Originally Posted By: Drew Snyder

I don't know your situation and goals that well, but I'd guess the poor recruitment is more likely due to predation. If you have high numbers of HBG and larger GSH, and really want to boost your YP recruitment, I'll just note that my feed-trained YP are pretty good at eating cut bait (1/4" strips of BG)... So, I think/suspect that you could help the situation by trapping and angling to remove as many of the HBG as you're willing to part with, and maybe even larger GSH if you think you have high enough numbers of them to sustain a good forage population. I mention my experience with feeding cut bait as an option to convert some of that biomass of HBG and GSH removed into bigger SMB/HSB/YP or whatever other target species that are feed-trained.


Just from observing what we catch, and what shows up in the traps. I’m overloaded with HBG and RES crosses. We caught maybe 20 YP a few weekends ago, compared to 75+ HBG. Not as many GS as we usually catch. We put back the pure RES, and larger (probably female) YP. I thought about adding some YP this fall, but I imagine they would get cleaned out right away. Just going to keep going with this approach. My SMB have had at least one hatch. We’ve caught one small SMB, so I’m assuming there are others. I may have HSB, but I’m not sure. Hope to spend some time later this summer trying to see if they are there. I’m regretting adding the HBG. They are painful for swimmers, and reproduce way more than I thought they would.

9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023