You can bet I'll follow development closely. My goal is to separate the bigger fish into three groups. Tail clipped and added to my recreation pond, placed into new reproduction pond for 2006 and some left in existing pond. This way if I have a catastrophy of some kind I won't lose them all.
Theo,
These fish came from approximately 60 adults that were carefully chosen for the program. I currently have 930 of this year class. What makes the maturation of an 11-month-old male even more remarkable is that it is in a lined pond. There are steep sides and no spawning substrate of any kind. Why did he mature? The other eleven BG that I caught were unremarkable in size. They were quite healthy, but no longer than a typical age-1 BG. At the end of the year I hope a couple hundred of these fish will distinguish themselves for second generation production next year.
Holding a redear sunfish is like running with scissors.
