snipe,
When it comes to minnows, I think nothing is easier than gams. These are some of the more interesting minnows you'll ever come across. Swingle found they added 145 lbs/acre of BG production (stocked 2" at 1500 BG/acre). The percentage increase 87.44%. Remarkable. A similar experiment with BG, LMB, and FHM increased total production by 167 lbs/acre but this experiment was over 12 months (the gam experiment was over 6.5 months). What makes it more remarkable is that they only stocked gams at a rate of 2 lbs/acre. it would take more than 300 lbs of optimal to have done the same thing. Now that's leverage. Gams are one of the few minnows you can rely on to reproduce in the presence of predators. They mate on the fly and protect the eggs inside themselves before hatching. Not being tied to nest protection is a big benefit to them. It's not of much value for large LMB, but this kind of forage would be high value to SMB particularly.
Three seasons ago, my son and I used some of our gams to fish at a local pond where there presently were none. We found the pond infested with small GSF and bluegill. We've never caught an LMB in it and I am convinced none are there. But the pond has some dandy CC. Long story short I asked James to reel in and he dumps the remainder of our minnows in the pond. Maybe 15 or so. Well by fall I saw there were gams present along all of the shores. Now this surprised me given that the pond had so many sunfish. Then last year the population of gams literally exploded in the pond. They were a seething mass . The pond has a ring of APW and this was a good for them evidently. This year, an explosion gams seems to be ready to happen all over again.
The interesting thing about gams is that they like being near shore, and they tend to concentrate there. Can't recall the paper but Gams standing weights per acre are inversely correlated with pond size. I think this is because the ratio of shoreline to area increases in smaller bodies of water. So small forage pond that is long but not wide is ideal for growing them. Gams will kind of limit themselves if they get thick their reproduction will slow down. They produce much more under cropping. Typically, they will only attain a standing weight of less than 100 lbs/acre in monoculture. So how could they possibly help BG gain 145 lbs/acre in a single season? How many lbs/acre of gams would the BG have to consume to gain an extra 145 lbs/acre? Whatever it is, the gams had to have produced many times the carrying capacity and it was the constant cropping of gams that allowed that to happen.
FHM are great in pond with no predators for building a shot in the arm ... but when there are a lot predators interfering with their reproduction ... particularly nest protection ... FHM don't deliver a lot of reproduction with predators. Gams have to be part of arsenal for minnow production. Ideally minnows could utilize the edges, near surface, midwater, and benthic zones of your pond. So the key seems to be the right combination of them.
Last edited by jpsdad; 05/17/20 08:52 AM.
