I'm getting things ready to collect some pumpkinseed sunfish via hook and line from one or two local lakes to spawn in one of my small production ponds. I have two locations recommended and just need to clean these tanks out, get a fishing license and get some free time! One location I can fish from shore but the other I will need my boat.



Unfortunately I will have to quarantine them in these two tanks until I can get a negative back on the VHS virus. I also need to do a dip of 3 percent salt to kill any potential veligers (larvae form of zebra mussels) and other parasites. One of the lakes has a zebra mussel population the other doesn't but I will treat the water as if it does.

I'll shade part of the tanks and put netting on top to keep out any predators especially since I had a mink within 25 feet of this spot the other day.

If anyone is interested I will keep you posted.

Here's the species for those of you that may not be familar with them:

go cecil go.....this will be fun to watch.

sorry i dont live closer, i'd help you get yer first stockers in a heartbeat.

Yeah it's too bad Dave. I'd enjoy your company.

Quite the pretty fish... They are quite tolerant of higher salinities. I catch them quite often in the lower Potomac River in salinities upwards of 10 ppm.

I'd buy some from you if I was closer. I dont know of any fish farms near me that are carrying PS this year

How many do you have to sacrifice for the VHS testing?

Wow that's pretty cool Cecil. I would definitely like to be "kept in the loop" on those fish. Any idea on determining males from females? Colors, markings, scale napping, etc?

That's good to know as I will keep them in .8 percent solution and as I said dip them in a 3.0 percent before they go into the tank and before they go into the pond.

I may have some fry for sale later in the year and the fry will be VHS tested for interstate transport if Bruce Condello still wants some. If he wants to wait I will test next year.

No set amount for self testing, however if and when I want to sell or give any of the offspring away interstate it's 60 fish.

Well I'm no expert but from what I've seen in literature the males just as in bluegills are more intense in color and more on the orange side vs. the females which tend to be more yellow. I have also read the females are more prone to have a bar pattern but I'm not sure if that is really the case. I can't verify that.

I'll be testing for milt by the ol' squeeze test.

The males definitely get much brighter during the spawn and stay as Cecil said a more orange color while the females are a duller yellow. The males tend to have more red or orange on the operculum flap as well. After you have caught a few, they are usually pretty easy to tell apart, but with any fish just looks alone is no 100% guarantee 100% of the time.

Very true! A biologist by the name of Bobby Glennon at one of the big fish farms in Arkansas told me he NEVER EVER leaves sex identification up to appearance only with sunfish, and ALWAYS checks for sex products.

I know I have also found that out the hard way from my own scant experience.

Cecil do you have a boat? If you are fishing a smaller body of water then I'd suggest getting a float tube. You can just throw it on your back and launch where you want and its a good work out as well.

True but where do you put the fish? Surely you're not proposing I put them on a stringer?

Yes I have a boat. Going to get it out of mothballs. I haven't used it in several years. Going fishing on the local lakes got to be too much trouble and too much of a circus to me. The overpowered boats and jet skis are horrible here. It would be O.K. if they would stay away from your fishing boat but they don't.

I know what you mean about public waterways. The local lake near me has some fat 12" perch and they are of course located at the "water ski course" so if you are fishing anytime of the year except winter you are likely to get capsized by a wave.

I don't use a stringer. I take a 2 buckets one with holes in it and another without. I leave the one without holes on shore and the one with the holes I add the fish to and just drag it with me.

I use an older inner tube with a laundry basket stuck in the hole. I built a lid over it. I tie a rope to it and attach it to me... I use it when I am wading, but I am sure something like that would work for a float tube as well.

Also women dig men in float tubes. Guys with boats are obviously compensating for something

That makes sense!

Another good idea!

Sounds to me like RB is a big proponent of float tubes.

RB truthfully I'd probably get run over in a float tube. We've had divers get run over here even with flags etc. Some of the boaters and jet skiers are total idiots.

Ouch. Nevermind then, safety is always first. I look forward to reading more about this new adventure of yours. Oneday I'll be there.

Idiots on boats and jet skies is a nationwide thing... Another reason to own your personal fishing hole! Or fish lakes that only allow electric motors like I will be doing for the next 3 days.

