TJ,
Cool stuff. I too will be attempting spawning smallmouth this year in one of my steep sided 1/10th acre ponds. Mine has limestone boulders in the water with pockets I will fill with landscape size stone very shortly.
I will also attempt to seine them out at 1.5 inches or so and feed train them in a flow through tank on site.
My smallie broodfish are feed trained so I think I'll preclude the planting of fatheads to sustain them. I'm thinking the fatheads could compete with the smallmouth bass fry? Maybe not?
I noticed you had a lot of filamentous algae on the bottom. You weren't able to get a good algae bloom going before it took hold? I've found in my perch and bluegill production ponds if I get a good algae bloom going ASAP the algae won't take hold. If not, the algae continually robs nutrients from the phytoplankton and you never get a good algae bloom going, which is imperative for high survival of the newly hatched fish (at least this has been the case for my bluegill and yellow perch.)
As far as silt shouldn't the male keep the eggs fanned until they hatch?
Please keep us posted. I'll start a thread on mine if no one minds.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 04/04/12 10:39 PM.
