Mr. Cody helped me with the knowledge base to get SFS established in my pond and I'm very tickled with them. I noted that the fish farm near me only sold FHM but it seems it would be easy for them to also offer Spotfins or spottails and people would soon switch over due to the many advantages of shiners (not GSH) over FHM.
My observations are:
SFS are very hardy, speedy, and vigorous more so than FHM
They must be able to elude predation better without cover since in my bare pond they are still thriving
They require a little more specialized spawning structure but even though I probably didn't hit a home run in my spawning structure design area they still found a way to produce thousands of babies. They are just as happy using natural crevices in logs as well. I'm thinking that all of us who have created and sunk pallets or stacks of pallets, that we could probably add crevices (circular saw grooves) to those and resink them and they could do double duty for FHM and Shiner spawn structure
They don't lay eggs as many times (compared to FHM) over the warm water season, but shiners still may pull off 2-3 spawns once water temps warm up to around 65 and above.
They don't require pellet training, they readily surface feed and attack pellets innately. They are fearless and chase down pellets into the shallows even til they almost beach themselves.
Because of their fervent pellet attacks on the surface, they train my other fish and my YP to come to the dinner table at pellet time and make a meal of the shiners while the shiners are busy feeding at the surface.
Agree with TJ, there is an advantage that they reach a peak size that is smaller than a large adult GSH so that YP can continue to use the adult shiners as a food source.
For those with Walleye, they prefer a diet of smaller minnows and the adult shiners at 4-5" are just perfect for adult walleye.
I know of no sources in MI to get them. I believe they can be purchased from fish farms in OH but not sure they will ship them in a box to another state.
This is a case where those of us who have grow out cages or forage ponds should try to get established populations and then see if the tiny shiners could be shipped to help others out.
they would transport in a aerated tank pretty easily on the back of a pickup truck.
I'm pretty sure fellow PB member dono in ontario has reproducing emerald shiners in his pond but he also has constant moving water from a waterfall feature.
Last edited by canyoncreek; 10/24/19 11:50 AM.