It gets pretty interesting around here. I know of a guy that shoots at boats that get to close with bottle rockets. Another old fart gets out a surf casting rod and starts swinging around a huge lead weight to give them the message. And my cousin was on a friends boat for the first time and asked him why he had rocks stacked in side compartments. The reply was, "I throw them at boats that get too close."

We had kid yanked off a jet ski a while back by a musky plug. The kid was harrassing the guy as he cast for musky and wouldn't get away from his boat. The guy lost his temper and of course it ended up in court.

I also know two bass fisherman that got fed up with a jet skier and chased him down until he ran out of gas in a backwater area. They both jumped out of the boat and beat the heck out of him.

The sad part is there would be an easy solution to the fisherman boater conflict but our DNR and legislators are not willing to do it. That is an idle speed limit in both the morning and evening to give an angler a chance. When I wrote an outdoor column I pushed for it and was ignored.

It probably doesn't help that 90% of those boaters are drunk. With that said watch out for divers when you go out for your new guys

Oh I'm scuba qualified so I know to watch out for divers. I will be using oars or an electric motor anyway if I fish the lake that needs a boat. I sold my 15 horse Johnson a few years ago.

Most lakes here if you don't have a boat you might as well stay home. Houses ring most of the lakes up to five deep. Really sad.

Like you said Cecil idiots (and drunks and of course drunk idiots) driving boats is a universal occurance.

Back to the PS (is that the correct ackronym? I'll have to check), it's fantastic that you'll be raising them for sale. I don't recall reading here that anyone else is doing that.

So what are the various species that will be in Baird ponds in 2009?

JHAP, is'nt everything Cecil does fantastic? OK enough ak ing (if that is the right ackronym). Cecil if you want some company/help just give a days notice and I'll be over. I'm not a great fisherman but I'll share some funny stories as you catch the fish. I was at a lake once when a jet skier was messing with a fisherman. The guy waved him away repeatedly and then waved him over. The moron on the jet sky actually went over to the guy fishing at which time the fisherman pulled out his wallet, identified himself as DNR and got in his "fishin" bag and wrote the jerk a ticket. Don't know but believe the fisherman happened to have his ticket book with him because I know there had been some complaints previously. Bob-O

Raising big PS's for fun or profit, naa your pulling our leg.

bluegill, yellow perch, smallmouth bass, pumpkinseed, brook trout.

I may stop raising the trout at some point in the future. One of these days it may get too expensive to pump the well water.

Bob,

That wouldn't be a problem if you don't mind being out all day as I'd like to get as many as I can. First I need to scout out the Grassy creek public access where an angler told me they were thick last September. According to him we can fish from shore. It would make it so much simpler without the boat. If we need the boat I need to get it out of the garage, get a sticker for it and new plates for the trailer.

Found this on the NANFA site. Interesting reading about aquarium tank spawning pumpkinseeds.

http://nanfa.org/articles/acpumpkin.shtml

Cecil, that would be fine with me, I'll pack some sandwitches. I would prefer shore fishing. The only hitch may be the timing, I leave to Turkey hunt in West Virginia one week from today and the weather forcast does'nt seem favorable for fishin till maybe next Tues. We can continue plans via pm as not to keep bringing up this post too often.

Cecil, great article. Do you plan on any aquarium breeding and what pond are you putting them in? I'm guessing the big one by the road.

Sorry to derail but how are the Smallies doing with the perch and bG as forage?

I plan on putting the breeders in one of the small ponds in the back after some of them come back negative for VHS. The big pond in the front is one big *** ugly hole in the ground right now until I can get an excavator out to repair some holes in the dike.

Which one of us are you referring to? I don't have any smallies right now but plan on starting back up with them in the fall. And the smallies will be only on pellets unless I decide to plant fatheads again. The other fish in that pond will be male only bluegills and female only perch.

Oh ok I misread your previous post. Thanks for the clarification.

I'd say something about repairing the dykes but don't want to get censored. Remember your puter mouse picture that bout got us in trouble?

Yeah Bob we wouldn't want to offend anyone here.

Cecil, are you going to keep the largest PS's separate or keep them all together till they spawn?
Also how many times a day will you feed them?

