Thanks for explaining that Bill, because the sighting of many minnows also brought up a question in my mind. The fish guy I got my fish from said the Fatheads would be gone by the end of the second year, which is also goes along with what you said and many others have said on this forum.
My first thought was he must have a lot of cover. I do have one aquaintence who had put FHM in an established pond with LMB already in the BOW. From what I have learned on this forum and from my fish guy is that likely should have just been an expensive snack for the LMB. But in this particular BOW there were shoreline weeds and the guy said he was maintaining a population of FHM. They obviously had enough cover to avoid complete predation. Now I have no idea if he has other problems caused by the vegetation, but that is at least one case where FHM were put into an established pond and enough survived to maintain a population.
The guy said when he and his wife would do their daily walk around the pond, he noticed LMB started following them along the shore. Come to find out, when they walked, they would scare out FHM, frogs or whatever and the LMB were there for lunch. The LMB had learned to feed when humans were walking the shore line. I thought that was kind of an interesting observation.
From the above guys experience, I made particular effort to provide spawning areas and fefuge areas for the FHM in hopes I could maintain a population. Maybe I did the wrong thing as I could have provided too much cover for BG also? Time will tell. It may have all been for naught, because the FHM may go by the wayside despite my best efforts.
I think I am going to dig a small forage pond next to the big pond this spring just to raise FHM and RES, nothing else. I have the room, the dozer, the scraper, the time and the backhoe so we will see what happens. Then maybe I can supplement the FHM once a year. I like the little fellas.
For me it is the process that is interesting rather than the end result. I have not got into fishing that much, so if the fishery does not turn out perfect, I probably will not know it anyway.
So the point is your comments were appreciated. Gives me more insight into what I am trying to do.
