Quote:
I theorize that they would do well in a pond with a healthy population of Fathead minnows. As was suggested in another thread, RES would not be effective at preying on large FH due to their small mouth size.


GW - I have seen standard 8-1/2" BG eat 4"-5" red tailed shiners with their small mouth size.

If the fatheads do get wiped out good by the RES they are easy and fairly inexpensive to restock in large numbers. One could also siene small RES out to if they do get too numerous.

I did finally talk with our neighbor about his GSF only pond and he said he didn't think they ever had a stunting problem. It sounded as though they regularly harvested "hand sized" GSF. Keep in mind his rationale for GSF only was that his pond is very shallow and he wanted to have a place where kids could throw a bobber out and catch a fish in 30 seconds or less. His management goals have been to have a place where kids would not get bored while fishing, size was not a concern or goal with his pond. I did learn that they added a few BG two years ago after his grass carp died, so a hybrid BG pond is in his future.