Not sure what you mean AP? I'm going to try and get breeding size fish of the largest size possible and approximately the same size.

The plan is to put spawning size male and female pumpkinseeds in the two outdoor tanks until I get negative VHS testing back from Purdue which will take 2 weeks. Then if I get a negative I will plant all the male and females I have into the ponds to spawn.

I'm kind of irked I have to do the quarantine thing as I know the tanks will stress wild fish. I wish I could just dump them into the pond and be done with it.

I thought maybe you would keep the largest ones separate to try and get them as large as possible, and use the smaller ones to spawn.
You have mentioned before that sometimes you only feed once a day, is this your plan with the PS's.

AP,

The broodfish I collect via angling I am not allowed to sell so there is no point in trying to get them as large as possible other than for brood stock. In fact my DNR suggests I tag them so I don't resell them. (I have my doubts that is necessary as it would probably take at least 3 years to get the offspring large enough to be similar in size.) However I'll probably mark them by cutting off the first dorsal spine for a male and the second for a female if I can definitely tell the difference between the two.

I'm actually thankful I am allowed to use fish out of public waters for brood fish as in some states you aren't allowed to do that. For example in Bruce's state of Nebraska I was surprised to be told it's not legal to use fish from public waters for broodstock even if you catch them legally. The DNR official that told me this, wishes it was not that way as he says that the law does more harm than good. (I found this out when I dicussed what testing was necessary to import them into Nebraska.) Obviously if someone wants to start broodfish of some species to produce them for stocking in Nebraska, they have to get them outside of the state or region if not from private waters, which eventually pollutes the native gene stock. And those fish may not be as well adapted as the native stock.

I will probably feed the broodfish twice a day as they need to get as much feed in them as possible before spawning. It may end up being redworms etc. as I have my doubts how well they will train on artifical feed at an advanced age.

The fry and fingerlings I feed at least 3 times a day. If the pumpkinseed fry and fingerlings are anything like the bluegills they should be hungry all the time!

Cecil, do you think the PS's you catch might train on pellets if you put some of your bluegills in with them.
I was thinking of trying this with the PS's I catch to put in the cage, and take a couple of the PS's from my aquarium tank to put in with them.

Cecil

I am 10 miles from Bruce and am interested as well. Please keep me apprised of your progress.

In regards to using fish from public waters for broodstock...hard to throw my wits around that one. So one can kill a live fish from public waters, but can't keep it alive? As soon as the state wants to chip in for helping me maintain native prairie, plant 3000 trees and create wildlife habitat I'll lend a more active ear to their regulations. Rant over.

I'm with you TJ. Just because laws are on the books doesn't mean they make any sense. Like I said the DNR official I talked to thought it was a dumb law too.

Well, I'm too quick to post guided by my immediate passionate reaction - and I apologize. I understand why they don't want live fish taken from public waters - white perch are a great example [although it was NE DNR that STOCKED THEM in the first place accidently and they are now present in tons of watersheds across NE]. I just get irked when I gave the DNR an opportunity to cost share in the construction my ponds they wanted nothing to do with me, but now want some SAY in how I do things there on my private land after I spent $$$$$ to build it, stock it with fish from private hatcheries, etc. I guess my rant wasn't quite over.

I am still interested in PS. Do you think they could find a niche in a pond with BG, RES, SMB, YP, HSB, FH, GS?

No apology needed TJ. I'm the king of rants. I live on a soap box.

It's funny you mention your own DNR stocked a nusiance species. One of my favorite rants is the state the federal government are the ones that have done the biggest screw ups with the indiscriminent planting of fish species. The european carp was introduced by our government! Now the same institutions are charged with preventing it? Ha Ha!



I'm not sure. You'd have to ask some of the experts here. They might, but on the other hand they could hybridize with your bluegills. They also could stunt. If I put them in my largest pond they will be only feed trained males.

That wouldn't hurt but the bluegills I have right now would probably be much bigger or much smaller than the pumpkinseeds. It could set up a dominance thing with the larger fish.

I will try Dr. Perca's (Bill Cody's) method of feed training wild fish which is start out with natural feed and wean them to hydrated pellets and then hard pellets.

