That would have been my guess, because the RES I recently bought from the fish truck had the vertical stripes just like the ones from the puddle. But what baffled me was how early it was. I could fully believe that the SMB had spawned, but the RES??? And that small of fish out the overflow been last years spawn??? I didn't think so.
I don't know if they are going to survive in the little plastic aquarium we have them in. They are still alive but not growing. They are acting like RES in that they do not want to feed on the fish starter we have. Once in a while they will take a pellet as it falls and spit it out. They act just like the RES we raised before in a bigger aerated aquarium. We do have some snails in there laying eggs so maybe of some of them hatch and if they are RES they will survive. I don't really care if the fish live or die other than I would like to know what they are. The gams are growing like gangbusters on the feed and wait for me like puppy dogs for me to feed them.
I have never seen a SMB that small. I have caught bunches of them at 4" with a few as small as 3.5". I catch them on 1/64 oz jigs with a Gulp Alive waxie for bait in about 6" of water. Those little suckers are voracious. Watch them follow the lure and attack it. I have had lots of them every year. But they always have a dark band on their tail and are easily distinguishable even watching them in shallow water from the shore.
On a different note, here is a picture of the CNBG wife caught out of our main pond and put in this RES/SMB pond. Hopefully it will produce us some pretty CNBG/RES hybrids that will be easier to catch than those persnickety eaters RES. I'm calling it a male. Anyone think it is a female? Caught another one just about like it tonight and considered adding it too, but thought no, just my luck I would add a male and female. I really don't want a pond bull of CNBG in my RES pond. A few hybrids (hopefully lots of males) will be just fine.
