5 acre pond built 2003. Stocked 2500 bluegill and 250 channel cat fall 2003, 250 northern bass and 300 redears spring 2004. Also added 250 5 inch crappie spring 2006.
Catfish now are 5-6 # and hard to catch. Bass are healthy fat easy to catch. Redears seem to be large but not easy to catch. Bluegill are almost impossible to catch only a few large enough to eat, others too small to catch.
I would like to be able to catch more bluegill but I do love my bass. I keep all bass 12" and under, but there aren't many under 12".
Any advise on bluegills?

Are you feeding the BG ? You are right that it is a balancing act with the BG and LMB and their propensity to be inversely sized (big BG small LMB or small BG big LMB). If it gets to far either way it means troubles coming.

Curious: What have the Crappie done in a year?

I haven't caught one yet to know. The guy I bought them from said if I waited a couple years after stocking bass and allowed them to grow, the crappie would not get out of hand.
My brother and I fished for 3 hours Sunday with crickets and earthworms. We caught 1 big bluegill maybe 10 very small bluegill, but 4 or 5 big healthy bass- 2#.
But to answer your question: I think they are hiding from bass.

Ewest, I am feeding. But I think the catfish are eating most of the feed. Last spring you could walk around the shoreline and small bluegill were everywhere. Last summer they disappeared. I thought they left because of heat and went to deeper water. They haven't reappeared this spring. There is lots of cover for them but all cover seem to do is give bass a place to ambush from.
Don't get me wrong, I want big healthy bass. And I would rather have trophy bass than trophy bluegill. But I must be greedy. I want it all.
Msu says harvest 10# bluegill for every 1# bass. I just can't catch enough.
One last thing. Gambusia are plentiful. Not as many as prior to bass stocking but you see them around banks and in the thick cover.

I would think 250 big catfish can put a lot of pressure (and stress) on your big BG and smaller bass.

Doc do you see or catch a bunch of 10-12in LMB ? Do you think most of the 250 cats are there , if so that is 300lbs per acre of predators ? Have you seen any indication of cat reproduction ? How much are you feeding (lbs per day) If you add in the LMB and Crappie you have a lot of predators per acre. They may have cropped down you breeding BG population to much.

The MSU material , which I often cite here , is good info but basic and in some respects out of date. The authors are good friends of mine and highly respected by me ( as good of fisheries folks and people as you will find). I will point out though that those recommendations (on taking out BG) are for a BG/LMB pond and for a balanced fishery. Neither of those fit your situation or goals.

Buy a cheap fish trap from Wal-Mart and bait it with bread or dog food or fish food in a mesh bag and put it out. That plus seining are good ways to survey small BG populations.

There is great uncertainty here (lots of good info see - Crappie Pond http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000461 ) on crappie in ponds. My guess is if you want crappie the pond must focus on them and don't expect good LMB or BG populations. The MSU book discourages crappie use in ponds.

Better start with what your goals are because in a pond it is hard to have it all unless you are going to have a put and take fishery using stockings of adult fish.

We can help walk you through the population assessment process hear if you like.

Ewest, not many smaller bass. Mostly 14-15 inch. Maybe 20 cats caught and taken out. Can only catch 1-2 on a good day. Wish they were all gone.
Last summer I put out a trap and caught plenty small bluegill. Gonna try trap again soon. Honestly I think the cats are taking out more bluegill than the crappie. Maybe I'm wrong.
Any ideas how to get rid of the cats? Thanks for your input.

Doc take a look at this thread for ideas.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=004229

For those of you following this thread - I highly suggest you go back into the Mar-Apr 2007 Pond Boss magazine and REREAD the article by Dr. Anderson Niche Overlap pg 53, about the competition between channel catfish and bass. He describes the big influence that catfish can have on a bass fishery.

If you prefer bass fishing you ought to leave catfish out of your pond. What good are they if you are like DrDuck and Catmandoo and the cats get to a point where can't catch them plus they are negatively impacting the bass and bluegill standing crops.

Very interesting. I stocked 200 CC, 200 LMB, 2000 FHM, 1000 BG, 200 snails and 150 crayfish in Sept '06 for the initial stocking of a 2.16 ac. new pond. My intentions are to have a good bass fishery and creel the CC to eat. From the posts it seems I might have meesed up the bass fishery by stocking the CC?

Mark are you feeding ? If not you may be short on forage. When did you stock ? If the CC are eating size you can start by catching them for dinner.

The CC should not be serious competition to the LMB until they are 2 lbs+, or even bigger if fed. Of course, if they're fed, they get big PDQ.