Wish me luck. I'm going to sneak out tomorrow to a public access site between two lakes (moving water) and see if i can get any pumpkinseeds from the bank. I was told by an angler on a local fishing website that pumpkinseeds were thick in there last September. I'm hoping it attracts pumpkinseeds year around.

I finally got a fishing license on line tonight. I get to use the good car, not the one that gets a flat tire every 24 hrs. because the tires are so bald. With the economy the way it is things are tight!

Cecil, you shoulda put out a call on Big Bluegill, maybe a bunch would have come over to help.
Good Luck.

I just caught a bunch of nice pumpkinseeds on Thursday in the Potomac River, too bad your so far away... I'd have gladly added my fish to your gene pool.

Cecil if you hook me up with some trout I will gladly get you some tires

Anyways best of luck. Make sure you take more than just one type of bait/lure. Its all about diversification.

You're looking for a dealer of trout in your area is that it? If so I can help you on that. Nothing needed in return.

P.M. me your location and I can see what I can find out. I have lots of contacts all over the country.

You can get really good used tires for low prices at some tire shops where some particular and careful people regularly buy/change to new tires after existing ones are only half or a third worn.

Oh I know Bill. There is a good tire shop not too far away but when money is tight the house payment comes first.

BTW there is Eurasian Millfoil where I am going. I sure don't need to bring that back to the ponds!

Update,

Fishing from shore at a public ramp only produced bluegills on Sunday but I picked up plates and registered the boat today. I'm hitting a different lake 5 to 8 minutes down the road tomorrow evening called Sparta Lake. According to the following surveys it seems to have a good population of pumpkinseeds. Population percentage was consistent with two surveys that were 22 years apart. It's only 31 acres so I can fish it pretty hard and find them if they are there. (See Sparta Lake below). It also has an inlet and outlet connected to a local river drainage so that's a plus for pumpkinseeds. Air temps are shooting up into the low 80's now consistently so I'm hoping bedding will commence. I just hope someone hasn't already raped the beds as we have no limit on bluegill and pumpkinseeds in my state. Many anglers don't know when to stop.

Best of luck Cecil. If all else fails theres always the float tube haha jp.

I could use one in this lake and not worry about being run over. I'll have to check but it may be electric motors only which is what I will be using. However I don't have the needed tube etc. anyway.

I had to chuckle where I got my boat stickers today. The lady wanted to know what horsepower my electric motor was! I said they are not rated that way and I doubt it's even 1 horsepower. She put down 1 horsepower!

Thanks for the wish for good luck. I will keep everyone posted with pictures if they are interested. The dog will go for her first boat trip. It may be interesting.

BTW what are you using for bait?

I will be using redworms (wigglers) and will also take the flyrod. I'd take crickets too, but the bait store is too far away. Anymore bait stores in my area are far and few between and can't compete with Wallmart and the other big stores. Trouble is the selection of bait from the big stores is not good here.

Yeah its like that everywhere with big chain stores and the limited selection. If this doesn't work you might have to pay the neighborhood kids 5cents per cricket I made good money digging up worms when I was younger.

Cecil:

From what I've seen today, the PS are in much shallower water than the BG if they are bedding. The water temp. in Koontz (the last lake on your list) is 72.5*F in 1' of water as pf 3:00 p.m. today. The BG are just starting to fan out beds, and the females are in deeper water (6' or so) waiting. I have 2 PS that I caught today when I sampled the lake that are about 6"-7" long. If this weather holds up the fishing should be hot and heavy in a couple of days. I'll be getting the nylon live basket set up at the lake tomorrow.

No boat needed, in fact it's easier without one!

Yeah fishing from the bank is much easier and more fun than in a boat. However I can put a monster cooler in the bottom of the boat and transport cooler and boat back without getting the inside of the vehicle wet!

That's true! I have a small trailer (4' x 8') and can put two 120 qt coolers on it easily to transport mine. (I've been down the "wet vehicle" road before!)

I don't mind the wet vehicle thing as much as the wife does. I'll be using her SUV to pull the boat as I've got the klunker as I work at home. Once we had a van and I had fish cooler water slush around and get the carpet in the van wet. After a few days it smelled kind of bad.

