Wife was able to get some better pictures.

A few more

Great fish pictures! Thanks!

Wow those look like really good sized Green Sunfish! Great pics

You must feed those green sunfish. They appear to be waiting for the food wagon to arrive.

They certainly are NOT starving!

That is a big crop of GSF ! Thanks for the pics. Readers look at how the GSF appear in the water vs pics out of the water.

If those are green sunfish, I must have been wrong about there not being any fish in my pond. I don't know. I fished that tank for several years without nary a bite. I didn't stock any GSF, just OTS CNBG, Res, CC, and FHM. If so, it's going to change my pond just a tway bit. It will still be fun.

I went back and looked a few of your posts. Was wondering about the plan and the GSF. I know Overton's did not sell you GSF. I did not see on a quick look any CNBG/BG in the pics. What size of CNBG did you get from Overton and when ?

"1/2 to 7/8 acre stocked 2-11-17 with FHM, OTS CNBG, RES, and CC." If this is correct then what size were the stockers?

Of the fish in the pics I can only see 1 fish that may be a CNBG. The rest are GSF or some GSF mix. How big are the pictured fish ?

1-3" ots cnbg
2-4" Res
6-8" CC


2-11-17

Maybe they got ate

Here's another pic

Lots of them have that lighter outline around fins and tails and then there's a bunch with the vertical stripes

Also, the ones with the lighter outline, have black dot on dorsal fin.
They look bigger than they probably are. Some look 2-3" others look 4" at least. Then 2 or 3 quite a bit bigger 5-6"

'Most' of the fish are primarily green sunfish (GSF) in your first five pictures(fish 13,7,11,8 & fish) and are different than all the fish in Fish15 directly above this post. Fish in Fish15 are mostly bluegill types, probably CNBG, with four that are likely hybridBG since they have the light margin around the back fins. Notice in pic Fish15 on the far right, a fish with just the head showing. See how big the mouth is on this fish compared to the other fish in the picture. This fish is likely a green sunfish and same specie as in your 1st 5 pics. You have a mixture of sunfishes in your pond. Those GSF are aggressive and will eat a lot of fish fry whenever the fry and small fish are available.

Do you feed these fish pellets??? If you do those GSF will continue to grow to 8" or more, maybe 10"?

Oh absolutely not. I realize that. I was saying if that's what they are, I had fish I didn't realize I had.

Here's how I will look at it. It's a pond for our enjoyment and whatever they are, they are coming to my feet when I feed and I'm thankful for the happiness they bring me. When I first saw the pictures of the larger mouth, I thought they were catfish even though I couldn't see any whiskers. Then when wife was able to get better pictures, I scratched my head. I can't see very well and it's easy to fool me.

I do hope with all the money I spent, My otscnbg didn't all get eaten up by the green sunfish. A feller can't cry over spilled milk though. Time will tell

are there tilapia in there?
Do you see your catfish? How many catfish were stocked?

Yes, I'm feeding Cargill 4512 in the 1/8" size.

No Tilapia yet.

I stocked 100 in the 6-8" size, haven't seen them or a FHM since stocking them.

Pic 15 looks like a mix to me. Some GSF some BG and some unknown.

The GSF did not eat 6-8 inch CC.

Time will tell. It will be fun watching.

farmallsc,
Nice specimens of GSF and BG as well...kudos to your wife on the awesome photography of them.....I have found that my smaller fish gravitate towards the 1/8" pellets and the larger fish gravitate towards the 3/16" and 1/4" pellets...just an observation. But, if 1/8" is the only size that you are throwing, I'm sure they are tearing it up. I mix all three sizes and throw from a dock feeder. Pretty interesting and gratifying to watch.

A 10" GSF would be a big one, and would top some state records. The world record is about 12 inches and 2.2 pounds.

I still haven't seen the CC in my new pond either. I stocked 45 - 6 to 8 inch ones on March 4. The pond is up about three feet since then, so they may be scattered a bit. I keep throwing a handful or two into the feeding ring every day, so hoping soon to see them.

I decided to catch some.
Please look and tell me what these are.

Both have the yellow around the tail and fins.

...looks like Green Sunfish to me....

The GSF will make short work of the FHM. I would say a GSF of a given size is about the same as a LMB the same size as its fish eating habits go. They have about the same size mouths for the same length fish.

I've got a few over 8" now. Any GSF I catch that are small I cut the tail fin off and make them LMB snacks. But the ones over about 7" go back in the pond to grow. I want to see if I can get them big.

I will put my link here too farmall. If you wade through the pages, you will see that what started out as lemons I just made lemonade by the end of the thread. As long as you have some CNBG in there, they will eventually get the upper hand on the GSF. I put some advanced size BG in my old pond and after a couple years it is now dominated by BG. I can still easily catch small GSF by fishing very close to the shore. That is where the small GSF hang out. I catch a large GSF out in more open water maybe once out of every ten larger BG I catch. So you can turn a pond around that has GSF in it, as long as your goals are not so specific that you can't tolerate the GSF. And it sounds like you are like me in that I just enjoy it all.

100% Green Sunfish

Thank you. I just finished page one.

I'll just keep poring the feed on.

