A neighbor said he caught 5 large shad in our 2-acre pond in southern Illinois. Said they were 8-10 inches. He said he was surprised, so he asked another neighbor for confirmation on the species. The other neighbor also said shad, according to the first neighbor. We don't know of anyone putting shad in. But if they're there, is it possible they could survive a winter?
Big GShad in a pond is not generally a good idea. They take up to much of the biomass. CC can eat small GShad but not big ones. Suggest you gather all the data possible on what is in your pond and then what your goals are. We can help give advice on how to accomplish the goals.
I think this is what my neighbors suspected was shad. I caught a couple of them this weekend. It's a golden shiner, right? If so, could it be one of the 2-inchers that I stocked in the spring? This one was probably 7 inches or so.
Many first stocked fish into a clean system exhibit a tremendous growth rate.
Cody Note: This again proves that many anglers are not good at identifying some of the less common fish species. Notice how big of a morsel the shiner attempted to eat. Shiners eat a lot of food and often sizable food items which in the spring some of it can be fish fry. The tremendous growth rate of newly stocked waters is usually due to two main things. 1. the new pond's blooming food web which is flourishing on numerous trophic levels. In post stocking situations sometimes a specific food item is not being eaten by other fish species which amounts to lots and lots of available food for the newly introduced fish species. 2. The new pond does not have heavy food consuming competition from several year classes of fish reproduction thus abundant food is more available to fewer fish than any other time in the pond's history. When competition increases food becomes less and growth rates slow down.
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