Thanks, I was happy with them although there was supposed to be no GSF influence in that pond. I was actually wanting some RESxGSF hybrids but was not expecting them to come from this pond.
The initial fish were stocked mid October in 2014 so right at two years ago. I'm pretty happy with them.
The difficulty I have now is deciding how many and what to take out. I have no idea for sure how many large ones there are in this little 1/20th acre pond. I've been taking out all the Golden Shiners I can trap as they are pretty thick and taking out whatever small RES and Hybrids go into the trap. I suspect over this last year I have moved at least a hundred of the offspring. Ideally, if I could I would remove everything except about 3 or4 each of male and female RES, but that will never be possible without draining the pond.
I did stick about 20 2" fingerling RES into this pond yesterday. I got a batch of 100 from Dunn's fish farm truck to repopulate my sediment pond that had the fish kill and decided to put a few in this pond simply for genetic diversity. The Fingerlings I got from Dunn's looked really good this time (unlike the original fish stocked in this pond from them).
If they are like my BG Tracy they will grow really well to about the size I am catching, then they seem to plateau and not have really good growth thereafter. But I think that is because my LMB are not doing their job on keeping the recruitment's thinned out in my big pond. In this pond I have no predators so it is up to me to remove enough fish so they do not stunt. I am pretty sure that at least some of the RES have learned on their own to eat the feed I put in this pond for the minnows. That is how I have learned to catch them. Throw some feed out on one side of the pond and fish while the minnows are eating. Once in a while I can see a bigger swirl near the bank and if I throw my jig in the area I have been able to catch some of them. So I am pretty sure they are coming over to get the feed as it soaks up and sinks. Funny I have tried and tried to fish out in a few feet of water, but nearly all I catch is about a foot from the bank in a foot or less water depth. Seems like they come right up next to shore, I assume because that is where the snails hang out.
I just got in some Optimal and Optimal JR and have started using it for the feed in this pond. Now that I know the RES (at least some of them) are eating it, the rest of this year and next I am going to keep them on Optimal and see how they do.
