Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Ice on Pond

Rod, to be honest, I'm not sure. One thing that I think skews CNBG size numbers is the amount of vegetative cover in my pond. I watch the banks and feedings closely in the spring, and the mid-range 5-7" CNBG are rare. Those that don't get eaten, and grow past that size, survive. The height of the CNBG can outweigh the gape of the LMB, and I've seen dozens swim around with the CNBG sideways in their mouth. Eventually they release them after trying to swallow them head first. Having said all of that, there's a lot of fun with fishing for the larger CNBG with ultralight rods.

Here at least, the smaller CNBG are certainly more fusiform and eatable than the adults.

Al, yeah managing the water in the hatchery pond has been problematic. Too bad it wasn't closer to the boat ramp.

Very true. Last year, I dropped over 4K to turn it into a fingerling/fry wonderland. Unfortunately, I could control everything but mother nature. I stocked 40 juvenile HSB, hoping that this batch won't have any issues.

Hopefully the rain lets up. Once it gets light out you see it and hopefully that it didn't rise too much.

Many threads here on fish coloration. It changes fast so it is not a real good indicator to shoot for. Best to try and look at color in the pond via camara and not in fish that have just been caught. The threads referenced above have some good pics and discussion on traits. I have no idea how you try to produce fish with just the genetic traits one might want as there are thousands of interrelated traits some dominate and some recessive. George and I tried (along with others) in the Ark CNBG thread to describe what we thought we knew.

Biggest influence on color I have noticed is water clarity.

Here is a bit from a prior thread.

Many things can affect fish coloration including water clarity and chemical composition, bottom color , mating , light penetration and intensity . Color is often affected by the current situation such as the fishes status as predator or prey, aggressive or passive, agitated or calm, angered or under attack etc. Their coloration scheme is often divided in categories such as warning coloration , cryptic coloration , disruptive coloration , or countershading . Much of coloration is controlled by cells called chromatophores and iridophores which react to the various stimuli.

Eric, neither do I. Years ago, I made a road trip to Todd's to hand pick juvenile red tailed CNBG out of one of his vats. There were different levels of red, and a white pail was used as background to determine the density of the color. The goal was to cage the fish until maturity then select the CNBG with the reddest tail, and use that one fish as "the" male CNBG when adult female CNBG were added. It wasn't unusual for me to drain, kill, and refill the hatchery pond several times a year, so doing that wasn't a big deal. It turned out to be a failure, and I can't remember why. Not sure weather it was otters, mud from water shed runoff, or something else. I do have red tailed CNBG in the big pond, but not in the volume I wanted.

I agree with the difficulty of managing traits, but if Bruce, TJ, and Cecil, all have their strains, I saw no reason for me to at least try to enhance an already existing color trait. I've learned a lot with failure.

I have one pond 1.1 acre here in Tennessee that has frozen over the last two years. My CNBG were not affected. I got them out of Kentucky. That pond has no aerator. My other pond which is at my house is only .5 acre but it has a 2 diffuser aerator and this last week been awful but that Aerator prevented the pond from freezing over best money I ever spent. Here I cannot tell cold affects CNBG but they will not take pellets when it is cold.

Absolutely worth the effort to try and produce what you want. Best CNBG I got were direct offspring from George's.