Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What do I have here?

I dropped traps in the cow pond yesterday evening. The fine mesh Z trap was loaded with these little guys when I checked it this morning.
All of them were in the 1/2"-3/4" size range. There were 35-40 of them in the trap. I didn't try to dump them out, just put it back in the water.
When I got home from work today there was one left, along with ten or so BG in the 3"-5" range. The one pictured is ~3/4" and was the only
one still in the cage.

Is it a BG or RES from a late in '21 spawn, or is it a YP from this spring, or is the picture too blurry to tell. I couldn't get a better focus with my
cell phone cam from 3" away.

My two cents goes to BG or RES from late 2021spawn.

looking Yellow Perch fry photos:







This pic above had me wondering though. Augie, I still think lepomis due to the dorsal fin being fused and the shape of the anal fin looks lepomis to me. It's can be hard to tell but I have to say ... after looking for pics to link ... I think you took a pretty good photo.

Note the "alamy" photo has a LMB on top and yellow perch below.

Thanks guys. I was leaning sunfish based on the online photos that I checked. The vertical banding seemed much too close together to be YP.
That and the YP would have had to spawn under ice for the fry to have reached this size this early in the season.

99.9% sure that's a RES.

Thx, Kenny. 99.9% it's a RES? OK, the fine mesh trap is out of the water until May, when they should be big enough to know for sure.

There were several dozen inside the trap when I pulled it this afternoon. Most of them small enough to wiggle through the
quarter inch mesh when I set the trap on the dock. If they are the result of a late in the season RES spawn I'd prefer they
remain swimming rather than get eaten in the trap by half-pint BG.

I've become fairly adept at distinguishing BG from RES once they get >1.5", which these ought to be by mid-May.

I'm willing to put money on it, that's how sure I am... :-))

Just wait until a few of the sneaky bastards hybridize on you.

Then the little ones will be really fun to identify!

You're right Rod, at 3" you can tell the RES/BG crosses but they do sneak up on ya. Much better fish than GSF/BG though..

I've seen several BG/RES crosses show up in my traps. They get sent to the bait pond with the regular BG.

Top fish is a LMB

what is a good trap to buy for me to do the same thing in my pond?

The only store-bought trap I own is a little Gee G-40 that's probably 50 years old.

I get good results from both the B and Z style traps that I build myself.

There is quite a bit of video on youtube showing how to build them.

thanks