Originally Posted By: esshup
Tony, I think what's also throwing you is the muddy water that a number of pictures of fish are coming from. I don't know about you down where you're at, but muddy water up here is very rare in ponds.


Originally Posted By: sprkplug
Scott, I'm sure that's part of it, but the opercular is what's really puzzling me. Males with such small operculars? I get that on smaller, immature fish, but that fish Mrs. G is holding certainly has a lot of mass for an immature male doesn't it?

Maybe scale tipping and opercular size just don't factor in as heavily on coppers as they do on northern fish?


Tony, Scott is right on about prevalent muddy water in many of our ponds in our area.

IIRC, I believe a major point that has been over-looked is short length of growing season of northern ponds/vs longer seasons in Texas ponds.
It is not unusual to grow male OTS CNBG to 8-9 inches in a year’s time. These fast growing fish may be large but have immature characteristics, and subsequently difficult to ID sex.

M/F selection at this stage is not important to me because the males soon begin to get broader and thicker and exhibit male characteristics. At this time I cull the females that do not meet my criteria for pure Florida CNBG characteristics.

Mrs G’s pale coloration CNBG was photographed at pond side and not put in live well for later photgraph - that was a one year old fish about 8+ inches long would be my best guess.

Tony, thanks for keeping this thread alive. IMO it is important for folks that are selecting brood stock for their OTS CNBG grow out ponds. Al is doing a good job on selection of OTS CNBG for his brood stock using Overton’s criteria.

Cheers,
George


N.E. Texas 2 acre and 1/4 acre ponds
Original george #173 (22 June 2002)