John, how many of last year's spawn do you see now? let's think about the math....if 10-20 northern BG females are capable of sustaining the population in a 1 acre pond, and if we assume that HBG are 95% male, AND we stocked 500 HBG to the acre, then we already have 25 female HBG present.
What I'm getting at, is you will always see reproduction.....it's recruitment you need to control. Seeing 1-1.5" yoy HBG doesn't concern me, as I see em' every spring. But in my case their numbers decrease rapidly to the point that in five years I've never caught an F2. I know there's surely some in there, but their numbers are so low they are a non-issue.
How many 3-4 " HBG are you seeing? To me, that would be a good indicator of whether or not recruitment is occurring in a fashion to cause concern, and possibly warrant introduction of a different predator species.
Did you ever stock any single sex LMB?
