I had seen 4 nests around the circumference of this pond, likely from the first ten adult RES I stocked this spring. The 200 small fingerlings additionally stocked likely would not have been big enough to have spawned yet and the other two adults I put in likely after spawn was over.
But till today I had no knowledge of recruitment.
I was catching 3" fingerlings out of my forage pond with a cast net to bring down to this pond for additional stocking. Caught 71 fingerlings in about ten throws of the net. The first pictures are of these RES that I put in this RES pond from my forage pond.
Then it dawned on me (I'm a little slow at times) after releasing them into the pond. If I can catch RES fingerlings in my forage pond with the cast net, maybe I can see if I can catch anything in this RES pond. So I gave it a try. Well at least one pair must have had success because out of four throws of the net in the shallow west end of the pond I got three 2" RES. I know they were not any of the ones I had just released because they were in a different part of the pond and the ones I got were smaller than any I had transferred from the forage pond.
So eureka! It was a good RES day. Not only do I have good fingerling production from my forage pond, but I also got at least some reproduction from the small number of adult RES I had put in this RES only pond. This should give me four distinct age/size classes of RES in this pond. Success.
Now I'm thinking I should get some SMB ordered for next year to put in here.
