What do bluegill look when first out of eggs and how long?
We saw a couple schools of really small fish in our pond like quarter inch or less.
Could they be bream?
We live in South Carolina.
At birth, to the naked eye seeing the frye in the water, they're going to look like almost any newborn fish.
It's on the early end for bluegill spawn, but nothings out of the realm of possibility.
Within a week or so, they should take on the more standard 'oval' shape of a bluegill, if that's what they are.
20 days old is WAY too young for me to positively identify. (Thanks for those excellent pictures.)
OTOH, I am very impressed that you use a 100' steel tape to measure your fish. You must be planning on raising some true lunkers down in Mississippi!
Thanks
That’s about the size of what I saw.
Most likely not BG. They could be LMB fry if they were gathered together in a big group - LMB spawn before BG. FHM also spawn close to the water temperature when LMB spawn. Check the water temperature LMB first spawn at water temp of 59F and BG spawn at temp of 69F. Fatheads spawn at 60-61F.
I was thinking that BG hatched first and then LMB do I have it backwards?
Dieselscout - Yes you have your LMB-BG spawning temperature thinking backwards. It would be very hard for BG to spawn before LMB when bass start spawning at water temps of 59F to 60F and BG start spawning at 69F-70Fand BG have been observed to continue spawning clear up to 89F. Fisheries need a new crop of predators each year to keep the new crop of forage fish from becoming over abundant. Balance of prey - predator is important for maintaining good wildlife populations. Overabundant forage fish can limit the recruitment of predators which is not a good thing.
https://www.fws.gov/species/largemouth-bass-micropterus-salmoideshttps://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/species/bgl/
BG are very light colored on top and are very hard to see.. LMB/SMB are very dark on top and very easy to see when beginning swim-up stage, which would be my guess.
