Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Interesting, BG Fry pics

I dip netted these off our dock on Saturday morning, the interesting thing is there has been no sign of any BG spawning so far this year, no nest building yest. I believe these are from a very late hatch last fall. At the end of September last year not far from the dock I spotted a fairly large school of weeks old BG fry, I believe these are the same fish from that school. If so, then I am amazed that they survived through the winter, I am also amazed that the are now 7 months old and this small. Everything I have read says that BG shouldn't be spawning that late in the year this far north. My gut feeling is that with lots of aquatic vegetation limiting the number of spawning areas that this also creates conditions for a very long and drawn out BG spawn. Does this sound right? Or is there another explaination for seeing BG fry this size before they have spawned?





BTW Bruce, please don't post any pictures of your 7 month old BG in comparrison to these.

That's a really good picture on top, Shorty. I assume that these guys just didn't get much chance for growth, regardless of when your last spawn was in 2006.

Theo, if these were hatched mid September, then they would have had only about three weeks to grow before the water temps really started to drop. Back at the end of September I also spotted a solitary BG nest down by the cattails that wasn't there previously.

Here is a closer view of the same picture.

Shorty I don't know. Morts among late spawn BG in cold water is very high. They starve to death in large #s. This is a late spawn BG (Sept spawn) about 20-25 days later.

Ewest - I posted this simply because late spawn BG are very unusual for NE, most of the BG around here are done spawning by mid July. Having them survive through the winter is also very unusual. The area they have been hanging around is also the area where our heat pump from the house discharges into the pond, this may in part explain their survival through the winter in addition to the somewhat mild fall weather we had. Trust me, they have grown at least 3/16" of an inch since since I saw them last September.

http://www.iowadnr.com/fish/iafish/blg-fish.html

Yep I bet that heat pump saved them. I have no idea why we have a late spawn about every 3 years. I wish I knew. I think part of it is late maturing BG. What got my attention was a comment by Bob at the Ga PB meeting (held Feb 06) when he said he had seen new hatch BG in late Jan in north Texas after an early week long warm spell. That was a real shock. Now when I see yoy BG at an odd time I wonder what has happened. Early unknown spawn or late spawn with little growth.

Do you guys mean that cooling from the heat pump aided them through the Winter, or that heating from the heat pump late last Summer/early Fall made the later than usual spawn more successful?

Theo, well water being discharged from the heat pump leaves a very small slightly warmer than normal area in the pond during the winter. There is usually a very small spot of open water next to the dock where it discharges even when the actual air temps are well below zero. This, along with the mild fall we had likley accounts for their survival through the winter. Personally I don't think these BG will ever grow much and most will likely end up as bass food before the end of the summer.

Capiche - it's an open loop system.

Shorty and Ewest,

What kind of camera did you use to take those shots. My camera is terrible with close up and isnt so great far away either. Thanks

Joey:
Not sure on ewest's, but Shorty's pictures are from a Canon PowerShot G3.

Before Shorty accuses me of making a trip to NE to stalk him, here's how I found that. Most all relatively new digital cameras put their make and model in the file attributes. I found the above by saving one of the images on my hard drive, right clicking on it, clicking Properties, and going to the Details tab. ewest's camera, if it was digital and not a scanned photo, doesn't fill in either of those fields.

An Olympus C-700 zoom. It is digital but is at least 7 years old and is not easy to use. To many bells and whistles and you have to hold it absolutely still for several seconds after you take the pic. I would say 30% of my pics are no good (to fuzzy). I can do basic functions only. My kids picked it out for my wife but she will not use it because it is to hard to operate. So I got it. It has an attributes option but it is turned off so the date , type etc do not show up.