Cecil:

I went out this a.m. and only caught a dozen BG (11 M, 1 F), 1 PS (M) and 1 RES (M) in 2 hrs. No BG on the beds, not even in the areas that they were congregating in yesterday afternoon. The carp were starting to spawn in the Milfoil, and chasing each other in the shallows, getting the water muddy. One more PS to the tank tho. I'll run to Lowes and make a frame for the holding pen and get that finished today. If the weather holds up they should be on the bedds by the end of the week. If they aren't, then fishing will be poor for a while. The signs are out that that area of the lake will have the weeds killed on the 27th. I'll take a pic of the sign and post it for comments, I'm wondering if they are treating the weed problem correctly.

I took off at 5:30 P.M. to the lake down the road that turns out to be only 2 miles away from my house! I kept 24 bluegills to eat and released at least half that many. They are are in less than 2 feet of water but it was hard to say if they are actually on the beds. The males are definitely ready (easily squirt milt with little pressure) but even though some of the females are packed with eggs upon close examination they are not ready yet.

Unfortunately I only came up with one fish that was at least partially a pumpkinseed which was the one pictured below. I'm pretty sure it's bluegill/pumpkinseed hybrid or something else crossed with a pumpkinseed as the mouth looks kind of large.



Thoughts?

I've decided to remove broodstock gills from the holding pond and plant them STAT into the pond I was going to use for pumpkinseeds production before I end up not producing anything this year! I will get pumpkinseed broodfish from a supplier in the fall instead. In reality if I'm serious about starting a selective breeding program with the pumpkinseeds, I need about 200 fish to start with, and with the rate I am going that will take some time from the wild -- if I can do it at all. In the mean time breeding season is upon us and will soon pass.

Cecil, isn't it gonna be hard to find pure PS's with all those BG's around, or do all the lakes around there have BG.

Cecil:

I'll dump the ones that I have then, no problem. Only Males so far anyway! Mine are straight PS, not hyb although the lake has a very healthy population of BG and RES.

Scott,

I really appreciate you thinking of me. Much appreciated! Why don't you eat though though? They are just as good to eat as bluegills.

Cecil:

They're 2"-3" smaller than the BG that I'm catching. I have pulled one or two out in the past few years that were 9" long or so. I was suprised at how thick they are at that size compared to same sized BG in that body of water.

On 2nd thought, I just might leave them where they are for a few days and give you a shout if I run into a bucket full of them. If not, then I can return them to the lake or the pond. I've never run across a hyb on that lake betweeen the 2 species.

Scott,

How many have you collected so far? Do they appear to be all males or mixed?

Cecil, I really wish I was closer to you. I can pull out a pile of PS in no time flat on the Potomac River.

Cecil:

I have 3, and I'm 99.9% sure that they're all Males. They were sitting on beds in water that was 12"-18" deep. The PS seem to make beds at least twice as large as BG beds, and nest individually, not in a group like BG's.

Sounds about right. I once caught a 9 incher in Massachusetts that was solitary like a largemouth with his nest in an unused swimming area. From what I've heard from those that put them in aquariums they make up for their lack of size in a very pugnacious behavior.

Had a guy tell me on a fishing site, "they abound in the stretch between bristol and mottville (St. Joe River) and i'll just have the kid fill up the livewell with'em and drop them off on the way home as i drive right by your place. (most are 4-6 inchers)"

At least even though I will be getting some from a fish hatchery in the fall I will know where to get some in the future to add some genetic integrity. To late now for pumpkinseeds. I moved 6 big male bluegill and 9 females to the production pond this morning. I wish I had the camera as one male was well over a pound and similar in size to a dinner plate. I kid you not!

Two more in the tub today, plus 10 more BG in the pond, I'll dip them all out and throw them in the pond. All males tho. I wonder if they'll start eating the pellets and get to growing?

The BG in the pond started making beds today. Let the forage begin!

With this wind and the temps, the tubs lost 3" due to evaporation. The pond didn't drop that much, but with them bedding in shallow water I'll have to run the well into the pond if it really starts dropping. Time will tell!