esshup (and any other fish suppliers, or managers that frequently deal with fish suppliers),
I know you would only source fish from a supplier that you trusted. When you were sorting fish to get the right species, was the mixture of fish in a batch you got from a supplier, or were they from fish you collected yourself from a multi-species pond?
More general question: When members report getting some undesired fish species mixed in with their purchases, is that due to sloppy protocols by the fish supplier (at either their facilities or transport operations), or will fish get out of their designated spaces - at even the most diligent fish suppliers?
The fish came from a large fish supplier in AR and it was a direct trip from their facility to the pond. I had not had a problem with this particular supplier previously, and none since, but in ponds where not having a certain species is the goal, I normally do a check anyway when stocking fish in the pond. This particular pond had a BUNCH of fish going in it. I know we stocked 100# of FHM, and 100# GSH in the Fall, then the panfish in the Spring.
This particular pond was renovated over a 2 year period and the owner had us come in and rotenone the pond because he was worried that he had some unwanted fish in it. He did. I can't tell you how many Green Sunfish and Yellow Bullheads were in the remaining 24"-36" of water that was in the pond. He had pumped the pond dry to work on it and it was barely wet for almost 2 years. How did they survive? Your guess is as good as mine.
I will have to go back in my records to see how many fish we stocked and will make another post. But from memory, the 4 BG that were found in the HBG batch of fish was at the most 1/10th of 1 percent of the HBG that were stocked, and it could have even been a much smaller percentage.
It could be either of the two things that you listed, if a huge rain event happens and one pond overflows to another things will happen. Sometimes the overflow might be short lived and it wasn't noticed. Bill talked about a place that has 230 acres of water. The supplier that I got the fish from is a very large supplier and I really don't know how many acres of water they have to grow fish in. The smaller place that I go to has 1,500 acres of water that they grow fish in if that gives you an idea of the scope of the size of the operations in Arkansas.......
The ponds aren't ALL side by side, they lease or own property scattered all over and while they try to visit the ponds frequently, there aren't enough bodies to visit all the ponds on a daily basis. These ponds are anywhere from 1 to 20 acres in size.
