I had previously been lead to believe that CC only eat "trash" for the most part. But then years ago, learned that minnows were excellent CC bait.I have even been told that CC were not "predators".
My thought is this. My pond had and still has a few nice size CC onboard. I was astounded at the numbers of small GSF I had.After using live small sunfish as trotline, and pole bait, and my success rate, I now wonder how many small sunfishes there would be, had there not been CC in there. Might make my current numbers seem trivial?
I know this much, these CC until they get to beyond 24" look extremely fit.Beautiful CC if you will.At 24" and above, they start getting lanky.These fish do not get like that waiting for rotting matter to drop to the ocean floor like a crab would anticipate. They are eating something, and that is fish, and lots of them. I would anticipate that the amount they are eating ebbs and flows with the age of the young. As the new young grow, they may become more difficult to catch.Or as the spawn is heavy, there's just not enough hiding places. I've been in my boat at night with a flashlight, and the sunfishes become dormant. They look like they are sleeping in the vegetation, and sometimes takes a prod to get them moving.So I imagine when there are thousands and thousands of small sunfishes... Kinda like a VW with 20 people trying to get in.... someone's hindside will be sticking out the window.
Concerning what CC can eat size wise. I do not know why, but I caught 2 CC's on my trotline, and removed them at the same time. They were both about 27". One had a very wide mouth, and the other had a more rounded narrow mouth.The one with the wide mouth, I could see it easily eating a 6" BG, if it is able to get ahold. I dont know why one had such a larger mouth than the other? Genetics? Sex?
There is good news to my story though. I released my fish into an area where I previously had very little luck in getting fish to feed.
Wednesday night ( think it was) I took TJ's advice on feeding YP at sundown....I wonder I said to myself. I threw feed out into the area my YP were released. I had some pretty good activity. I suspected it may be the YP, but had doubts. They were hitting like a small satiated BG. Last night I took some worms, and threw out some feed. Several were feeding, I cast a small #8 snelled hook with a small chunk of worm. I caught a YP! What was interesting, was I could not hardly recognize the fish. It had the stripes of a YP, but had the shape of a WE. (Remember I had never even seen a WE or a YP before Tuesday) They YP's had more of a greenish cast to them when released. This YP had the classic "yellow" color to it. Amazing what natural water does to the coloration of a fish. This is going to be so much fun!
