This spring I ask advice on adding GSH to this RES pond since it now also has SMB. A couple of you advised against it and I took that advice and did not add any at that time.
Till yesterday. I added about a dozen GSH raised in my forage pond ranging in size from 3" to 5". I'll probably add that many more in the next few days or maybe twice that many.
I have had GSH in my small 1/20th acre forage pond now for two or three years. The other fish in that pond are RES and some unwanted GSF along with some SMB that were added just last fall. I have seen no ill effects from the rather thick population of GSH that has been in that pond other than the FHM that were originally stocked are pretty much gone. But I expect they would have been gone even without the GSH addition. I had stocked a dozen GS from a bait store and they had reproduced like gangbusters. Have moved thousands of GS to other ponds from the small forage pond. So I have had what I consider success with GSH in with my RES and the RES still produce all the RES fingerlings I need (have also taken hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands by now, of RES fingerlings out for other ponds).
I couldn't stand it any more. I wanted GSH in my RES pond. Here is my thinking.
The FHM are likely almost gone or will soon be. I no longer see schools of them along the banks or feeding on pellets like I did earlier in the year. The likely cause are the gangs of 4-5" SMB recruits I see cruising the shore lines. Pictures of some of them in the previous post. So while I am unsure of the reproduction and growth of the RES, the SMB have been doing great as far as reproduction. So with that many new SMB to feed I figure they need an additional forage source once the FHM are gone and a large SMB should be able to eat an adult GSH. If the GS work out as well in this one acre RES/SMB pond as they have in my 1/20th acre forage pond, I think they will be fine. With only a small number stocked and predation from the SMB and RES it should take a year or two for numbers to build so my thinking is the RES and SMB will be very well established before GSH numbers could get big enough to cause problems.
Just returned from the pond and saw several RES on beds again and dozens of SMG 4-6" long hitting the pellets well.
