Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Green sunfish overtake forage pond

In my opinion, if a fish trap is your only sampling method, you will catch a disproportionate number of GSF.

BG will go into a baited trap fair, RES more by accident, but GSF are chow hounds when it comes to baited traps.

As an example, I have a 1/20th acre forage pond stocked with RES to raise fingerlings for stocking other ponds. Some GSF got introduced and multiplied, (as well as produce many hybrids). I trapped hundreds and hundreds of hybrids and GSF fingerlings out of that pond with about a 10 to 1 ratio of them compared to RES. But throw a cast net near dusk and I would get 95% RES. If I had only been using a fish minnow trap as my sampling device, I would have thought I had a pond full of GSF. But in reality the GSF were a minority and I could knock their populations down significantly in a few weeks trapping, to the point I could ha4dly catch any.

BG will go in baited traps much better than RES. But neither will trap as easily as GSF.

Try a cast net or seine. You might be surprised at the number of BG.