At the beginning of the Summer, the Mrs. and I put some small Bluegill, RES and Warmouth in the pond, adhering strictly to the willy-nilly school of stocking theory. I was hoping they would be ready for a spawn next spring. Well surprise!! I've got schools of some sort of Lepomis, roaming the shallows and feeding on the food I'm tossing in nightly. I'd seen them but actually assumed they were fatheads. I caught some this evening and they are definitely sunfish of some sort. I'll get some more tomorrow when the camera is here, and see if anyone has ideas. What a cool surprise, the fish we put in were only 4-6 inches tops.

It's not unusual for sunfish that size to spawn. They could be older than you think also.

That's true, and I guess I realized in my head they could spawn; I was just amazed that ten fish in a 1/4 acre BOW managed to find each other, and an acceptable spot etc... It's one of those "this is so cool" moments.

Congrats on the new babies. My wife and I had the same situation 6 years ago. When we pulled up the minnow trap and saw those sunfish we couldn't believe it. A whole new world of wildlife managment opened up along with our check book.

thanks mnfish, I know what you mean. Suddenly I'm reading all of the feeding threads and planning the next steps. Cha-ching!!

I think the steep side of a learning curve is the most exciting. My wife and I started out with building a 1/8 acre duck pond. Six years later we turned that duck pond into a 1.5 acre fish pond. And a couple of years later added a 1/3 acre fish pond. I don't ever seem to get enough information or discover fast enough. I know from experience,as a new pond owner without any back ground in raising fish any good information is welcome. A lot of these guys on this web site are professionals and I am not but if you want I would be glad to give you stories of all the mistakes I've made over the years like killing an entire pond last winter. I just like to share my passion and learn from other outdoorsman.

Bring it on. Most of us have made mistakes and killed fish. It's like driving. If you do it long enough, you will have an accident.

Finally got some pictures (not good ones I admit). There are more of these little ones roaming the shallows. This gets better all the time, now if we could just get some rain.

Sure look like small BG to me. Congrats mom and dad !

Excellent!!
Thanks Ewest!
Cigar anyone?

I dont smoke, but I'll have a cigar. Time to go shopping, for some fingerling LMB. Those bluegills will up and surprise you; I never figured out all the hoopla about spawning gravel and such.
They WILL make babies.

Funny that same thought just dawned on me this morning, while pouring my coffee.
Suddenly you feel like the dog that caught the car. No worries though, just something else to feed the pond addiction hobby.

I remember back when I caught the first baby BG's in our minnow trap. When I pulled up the trap all I had with me was a plastic Mt.Dew bottle. I poured out the soda or pop (depending on your region) and filled it with pond water, placed 1 BG minnow, and ran up to my neighbors to show him. I was so pleased that not only did they survived a MN winter but spawned as well. I was like a little kid that caught his first fish. Thanks for sharing your excitement. You got the fish "bug", look out!

Somebody restart my heart.

Quick take another hit of the Dew, that'll dew it!