We’ve been catching more YP this spring than in the last few years. We haven’t kept any because we’ve been seeing fewer and fewer every year. Lots of nice one so far, but then this guy was caught over the weekend. It can’t be from this years hatch, can it? So if it’s from last spring, is it the size you’d expect? Eyes look big to me, but I’m very far from being a competent judge.
FYI, I run the feeder twice a day. The food is gone in seconds. However, I’m not using the premium feed I was using. The easiest one to get is just purina game fish chow. The local purina feed store won’t carry the AM 500. And I can never time shipments from Optimal.
We have thousands of GSH patrolling the banks by the feeder. So, I’ve got a lot of forage.
Thanks,
Jeff

This YP does have what looks to be a big eye, but it doesn't look starved to me.

Could it be a female that blew out it's eggs recently? Granted, it's smallish for a 'mature' egg-producing female.....if it's a female.

"Thousands of GSH patrolling the banks by the feeder" are eating pellets that YP this size would otherwise hopefully be taking for themselves. But YP don't become actively piscivorous until they are more like 10-12" long. And even then, they would continue eating pellets.

I've had 4-5" females blow small ribbons in my feed tank. That looks like a young spent female to me, maybe Cody will jump in.

Ok, thanks. Most of the GSH push pellets around like 4 yr olds playing soccer. We called it bunch ball. I will say 3/4 of the YP we caught last weekend, and there weren’t that many (I’d say 10 total) released a lot of milky white fluid when caught. I was assuming they were males.
Here’s another (bigger) YP that went after a shiner that’s almost too big for it.
Most were this size, which for a male is perfect in my opinion. He went after a crawdad lure.

Looks like you've got a good YP thing going there.

That one that tried to inhale that shiner looked narrow in the gut. Maybe female post spray?

Frankly, that may have changed my opinion of what kind of predator YP can be.