Pond Boss Forums PHOTO GALLERY Image Gallery 2 1/4 pound BGxRES

12 1/2" BGxRES weighing 2 pounds 4 ounces, caught 10-11-24 on about an inch of nightcrawler

Also, the current champion BGxRES, who was 13 1/4" and a smidge over 2 1/2 pounds (caught August 2019).

What a beauty ! A little jealous.

Well done

Awesome fish.

What would you estimate it's age to be?

I hate to guess. But if it gets caught again in a year, it could break my record (2 lbs 8 3/4 oz).

Did you post a pic of that 2 lbs 8oz hybrid RES?

I added one above.

Two specklebellies to be proud of - that is for sure. Are you positive that the largest one was not one of your original Male stocked BG? Do you ever harvest any of those hybrid specklebellies.

Bill:

I'm sure he wasn't one of the male BG I stocked. I've never seen dark, scales readily apparent gills on any of my BG, only on the hybrids. And he would have had to have been about 14-15 years old.

I'm fairly sure my daughter caught the same fellow 20 months earlier, when he was 12 inches long and weighed just over 2 pounds.

I harvest the heck out of them, and am currently removing all BGxRES under 9" in length. I have taken about about 225 so far this year; about a third of those have been eaters (6.5" and up).

IMO a majority of those harvested were likely later generations of the original F1's. Now after several years are you seeing any observable differences (phenotypic) of later generations of the FX hybrid BG X RES? Are some of them looking more like BG compared to RES? Or more like RES instead of BG? This may take 10+ years for this to be noticeable. This visual difference tends to happen with later generations of hybrid BGXGSF who trend more often toward the GSF features that IMO is due to a genetic dominance or maybe a behavioral influence or maybe both?
When you have brown eyed and blue eyed parental genetics combined the eye color trends toward brown eyes.

Yes, Bill - The Fx's run a whole gamut of different BG/RES trait mixes.

How long did it take to get them that big? I just dug another 1/2 pond last year and want to put these in it this spring. What were your stocking rates? Where did you get them. Thank you for sharing Theo!

Wow!

Monster !

WOWZA

Outstanding!

Just revisited this thread.

Bill: The appearance of the current Fx's ranges all over the place. Some would probably be thought to be straight BG elsewhere, some look almost like RES, and there are variations of all the different BG and RES traits mixed in between. just what one would expect genetically.

I also catch some sunfish that I consider pure RES (based on appearance, location, and behaviour - obviously not being pellet eaters) but in reality, who knows?

Very good examples and description of the variability of BGXRES hybrids. Theo shows us that natual 'specklebellies' can be homemade. Do it right and they will grow into trophies.