My initial thoughts on seeing the fish were 2. One it is an old fish and not now as good a hunter looking for the right size meal and misjudged (due to hunger/low energy level - risk/reward). Second the fish looks like a 12 that has shrunk due to not enough of the right size forage and misjudged (see head size wrt body size). Look at the fish and subtract the 10 in CNBG and it looks skinny but with no major muscle loss yet. Could be from spawning (losses up to 25% are not uncommon). I do not think that it is a young fast growing fish that just guessed wrong. It may have been young and fast growing sometime back.

You are right we will never understand all the "what makes them do what they do" questions. But most times it will be biological. Safety first , then O2, then food (except during the spawn) and reproduction/survival of the line (theirs) and then everything else. All of these come with exceptions but my approach is biology first � they are hard wired for that. Fun to try and test the theories as best we can.


Last edited by ewest; 07/25/12 01:36 PM.