Thanks for the input guys..
Those familiar with the Ogallala aquifer know how water works with DWR and KS Dept of Ag. You don't get to pull water from the Ogallala for commercial use other than Crop farming. I'm lucky being that I'm in heavy irrigation use area but the closest farm use well is 2.1mi from my well, 2 miles or within is a No-Go for surface water.
The guys I've been working with at the state level are being very supportive of my wishes and are quite happy to help.
I'm excited to start this even if it is on a small scale, it opens the door to a more broad learning experience, but as mentioned above I want to focus on quality of a few species vs quantity of many.
The forage options are many and I'm weighing my decisions on available data and first-hand experience of a few folks along the way.
I'm torn by the complexities of some species and the ease of raising others, but if they are easy I see no need to fill a void that doesn't exist because blind luck works most of the time. That's not the niche I'm looking for.
I have to weigh things like spotfin, for example.. is the average guy going to build proper spawning structure for this species? Probably not, which reminds me canyoncreek, the fact you have provided a "treebark" type structure is the key to what you are seeing based on research I've done on this species. There is a fair amount of data that suggests high numbers of spotfin have been sampled in areas with large timber that still has the course bark in tact. I've found this in several locations where this species was present in the same locations commonly, even though they were not the target species of the sample efforts.
Red shiner: why if this fish is so common in so many areas, is it not more readily available? Is it desirable by predators? Why have so many bait shops quit handling them? What I've been able to dig up on this appears to be a problem with ID that "could" lead to an accidental introduction of other species that truly are invasive. I find Liability seems to be one of the issues and surprisingly the maximum size of Red shiner seems important, which is seldom over 2.75". I've found more data recently that shows red shiner are very well accepted and utilized by many predator fish but they do not provide feed for 8lb LMB. That's a problem I welcome. The reproductive rates of reds are quite attractive to me and they are known to prosper in less than ideal conditions. It's very obvious to me this species can fill a niche in the food chain and withstand high rates of predation, so they are a stepping stone for growing intermediate fish that will transition to larger prey at some point.
So, how do I choose YP, SMB or Pumpkins..??? I like to see hybrids, PSxRES or BG either, very cool but what about the effects of continual crossing turning into undesirable characteristics? F2-on and on.
I have been very quiet about an experiment that took place this last spring that proves you can mess with mother nature but she can throw you a wicked curve. This would be a good place to spill the beans.
This last April I fertilized walleye eggs with YP spermatozoa and incubated in my house. I'm not going to get too specific on the details but I was able to get several hundred to hatch. Upon realization they were hatching, I contacted the right people to take the fry in less than 2 days and care for them at the hatchery where the actual experts had a chance at making it work long enough to get some data. Last week there were 13 fish left and are all inside under observation. We know now that WAE and YP will not successfully cross and live but I'm guessing somewhere, somebody already knew this. Some took on mostly WAE characteristics, and the majority that looked more like YP were obvious mutants that were not going to survive. There is no evidence or data to prove this has ever been achieved to this level.
Moral of the story?? I'm not sure what that is, but genetically it can't work is what I'm told. So I don't know if I want to wash the genetics from a pure strain PS only to end up with something similar to BG that doesn't really go anywhere.
Which brings me to SMB. I know of 2 strains of SMB that exist and I'm sure there may be 3 or 4, but the 2 I have found data on are the northern strain, commonly called the Erie strain and the more popular Ozark strain. I have the Ozark strain, which is what Hartley fish farm sells. I wanted the northern strain because I have data from our SW hatchery that specializes in Black bass that tells me the northern strain obtain a larger size, quicker in the central US than the Ozark strain does. Always a catch 22 and that is the Ozark strain is shown to handle lower water quality better, enter the pond environment most commonly compared to the large clear O2 rich areas the Northern strain does best. Our Black bass expert in KS suggested I cross the 2. So here we go again, how long will those genetics hold out?
Ok, I've rambled too long, but thanks for listening to my thinking out loud, I am really excited to make this happen, just not sure what "this" is yet!
