outdoor stock tanks...successes and failures

[danotaylor]

Bloody marv mate. What type of goldie’s are they? Are the small ones their offspring?

 

[jjohnwm]

Bloody marv mate. What type of goldie’s are they? Are the small ones their offspring?

They're plain ordinary feeders, got them from a neighbour who buys fish and then loses interest in them by the time she gets them home. That was a couple years back, they're in the 7-plus-inch range now. Lost a bunch to a heron earlier this summer, but still have maybe 15-20, not sure of the surviving number. They go outside into this pond for the summer and then back down into the basement fishroom for the winter.

I'm amazed at how thoroughly I have fallen for these fish. They are colourful, active, tame, show up wonderfully from above, don't fight with each other or anybody else....they are common as dirt but rarity just isn't something that matters to me. They are, by almost every metric, the perfect aquarium fish.

They also spend most of the summer chasing each other around and doing the nasty, and I wind up with dozens or hundreds of fry as a result. I've given a bunch away to other folks, I've blenderized a bunch more and added them to my home-made gel fish food, and last winter I started to use them as bait for ice-fishing. They live in my freezer for the most part, but when they first come out of the pond I need to keep them alive long enough for them to turn orange; the fry are all a natural greenish-bronze colour until they get up around 2 inches in length. Experimentation shows that, at times, a bright-orange bait outfishes a natural one by a wide margin.

So...I love them as pond fish, I love them as aquarium fish, I love them as fish food, I love them as fishing bait...may have to try them battered and pan-fried myself.

 

[danotaylor]

Haha, that’s awesome mate. A well written & informative response. I was hoping you wouldn’t just give a 1 sentence answer. Lol

As a fisherman myself, I do wonder what you target when ice fishing Both of my brothers live in Dryden Ontario, and are avid fisherman, targeting mostly walleye, but crappie also thru the ice in the winter.