We've had a lot of rain but my ice is still 2 feet thick. The rain has flooded the pond in places to where there is 8 inches of water on top the ice. Near my aerator the water is flowing up over the ice. Today two large BG swam up on top the ice and got grounded. One was just about dead when I found them and one was in good shape. The latter one swam away vigorously when I move him to open water. I decided to take some time and experiment a little with the one that will become lunch. It was a large male that was 11 inches long and weighed 1 lb - 7.5 ounces. Even though he still had a rather bulbous belly he is lighter by about 2 to 4 ounces compared to my 11 inch fish in the summer. I had several questions I wanted to attempt to answer. What are my fishing eating this time of year? Why are they still looking fat? How much meat can I get off a fish that size? So I very casefully filleted/disected this fish. I filleted it very carefully making sure to get all the meat behind eyes (the helmet area, the gill, under the ear flap, and down around under the gill all the way up to the ventral fins. The filets were 4.25 ounces each. I also noticed that these big fish have quite a mass of muscle between its "chin" and the pectoral and ventral fins. So I cut that area off and carefully removed the gill opening bones and the fin bones. I got another 3/4 ounce of meet out of that spot. Total meat was 9.25 ounces.
I then very carefull removed all the content of the chest cavity. Why so fat? The organs were surrounded with a thick layer of fat. I carefully separated the organs from the fat. There was 5/8 ounce of fat which was a mass about the size of a ping pong ball. Seems like a good healthy fish to have that much fat after 5 months under the ice. I struck out trying to figure out what they eat. The stomach had nothing in it identifiable. Just a small amount of brown goo.
I sure this is all more than most people want to know but I find it interesting.

Gotta get back to fishin!