Central Missouri - I stocked 800 1" bluegill in my pond last fall. Nothing else was in it except fatheads and shiners. The bluegill were smaller than the fatheads. I have been feeding 2lbs/ day throughout the fall and this spring. I can see the minnows pecking at the game Fish Chow until its gone. I thought the bluegill would also be eating?
My question: What size should my bluegill be now?
I have heard that they could be large enough to spawn??? I have tried fishing and netting. I have caught dozens of 6"-8" shiners on worms but no bluegill. Last night I netted the first Bluegill. It was about 3". Is this typical?

not sure about were you live,but a bream will start to spawn at about 3 inches.i would have thought your bream would have found the food you are throwing by now.it normally takes about 2-3 weeks for them to find food,they however might still be a little small.be sure to feed them a food that has several size pellets.don't worry your bream will be every were before you know it.

Thanks for the reply Lee.
I was thinking about adding more Bluegill this weekend since I could not see or catch any of the 800 1" Bluegill I put in last year. Since my Shiners quickly grew to 8" I thought the Bluegill would also be about 8" by now. But the one and only Bluegill I have seen was barely 3" long. I was not sure if it was from last falls stock or this years spring spawn. I guess the Shiners just grow much faster than the bluegill. Is it possible that an 8" Shiner can eat a 1" Bluegill?

not sure what shinners you have,down here i have golden shinners and silver's,neither one could eat any size bluegill.

Jeff,
I also stocked bluegill last Oct. My fish now are between 3" to 4.5". It took about 2 months to get them to take feed. They tend to stay in the shade and feed better in the evenings. Hope this helps.

Sarc

I would be patient. In your climate the bluegill have not even had a chance to really grow (slow metabolism in winter, cool weather) I would bet they will begin feeding soon and will quickly put on weight this summer. Not surprised if up to 6" by Septmeber if they start coming to your feed.

Thanks for the replies! I did not think about the slow growth rate in the winter.
I am picking up 50 feed trained F1 Bass next week. I am going to try to cage raise them and see if they do well in Missouri. I will report the progress later on.

Jeff, I'm one year ahead of you and a bit further south in Mississippi. I started attempting to feed around the first of May and it took about 2 months before the started eating really well. Now the water rolls like crazy when I throw out food. They will start just be consistent with the food placement and if its still cool you may want to try closer to mid day and as the water temps go up move the feedings closer to the either mornings or evenings.

Good Luck!

With regard to spawning, I cruised my new 4 acre lake this weekend. I put out 1350 bream/bluegill last october (half rate since I'm in the military and won't be fishing my pond until retirement in 2009). I was pleased to see beds in the shallows, indicating my bream had spawned.

I have seen the relative weight charts, but is there such a thing as optimum or average age/weight or age/lenghth chart? I guess the water temps during the year would play a big role in that even with optimum food supply.

Gainesjs,

Doesn't the Missouri Department of Conservation still stock new ponds free of charge for landowners? Not too long ago they were doing that, no strings attached.

Fishman,
Yes, I did get my fish from Missouri dept of Conservation. Last fall they gave me 800 bluegill and 150 catfish. I am supposed to pick up 150 largemouth bass from them in a couple weeks. All fish are free if I follow thier recommendations - I guess they give the fish out to help reduce the fishing pressure on the public lakes.
I have been feeding -(mostly minnows) for a year. I have finally seen some 3-4" bluegill but no catfish yet. But tons of baitfish. I attached a link to see lake,...

Shiner link

Gainesjs
I put 800 coppernose in new one acre pond last may, they spawned several times last year and I have caught several over 9" this year, I put in 50 pounds of fathead minnows and feed when warm which is early in south Arkansas.

Can I ask a question, I have read alot of forums on pondboss, but my pond, almost an acre is thriving in fish population, I stocked 300 bluegil,300 bluechannel cats,150 redears, and 5 lbs of fathead minnows and 100 largemouth bass, my pond was built and finish in december 2003, which makes it less than a year old, my water comes from a well, my well supplies all the water to the pond, I feed my fish purina game chow, by hand feed, I use a yellow bucket, which I take to the pond, when the fish sees me, it is like a tidal wave coming to me, some jumping out of the water, and they are getting larger, I can fish without a rod and reel, all I need is a bucket. Like I said, this is true, and want to know if I am doing this right.

Nope you're doing it all wrong. You need to use a white bucket!

Really enjoyed that one, Cecil! Thanks for the laugh.

Path173, you might be a little heavy on the cats. Here in Ms. we are told to stock 500 bream either bluegill or a combination of bluegill redear, 50 bass and 50 catfish per acre. But we are also advised to only stock cats and bream in ponds 1 acre or smaller.

My Bluegill were stocked this spring 1 inch fingerlings Mar.3 and on May 29 I caught about 6 to measure and weigh.
The largest was 4 1/2 inches long and weighed 2 ounces. This is 13 weeks after stocking. I caught them around the auto feeder, I think they are doing well thus far. I do not know what bgill relative weight is, maybe there is a chart posted somewhere?

Here is an article on relative weights. Scroll down to the bottom article. The chart on bluegill starts at 6 inches. Enjoy! http://www.lakework.com/articles.html

Thanks Doc, like I said I am new to pond building, my lake is 10 surface acre's, it is feed by two wells that produce 75 gpm each, my water temp is controlled and the ph is 7.0, when I said acre, that is land size, the fathead minnows are spawning. I also have 20 koi's that is between 4 to 6 lbs. and also 20 largemouth, which I hope to see spawn in the fall, the largemouths are from 4 to six lbs. So add that up to the previous total and that is my fish population. I would also like to know if brown trout can be added in october. my location is at the blue ridge mountains in N.C

Cecil, hope you enjoyed your joke