Yup, those are greenies. Likely some natural BG x GSF hybrids in there as well.

Yes those are GSF. A few adult BG would be a good idea if you are going to add LMB.

Farmall,

Have you tried catching any? Maybe just a chunk of worm under a cork and toss it in the mix?

Middle of page one Bill, he posted pictures of what he caught.

Thanks! I missed that post.

The GSF looked bigger in the underwater pics to me. Apparently, they are about the same size as the CNBG stockers?

Yessir, green sunfish

It's still a puzzle to me why I never caught anything all those years and fishing it multiple times. Yesterday as soon as I would chunk it in the water, it was hit. The only thing different is now they are being fed in one spot. I will say they are a right pretty little fish.

Bill,

They are a little bigger. As matter of fact, I'm not sure how many of the original stockers I have left. Everyone tells me they see few if any BG in my pictures.

I've been scratching my head trying to figure out what's going on. No wonder they've had no problem eating all those June bugs I've been chunking.

It could be that the CNBG are schooling away from the more aggressive GSF. Have you tried tossing out some pellets in a couple three locations at the same time to see if you can find them?

Farmall concerning you not catching any fish for years, now it is easy, and you don't know where the GSF came from. If the ones you caught are pretty representative of size, maybe the GSF did not get into the pond until the last year or so. It would have only taken a couple of fish, male and female, to spawn a lot of GSF fry.

I'm just speculating. But for the size of the caught GSF you were holding in your hand, they could have been spawned last year or the year before.

No Bill, I haven't. I do know they will follow me though. I have walked to other areas of the pond and they follow me. I will get my Wife and Mom to feed, while I walk to a different area and feed.

Snrub,
That is certainly possible. My concern now is I don't want to over populate the pond. That's the biggest reason I didn't stock more than I did. I've heard it said for every fish you see, there are 20 you don't see. If that's the case, I've got a bunch of fish in there, but none of what we're seeing is big enough to catch and eat. Plus, I want some Tilapia to clean up my pond. I've got some thinking to do. Any Ideas?

Yes a seine survey to see what you have. Then go from there depending on your goals. What you have , if we are guessing right, is not an unusual situation and can be managed - depending on your goals. The GSF can be managed by adding adult CNBG and a predator (LMB) if you want a BG/LMB/CC pond. It will take some time but the CNBG will out reproduce the GSF and the LMB will target the more fusion formed (shaped like a oval)GSF. Assuming that is your goal.

Thanks Ewest, when I started I didn't have a dead hard goal. Then I heard about George Glazener's Bluegill and Became fascinated. I was at one point wishing I hadn't stocked the channel cat. Now that I have green Sunfish too, I guess I have a Heinz 57 pond. Someone on this forum told me my goals would change and I be Dog if he wasn't right. We'll feed, fish and watch what it becomes. I'll try to share the expience with you guys.

Those GSF make excellent bait for big catfish. If you are near one of the big lakes, you could build a holding cage and sell them for bait.

They're also great bass/HSB bait. Put a 4 to 5 inch BG/CNBG/GSF on a hook and let it free swim.

I'm still contemplating my next move. The more I read about them the less I hate them. I may just fatten them up and hope they breed with the BG.

From what I have read and think I understand is that if the GSF get established early they can really wreck a persons stocking plans, particularly if that individual has high expectations and goals for the fishery and GSF is not one of those goals.

Inch for inch, they basically have the same mouth size as LMB the same size.

So the problem comes in if a person already has GSF 6 inches long in the pond and he stocks his pond with new 2" long FHM, BG and RES, he just put in the perfect size fish for the GSF to eat. In such a situation if the GSF are already well established and thick, almost none of the original stocked fish might survive. Thus any fast track fish goals may be completely thwarted. With the only result some fat and sassy GSF. Then if the person has not realized the mistake and six months later puts in his LMB and the GSF have grown to a size to promptly eat them, you can see how someone with trophy LMB goals could be sorely disappointed. Even if a few of the LMB escape the GSF and produce a LMB population, with GSF as pretty much the only remaining forage fish, his LMB trophy goals have been pretty much trashed by the GSF.

So that is the danger as I see it. But there are workarounds as my thread on 100% green sungish saga shows. But the result of my old pond, while perfectly acceptable for my second pond, would be a big disappointment for anyone wanting a trophy LMB pond.

So as long as you are good with the GSF being there and understand the management requirements to overcome their large aggressive mouth (namely that any fish you subsequently stock have to be big enough the GSF can't eat them), in my opinion you can still achieve a decent general fishing pond with them as part of it. But I have only been doing this pond management stuff for 4 years, so take that information for what it is worth to you.

I figure what you described is exactly what happened with the fish I stocked in Feb.

I knew something happened to the FHM, but wasn't sure. I saw little ripples all over the pond for a week or so and then they were gone. I figure they wiped out my BG as well. My RES was 2" plus, so I'm hoping they survived.

I read your thread and enjoyed the journey. I'm reading the other thread within your thread as well.

I'm wondering how they are going to effect my Tilapia plans.

farmallsc, GSF will do a number on tilapia fry. I'd make sure Todd knows you have them, and their size.

You should see what I posted on my pond thread. I caught several 9" GSF today.