Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations RES Spawning now?

I thought RES spawned once in the spring? I threw a canoe in the pond today and scouted things out. One area of the pond had RES on beds. If this was pre-pondboss, I would have thought nothing of it and said it was BG, but there was the definite red tab and they were very large adult fish. Tried to catch them, but they were not interested at all. We had a good rain a few days ago, pond filled up about 6", and the weather has been cool in these parts all summer. Thoughts?

I had some on beds about a month ago. I chalked it up to them just reaching maturity, as they were only about 4" and had just been stocked earlier this year.

How big were they?

Got some that were bedding in a clients pond last week. They were only bedding on the SMB bedding area, no other areas in the pond.

Ponds have sand bottoms. Maybe the most agressive males spawned earlier and not all males were able to make beds due to not having enough favorable spawning areas? Maybe the ones that are bedding now are 2nd or 3rd in line down the pecking order of RES in the pond?

It might be something like pecking order, hadn't thought about that. And perhaps the cool rain triggered it off in those lower on the totem pole. I don't have that many shallow spots for them to spawn. I guess RES are then really like BG, in that they might spawn thru the year and time of year isn't mandatory?



These were bigger than any of my biggest BG that I see and can catch, so that puts them at least 8", maybe 10". So I don't see them growing that much for the maturity idea. Should have been big enough months ago. Wish I could catch one. If I did it would be the biggest catch out of the pond of a sunfish species.

Drop a live redworm in the bed on a #8 hook. No weight or bobber.

I've caught only one of my original stocking RES and like you, it was one of the largest sunfish I have caught at 9".