Just read in your "Shad id?" thread that your fish might be threadfin shad!
The little splashes (mainly in the open water) that I have seen all my life in Kansas ponds and watershed lakes, certainly match the size of the splashes that I saw on my last trip to Lake Texoma where the threadfin shad are abundant.
If never introduced as forage, or used as bait, TFS can only be in these small lakes due to being originally present in the stream/creek that is the water source for the lake. (Or someone upstream has introduced them into their pond.) However, theoretically the TFS should have trouble surviving in Kansas watershed lakes.
Your watershed lake is old. The one I fished the most is old. None of the other ones I have fished were new.
I would think that over the entire life of the lake, there would have been at least ONE very cold winter that extirpated the TFS. However, I have seen the same "shad" splashes in every watershed lake that I have fished in eastern Kansas.
I definitely have something wrong on this topic!
Don't know if I am wrong about the source of the splashes? Don't know if some "creek" TFS have much greater cold tolerance than we expect?
I am trying to give you more advice, but I seem to just be creating more questions!
