Oops! I looked at the thread backwards. Guess there have been a few comments since 2008. But not many lately. I do not catch just the little ones.

Some fingerlings I am raising in my forage pond.

Couple more from my forage pond where I an raising fingerlings for my main pond.

A couple more Redear from my 1/20th acre forage pond.

Redear x green sunfish hybrid

I have a heckofa time trying to catch them out of my main pond. Bluegill always get to the bait first. But in this small forage pond all there are is Redear. They usually are still kind of hard to catch, but at least when I catch something it is going to be a redear. I catch them the best in about a foot deep water about a foot or two our from the bank. I would guess they are coming in close to shore to get the snails in shallow water.

"By most accounts, redear are not skittish - until they are in shallow water.
They are most at ease with 8 feet or more of water over their heads."

Me too, but I'm a scuba diver. LOL

This pond is a little over 7' at full pool at its deepest point. When I was building it with the dozer, it was kind of straight down, raise the blade to full height, and straight up the other side.

I have tried quite a bit to catch them in deeper water, but just don't have much luck. Out in my big pond I have cover out in deeper water that I have fished around and have caught a very few RES, but considering there are probably a thousand bluegill in that pond for each one redear, I'm probably catching as many as probability would have it.

The purpose of the forage pond with fedear only in it, is I trap the small redear and move to the big pond, trying to up the redear numbers there. My fish supplier did not have nearly enough readear as I would have liked for the initial stocking, so the numbers of redear in my big pond are lower than I would like. Have moved probably a hundred 2-4" fingerlings to the big pond this year.

It is two years old. Caught a few more this evening. Moved the hybrids to my main pond and the pure redear to a nearby sediment pond that had a fish kill. Have moved 9 adult redear to it and about 70 fingerlings that I bought from a fish truck last week. Here is a couple from tonight. Caught several smaller ones.

The 1/20th acre forage pond is about three years old. I just built a one acre pond that has not filled nor been stocked yet. It will be dedicated to Redear fish. Will stock redear and fathead minnows. Maybe small mouth bass some later years if the redear get too thick.

Some from this year out of my 1/20th acre forage pond.

Here are some pictures of hybrid redear. They are a cross between green sunfish and redear sunfish. Somehow a couple green sunfish got in my redear only pond. :-(

Anyone got recommendations on a good freshwater snail/clam imitation? Suggestions appreciated.

Don't know of any but if you want for bait they love insects and dragonfly nymphs small crayfish.

Crickets are reportedly good for catching redear. Gulp Alive makes fake crickets.  When I need to catch some out of my forage pond I use Gulp chartruse waxies or a tiny pinch off a Gulp worm. 1/64 oz jig. Small bait and small hook does it for me.

But I know of no specific snail bait.

If you watch redear feed in an aquarium, they do not like to eat something that is not moving. I had 3" ones I was trying to feed train to eat commercial fish food. As the food dropped to the bottom they were very interested in it and sometimes would bite. But as soon as it hit the bottom they lost interest. I put some very small snails in and the redear would see movement andmgo right to the smail. They would stare at while remaining  motionless above it and strike only if the snail was moving. Some fish finally took to feed, some didn't.

slooooooow and on the bottom is how I fish for them. Often times only a foot or two from the bank if it is close to sunset. I think they come in shallow to feed where the snails are.

ANYONE PREFER YELLOW AS A COLOR FOR FLYS OR BUGS ? I'VE HAD GOOD LUCK ON THIS COLOR ESPECIALLY WITH A SPLASH OF RED ADDED TO THE YELLOW BASE.......

Here is a good discussion on catching redear on another site.

low and slow - catching redear

Not a lot of activity in this group. That is a whopper of a Redear, or at least it would be to me. I have them in my pond but the largest I have caught has been a little over 10". Would like to catch one out of my ponds that size some day.

A couple from just before sundown from my 1/10th acre sediment pond where I am trying to get some recruitment. These are likely some adult size breeders I put in last year about this time. Good to know they are still there.

One I caught at dusk tonight. Really washed out color and had to do a double take to notice it was a RES.

Ok, thanks for that information. Water temp in my pond that I caught this fish was 56 degrees so that explains it.

Here is a redear I caught with a cast net out of my forage pond. I had been catching 3" fingerlings to transfer to another pond and this big boy showed up in the net.

Decent size redear from my tiny 1/20th acre forage pond where I raise fedear fingerlings to put into my other ponds. This one went back in to the pond create more fry. Caught on March 22, 2018 on a 1/32 oz jig baited with a kidney bean size section cut out of an artificial clear plastic shrimp.

Nice redear John.

