Been catching some GS out of this forage pond to stock my sediment pond and main pond in addition to reducing the fish load in this pond. Fish are thick enough to almost walk on and I fear a fish kill later this summer unless I get some of them harvested and out of here.
While casting for GS I have been getting a couple of 3-4" RES per cast also. Lo and behold I also got three big ones in the cast net pictured below. All in the 7.5-9" range. Normally I would put these large RES back in to raise more RES fingerlings. But considering I removed several hundred 3" nominal RES last fall and am still getting 3-4" fish in the cast net, I think I have plenty of fingerlings in there even without the large breeders. So these three went to the sediment pond to raise some RES fingerlings there. These were caught about a week ago and just got around to posting the pics.
On another sadder note, I found two dead 9-10" SMB (out of 10 originally stocked) in this pond floating around the edge. I had put the aeration on timer but don't know if this had anything to do with it. Put this pond back on 24-7 aeration because it has such a heavy fish load. That was a couple days ago and no more dead SMB since. Fingers crossed. Fish were too decomposed and partially eaten to determine death.
