After seeing the really nice BG/RES cross fish a few posts back, decided I wanted some. I have had quite a few GSF/RES hybrids in my main pond but have had only the rare RES/BG cross that I only speculated that was what it was.
Ask wife if we caught a really nice male copernose BG out of the main pond what she thought of the idea of adding it to the RES pond to get some crosses. She said go for it. Well we did catch a really pretty copernose and transferred it to this RES/SMB pond. So maybe next year we will be catching a few BG/RES hybrids out of this pond. I only plan on this single male (at least I think it is a male) so hopefully the hybrids will not completely overwhelm the RES. But hopefully we will get some and also up the sunfish catch rate in this pond. I like catching fish and not so much fishing for them. So catch rates are important to me. I suppose if it is a female I will still be ok but one of the reasons I am only doing one fish is then there will be no mistake of getting one male and one female and have an "Oops!".
Having the single male CNBG among a pond full of RES females I ought to get some pretty hybrids.
I have caught some GSF/RES out of this pond (a few fingerlings I misidentified putting into this pond) so there is still an outside chance that I could end up with some "mutts", but my experience with those hybrids is they are very easy to catch and I think I have caught most of them and removed them already.
Caught a few 9"+- SMB out of this pond and transferred to the main pond. Been thinning the herd in the main pond by filleting lots of BG/GSF hybrids and GSF in the main pond so figured adding the SMB would not hurt.
