I had originally stocked this pond with RES and FHM, and later threw in a dozen GSH. The pond has never performed like I had hoped for RES reproduction untill now.

At times I have wondered if I even had any RES left in this small pond, but I would throw a cast net and after several throws would at least get a few of various sizes. But never any significant numbers of fry.

Well that changed a few nites ago. Put out a couple of minnow traps and had a dozen 2" RES. I could redily see the small dot on their opercular tab and were easily identifiable. Also caught a considerable number of GSH fry, which up until this year the major minnow catch was FHM.

That is all good news. The bad news is I found one 2" GSF in with the bunch of RES. I don't know where these buggers come from, but they come from somewhere. So I either have an adult GSF pair in there, or it was just an outcross from unpure RES genetics in my original stockers. I hand sorted every fish that went into this pond for identification, but the fish were only 3" at that time.

Anyway, am glad to see finally some significant RES reproduction. The original intent was to raise RES in this pond for transfer into my other ponds since my original stocking in those ponds was lighter than I wanted and could not get any additional RES at the time.

Will see how things progress. My sediment pond has RES and CNBG (with a few bonus GSF) stocked in it and I get a few RES fingerlings there. But for every RES I get dozens of CNBG. So the CNGB have reproduced like gangbusters and the RES not so much so. Or perhaps my trap harvest methods just select for the CNBG. Need to brush up on my cast net skills and see if more RES are there that I am unaware of.


John

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