). But so far I am enjoying experimenting with the naturally occurring hybrids that I'm getting out of my sediment pond. For my goals, I have yet to experience the downside of having BG and HBG (or maybe HRES) in the same pond.
Edit: I have caught one 7" and another 5" (approx) GSF from my sediment pond (and transferred now to main pond) which have likely been the source of the hybrid fingerlings I have been capturing from this sediment pond. I also have fingerling GSF in there now in relative low numbers (compared to the CNBG fingerlings). No predators in this pond to date, though some day I likely will add some as the numbers of CNBG get out of control. Original stocking in this 1/10th acre sediment pond was FHM, 175 RES and 100 CNBG. Obviously there were a few GSF in the stocking mix or got in the pond somehow to create these hybrids.
Edit: I had also put in 4 adult RES caught out of my main pond into this pond some time later that fall after the fingerlings were stocked.
