I'll be happy to get a successful spawn, seine them out of the pond at about 1 1/2 inches and feed train them in a flow through tank or floating cage. Then they will either go back into the pond for continued pellet feeding, stay in a floating cage, or go into an RAS for the winter of the ones I don't sell IF I have extra ones. I'd like to add more to the big pond to control the bluegills. They're doing a good job right now but I need to add another age class and size to keep the smaller bluegill in check. I think I'm half way successful keeping the bluegill numbers down due to the high amount of smb I planted and low number of reproduced bluegills caught and observed. I'm sure the large population of large female perch has some effect on the bluegill fry too.

I planted 200 in a .62 acre pond - a very high density of SMB although they are feed trained and do feed on pellets every day.

I should be able to remove the smallies from the production pond with live bait once the spawn is over. I've never seen a smallie that could resist a live crawler dangling in front of it.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 04/14/12 10:49 AM.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.