Originally Posted By: BrianL
Mine are just a bonus fish, and about the 2-3# range. I was thinking It might be better to start keeping and replacing as caught. Then replace what was kept the previous year in the spring. I stocked 50 10-12" in my pond last spring. My thought was 50 of the HSB in 3-6# range may be getting preditor heavy in that size with the LMB. Nice to have a few, but wouldn't want too many big ones?


do your HSB eat pellets? The competition might be minimal since hsb will lean toward open water feeding while lmb want to ambush based off structure and cover. HSB/LMB shouldn't be running into each other too often but there are areas where they'll overlap while feeding. HSB are great table fare and I'm looking forward to catching and consuming mine as they get larger.

Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP