Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Where did they come from??

As many of you know I put 50 lbs of fatheads and 20 lbs of shiners in my "walleye" pond in the fall. I was walking around the edge of my pond yesterday surveying the muskrat damage and I saw literally hundres of minnows ranging from 1/4 inch to 3 inches. I know some of them could have survived the winter and walleyes but where did those little 1/4 inchers come from already??

They came from a dying plant called Sunilock.Look closely and you will probably find thier spaceship.Most of them carry a GSF logo on the back wing.

They were probably 1/4" long going into Winter and found sufficient places to hide from predators or SF & dynamite loving Texans.

Thanks Theo-I dont remember seeing how small those fatheads were that I put in. I didnt think I had any that small so I was just wondering-does anyone know if those little guys spawn or do they have to get to a certain size??

From http://www.bio.txstate.edu/~tbonner/txfishes/index.htm

Fecundity: A single females may produce 6803-10164 eggs (mean 8604), over the entire spawning season, and may have participated in 16-26 spawning sequences. A female might produce from 9-1136 eggs (mean 414) in a day (Gale and Buynak 1982). Hatching occurs in approximately 13 days at 15 degrees C, decreasing to 4 days at 25 degrees C (Markus 1934; Andrews and Flickinger 1974).



Age at maturation: Markus (1934) and Dobie et al. (1956) found that young hatched in late May in Iowa and Missouri had reached sexual maturity and reproduced by late July of the same year.



Migration: During periods of high stream discharge, fathead minnows showed downstream movement in small Minnesota stream (Schlosser 1995).



Growth and population structure: In Ohio, young of year in October were 13 mm (Aug.-Sept. hatchings) - 64 mm (May-June hatchings) in length (TL); around 1 year length ranged from 25-76 mm; adults usually 41-76 mm in length (Trautman 1981).

The birds drop them off