I had the fish kill in my RES/SMB pond last year and I see zero activity in that pond. Have been doing some hand feeding and other ponds are active but get hardly anything making a swirl in that pond. I was hoping at least some of the small SMB had survived but now I am wondering. Have not tried fishing it with a small lure. I used to catch the juvenile SMB that way all the time, from 4" to 6" long fish right along the bank.
The good news is I had caught and transferred many SMB out of that pond to the other ponds. So I still have adult populations there. Hopefully I can catch a few of those, put them back in the RES/SMB pond and get reproduction going again. I had SMB recruitment every single year since the original stocking in that pond. At fish kill time I counted 50 dead fish. By the time I found them they were degrading but I could tell most of them were the same size SMB and HSB and quite a few large RES. I did not see many small fish dead so was hopeful the juvenal SMB and RES survived. We will see.
I'm one Kansas pond owner where the SMB did fine in a Kansas pond. That is until the combination of a drought and low water level along with stocking numerous HSB and over populating the pond the previous year. My mistake.
Last edited by snrub; 05/14/23 11:06 AM.
