KC, a lot of my recent comments about Golden Shiners have been more in jest.
For the past few years, I've been putting hundreds of pounds of Golden Shiners into my pond. There were existing populations of SMB, LMB, Black Crappie, Bluegill, Bullheads, Yellow Perch, and some other assorted fish, so I wanted to make sure I was adding enough to take hold. I was also having a lot of basic pond weed, so the Golden Shiners had good cover.
This year, when I throw out some feed, I'll see several hundreds of Golden Shiners; it's like a constant flurry of micro-boils on the water, and these Golden Shiners were 3-4" long.
I also feel that I've lost a lot of LMB and SMB over the past 2 years. I believe this is due to poaching, and this has helped the Golden Shiners take hold.
When I first discovered the amount of Golden Shiners that I had in residence, I had over a hundred pounds of Golden Shiners scheduled to be delivered the following week.
The following weeks shipment of Golden Shiners did happen, however, the fish guy had massive mortalities, and maybe less than a thousand lived.
I will continue to use them in the future, but only after trying to assess the current populations.
Basically, I'm pro-Golden Shiner.
