Bill,
I always appreciate input but I will have to say that I cannot find anything in your responses to help me move forward. The question that I have posed is what should I do now not what I should have done this past spring.
I don't have any aspirations of growing record book fish. Just would like to have a visibly good looking pond to relax around and enjoy pulling some nice fish out every now and then.
Thanks,
Kirk
All righty then.
Once a male bluegill becomes sexually mature, his growth slows down. And while they enjoy indeterminate growth, once mature they cannot go back and undo what's done. If it were me, I would listen to Bill and source some feed trained larger BG. Yes, they will feed on your forage base, but not near to the extent that your LMB will, have already done, and will do with increasing gusto once they begin to recruit. That's the reason for supplementally feeding pellets to the BG, to encourage growth.
Bluegills are the backbone of the food chain in many ponds, and have a much better chance of establishing a residual population than the minnow species you listed. Bluegills smaller than 3" on nests is not a good thing, but as you pointed out the mistake has already been made. Your choices now are to nuke the whole thing and start fresh with a better understanding of how this stuff works, or make do with what you have. Go ahead and add your bluegills. Will they affect what you have achieved thus far? Probably. But if what you have now is already sub-par, then what's the harm?
Be careful where you get those bigger bluegill....make sure they are northern strain bluegills, NOT one of the multitude of extremely similar in appearance but still not bluegills....you may make things worse. Also, for your strategy to work, you really need male bluegills, not females. How confident are you in your abilities to accurately sex these fish?
One more thing, moving fish from one BOW to another is a great way to inoculate your pond with parasites, and possibly unwanted aquatic weeds. Be vigilant.
