Bruce, Bill,
It seems the male coppernose and coppernose intergrades seem to have more of a platter profile than the northern strain. Or is this not necessarily the case?
Interestingly at the risk of repeating myself I had a situation happen that surprised me. After one of my trophy pond drainings where I had females escape a cage and breed with the males, which I did not want (breeding takes place under controlled conditions in another smaller pond), I saved several hundred fingerlings for an Amish friend for his new pond. I didn't want them as part of my stock as they didn't have the robust look of the ones from my brood pond that are fed after swim up with artifical feed. I believed they would be inferior.
Turns out they made up for lost time in their new home and his biggest one of 1 lb. 12 oz. eclipses my biggest one of 1 lb. 7 oz.
I think I may have shared this with Bruce and he has said he too has seen them catch up in growth and relative weight.
