Caught my first RES by hook and line today out of this RES/SMB pond and lo and behold I'm pretty sure it is a hybrid. I moved it to my old pond.
I have been very careful with the RES I stocked from my forage pond to only use specimens large enough that I could positively identify them. But I also stocked 200 2" fingerlings from Dunn's Fish Farm and they were too small for me to be positive about all of them.
I don't think I have many hybrids or I would be catching lots of them as they tend to be easy to catch.
My other issue with this pond is I had a flock of cormorants that may have wiped out a bunch of fish. Plus I could have had some winter kill. So not even sure how many RES survived. But I have been seeing them on nests so I know I have some and I have added some more since the cormorants from my forage pond. But the reality is I just don't know what my RES population currently is.
I know the fish pictured below has RES in it. But I would call it a hybrid with some GSF genes in it.
Edit 10-27-18 the fish is definitely a hybrid. I have caught several since this one along with a number of pure RES also. I have a few of these hybrids but I think not all that many. The ones I do have are just more aggressive to bite a hook so I catch them easier. I remove the hybrids I catch.
