Nice report Kenny. Your SMB should be bedding now or very soon...been a late year for us up here and my water is pretty stained due to runoff...not sure I'll be collecting many SMB fry this year.

You'll see male SMB bedding anywhere from 2-6' depths, and a week or so later notice schools of dark black tadpole looking fry with the same male close by trying to protect them somewhere near the bed location. These are not tadpoles, they are YOY SMB and very easy to net provided you have a fine mesh head.

Consider keeping on top of the cattails...they are a preferred forage item for 'skrats - I nuke every one I see as I already have rat issues. Cattails respond readily to glyphosate - I use the Schillig "glove of death" method to avoid product drift into the water. Glove and a little section of sponge and up the leaves you go. Get em now while they're growing, tubers are vulnerable to herbicides but won't be once they're mature....then you'll only kill the leaves.


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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