Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Do some fish just stay small?

Here's one a little better. We didn't get it weighed or measured. Had my daughter (pictured) and her 3 yr old twins, at the farm the last few days. Caught 20+ nice HBG, 7 YP, countless GSH, and three SMB. This was the biggest. No elusive HSB. Let the GSH go, and only kept one SMB. It had a weird bend in its body. Right before it's tail fin it had a curve. I wonder if a heron hit at it when it was younger. Only a few ducks still hanging around (instead of the 100 or so wood ducks seen a few weeks ago. The drought continues. My pond doesn't really look that different from all the neighbors. Down about two feet.


I know she shouldn't hold the fish that way. It was only for a minute or so, to get a picture.

That smb sure looks fat and healthy. And a pretty daughter with a great smile. What a great pic, I would have to put that pic on a wall in the house if you could

SetterGuy,
great fish. I "think" the way she is holding the fish is OK but there are concerns when people rotate their hands to make the fish more horizontal.

Thanks guys. She's as smart as she is pretty, and she loves to fish! She caught that SMB on a 2' Spider-Man rod..
I'm glad she didn't hurt the fish. She wanted the pic just to send back to her husband, to rub it in. He had to work yesterday. So, I guess I could add ornery to her list of characteristics.

So, i'm guessing she got her looks and smarts from your other half. My thinking is an old bird dog hunter trainer and hunter is not much to look at

Looks great!I Can't wait till I can catch something out of my own pond.

That smallie looks nice.

You hit that one right on the head! I think our mail man was a pretty smart guy. Had that same smile too, now that I think about it. Haha!

I finally had some time to myself to fish. I’m usually with grandkids up here at the pond.
So, this morning I went alone and tossed different lures for YP and SMB. I recorded some length and weight measurements. Had an absolute blast. The SMB are getting bigger, and are very fun to catch. These SMB were stocked by Rainman 10/10/17. He stocked 60 4-8”. Best one was about 16” and a hair over 2 lbs. (2.07) the others were 1.67, 1.54, and 1.36. The HBG was .78 #.
I did not weight the YP. I also caught a RES, that must have been from last year’s spawn. ( at least I think it’s a RES, your opinion please.)

Question, should I harvest any SMB? I’ve kept two of the 60. Both were caught last yr by daughter or grandson. I haven’t kept any myself. They sure are fun..

The first one is what I have been calling a hybrid of RESxGSF parentage. I have quite a number of them.

You could have had one of your HBG females hybridize with a RES male.

Or I could be wrong. If that is a pure RES I have been catching quite a few of them lately.

They are a good, fast growing agressive fish in my opinion.

You have had some really great growth from your SMB. The YP I know nothing about but it looks good to me.

Great pics of some beautiful fish! You obviously are doing something right in your BOW.

From what I understand, SMB need less culling than LMB because they are less prolific & don't tend to outgrow their forage. So long as they are growing with healthy RW, you might not want to take out a lot.

But I might be prejudiced since SMB are about my favorite sports fish!

Thanks guys. John, it’s bern so long since I’ve seen any of my RES, I think I’ve forgotten what they look like.. Ha!

Anthropic, the SMB are my favorites also. They are barely three yrs old, I would guess. Hopefully they’ll be around for several more years. I can still see schools of GSH swimming around all over the pond. So I don’t think I have too many predators.

Nice catch at the pond. A smallie pond with good smb growth like yours, I don't think it could get much better than that. Unless there was a soybean field right beside it and full of Quail.

Tracy, that is so true! My introduction to pond fishing was from my father in-law. He taught AG courses in NW Missouri. He knew every farmer in the county, and had permission to fish almost every pond. He’d get me up long before daylight to go. Back in the 70s there were Quail everywhere. He could whistle like a hen almost perfectly. He’d have rooster bob whites flying all around us, looking for that eager hen.

My gosh we used to catch a lot of fish. And we used to bag a lot of Quail.

That YP is looking great too! I bet those SMB are a blast to catch!

They are fun. Compared to the YP, the SMB have about 1000% more fight. I always make sure they don’t get too tired, and rick them back and forth in the water. They always swim off strong. Hopefully they don’t become hook shy.