Thanks.

Hey John, I gotta catch up with what's going on in your pond.  My shellcracker pond is 2 & 1/2 yr old, dug in Aug 2015.  The aquarium RES were so tame that when I'd guide 'em into deeper water, they'd just swim back to my hand.

That is wild. I also built a dedicated one acre redear pond last year and just stocked it last year. I put small mouth bass in last December to control the recruitment of the redear. Hopefully find out how they are doing later this year. This is in addition to my 1/20th acre forage pond which also has been dedicated to redear.

My 1/20th acre forage pond with readear sunfish

My one acre pond dedicated to raising readear sunfish

Finally, payoff for my little 0.15ac shellcracker pond.  Grandson caught 17 of these in an afternoon (fished with red worms).  Largest was 10.25" though there may be larger RES in there.  Looks to be 50+ 6"+ shellcracker bream, 1 channel cat, 1  18-19" large mouth bass.

Very nice. Small ponds are lots of fun.

I have had the best success catching the buggers in a pond with only redear in it.

Caught this little guy out of my pond a couple days ago.

That’s a good looking Redear Greg, how long has that fish been in your pond? Thanks in advance, Jeff

Caught that one within two days of the two year anniversary of stocking fingerlings.

Well I don’t know a thing about raising shell crackers but I would be ecstatic if they got this size in two years, awesome Greg

Before the RES went in I stocked fatheads, gams, shiners, crayfish, grass shrimp, scuds, and daphnia.  When the RES were babies I caged them up and taught them to eat pellets.  They are not lacking for groceries.

I think I'm on pace to have 2lb redear by this time next year.

1  WEEK  PELLET  TRAINED  SHELLCRACKERS  March 28, 2022

For this video on a Mon I fed 'em 50 worms.  Only a few came to my cinder block island, yet by Wed most were there.  On Thurs 18 RES & 1 6" blk crappie attended and pellets were introduced.  They took 4 of the 20 water soaked Optimal Bluegill pellets. Fri 7/20; Sat 14/20; Sun 18/20, should note that I left 2 pellets floating which may of  sank to be eaten.  Day 8 this video and only 1 container (25) worms.  The water had cooled to low 50's with our cold snap, last nite 33 degrees.  They weren't as cooperative with the pellets but as you can see, they still consider the Optimal 'Good Eats.'  Edit:  at 1 point I state, "fish trained" Shellcrackers meant "pellet trained Shellcrackers."  These ladies & gents are pre-spawn.  They should be at it with the April full moon and water back in the 60's.https://www.facebook.com/messenger_media/?thread_id=100000123554039...

Will try to provide a 1.95 MB video, but no promises.  Sorry, have vid on phone, yet no tec expertise to move onto youtube or here.

Hope to see the vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3zFen-Vvzs

Maybe. . .

I think you're on pace for 2 lb.er too Greg, lots of $$ & groceries pays dividends with these beautiful big brim.  I had an 11 incher a few years ago, but think a crane got that one.  My solo big mouth bass hit the pond hard for 2 yrs, wiped out the clouds of fatheads and silenced the frogs.  He became hook shy after breaking some of my fly weight rigs.  Finally reeled him in so he has his own 5 ac. pond now.  It'll be interesting to see the forage base to bounce back.  Don't know of scuds or daphnia, but this pond has the other forage. Seems warm water helps big RES.  Your gal looks to be a tad over 11".  Feed her well and harass the cranes!

Good video.  Did your fish get pellets when they were babies, or was this a completely new thing for them?  

No pellets as babies, and there's still several RES holdouts.  They occasionally will take a pellet in their mouths a few seconds but still spit 'em out. As week 2 progresses, the 11 incher with a spot on his back seems to prefer the Optimal pellets over worms.  Another reason they took to pellets in just a week, is they have been 'chumed' twice before, with worms, a few days before the grandkids would come visit.  Whenever I show up with the blue container, they're like pets.  Oh, the guy at the bait shop says he'll get me a 1,000 crickets for $18.  My RES go nuts over those.  I guess you could say they are trained to strike the surface too.

That's good work.  Definitely adds to the knowledge base of ways to get RES started on pellets.

Update on 'pellet trained shellcrackers.'  When it turned cold the feeder was removed from pond.  Occasionally I'd hand feed.  Well the weather kept on being record warm most this Feb.  The water temp 6 inches down is 60 degree.  As per video these bream feed just as if it were summer.

60DegreeFeedShellcrackerFish - YouTube

Good deal Randy. Good to know the fish do not suffer from Alzheimers and remember what the pellets are good for! :-) 

They stayed trained.