This thread gives a bunch of dates for ribbon sightings in various states. I find it interesting that Colorado and Minnesota had very similar dates of first egg strand sighting. Woodster seems to have a similar date almost to the day in WI.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=33490&Number=445094#Post445094If all of us keep notes of weather, water temp, which portion of the pond gets the eggs and the substrate eggs are laid on, in, or around I think we can really learn something.
One common theme so far is branches, but also where branches were ignored and something 'spindly' instead was used. In my pond, the first strand this year was on a very thin spiky rush or sedge. It also was the only real cover there was anywhere as I have no submerged vegetation. Woodster saw them pick cattails.
Perhaps, not too unlike humans, they prefer to do their 'duties' in private and feel more protected when they can go in between or under things?
Bill thanks for the wealth of knowledge. I never knew that the YP after 1" or so are good enough swimmers to have a chance at avoiding predation. That is good to know. You are very correct that some eggs clearly hatch even when all the visible eggs are removed as we have plenty of YOY perch
The good news is that my schools of hundreds of large adult goldfish are down to one small school of 20-30 adults. We had lots of summer and fall fishing parties with friends and family and took an average of 20-30 big ones out every time. Late fall we started catching smaller 3-4" goldfish along with the mature adults (this year's brood) so we'll have to keep at it till we get the breeding size ones out...(or till the SMB go in and hammer the 2-3" ones)
I wanted one more chance to grow vegetation (another reason goldfish have to go) and then try to establish FHM. UP till this time the FHM disappear in about 2 weeks as the YP(?) vacuum them up. I may have one more spring and summer to get FHM established, see if I can get another season of GSH young to the fast swimming stage, see if I can get a successful 2nd generation of LCS, evaluate my crayfish population, see if I can get some other minnow species going (found some stickleback in a seine net this fall and would love to get more going) and then add a few SMB maybe in the fall in very small numbers. I don't think I'll get sizable numbers of PK shrimp either without more vegetation/grass for them to hide in.
If you have suggestions for other structure or devices to leave out for YP spawn sites let me know. It sounds like an artificial stand of cattails would be cool to try too. I worked hard to get rid of all the cattails I had
