Well my first hatch of bluegills of July 08 where I crossed some of Bruce Condello's bluegills with some of my existing stock were separated from some yellow perch in a cage and put into their own cage for the winter today. I need to sort the perch by sex in the cages next spring and don't want to handle the bluegills in that cold of water if I don't have to. I will sort the yellow perch and dump the female yellow perch into the pond cage free in March.

Anyway average size for these 1 year 3 month old fish is about 6 inches with the largest at 6 7/8 inches and 6 1/4 oz. (Don't have a gram scale.)These fish have been in the cage most of their lives.

Here are a few pics.

Bluegills and small perch in a circular tank after some sorting had begun:



One of the larger ones:



A pic of one on the certified scale:



Once again a special thanks to Bruce Condello for the fine stock I got from him.

Note: I do not supply any fish for stocking. My fish are produced for my own use. Bruce is the man to contact if you want any of his excellent stock.

They definitely have a "special" look don't they?

Great report, Cecil!

Yep all they need is a pink cowboy hat.

Nice plump gills Cecil, that's some great growth for 15 months, I guess they'll be real porkers by the end of next summer.
Were you planning on bringing some indoors ?

I was but the RAS project may have to be put on hold. Just moving the fish around, power washing cages, and doing pond maintenance for winter on top of my other business has taken it's toll on my time. I still haven't drained my two production ponds or seined them yet although the one was just used as a holding pond this year.

I still may put some YOY bg's in the tank for the winter. All hope is not lost yet.

What's really crazy is I'm considering getting some 10 inch brook trout and bringing them indoors to see if I can get them to catch up with the bigger trout that will stay in the outside pond. I'm not convinced I have had good survival of my outside trout even though I am seeing some healthy 14 to 16 inch fish perhaps 18 inches. I did however see one today with a small amount of fungus on it. Perhaps the males have been fighting. If there are any females that will be more likely to occur. I was supposed to get only males but...

Those are some rotund bluegills. Nicely done, Cecil!

I've been catching and trapping the brookies and rainbows in the pond and they've grown well, but I have yet to catch or trap a single BRNT, I put in 50 in the spring that were 4".

Cecil the more you ram their head into the end of the measuring tube the fatter and rounder they get. Kidding of course.

Nice fish and very plump with good color.

Yeah but there's a drawback to that. They get shorter.

I'm more of a length than weight guy anyway. BTW any idea what the RW's are on the biggest ones? I'm too lazy to look it up.

Cecil I need to look at home for the RW (Wr) chart for small BG to be sure. Using the standard chart your BG's RW (Wr) are right at 200% using 6 in and 6.25 oz. Yours are .390625 and standard is .2. .390625/.2 = 195.3125 % .

Thanks Eric. Sounds like they will have plenty of reserves going into winter. They are already feeding today after handling yesterday. I think that is another advantage of Bruce's genetic selection that is being passed on.

How are you trapping them? The browns may be using a different habitat than the other species. I've seen lakes where the rainbows and brooks were bottom oriented and the browns suspended off the bottom. On the other hand I've seen lakes where the rainbows suspended and most of the browns were bottom oriented.

As far as catching them via hook and line vs. brooks and bows they can very hard to catch. When I harvest browns from my trout pond via hook and line there are always about 10 maybe 15 that can only be removed by draining the pond.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but your experiences with these fish are identical to mine. I can handle mine all day, and the next day they're eating. The one thing I've noticed is that if you take an age-2 CSBG that's been outdoors all summer and move him into an indoor containment, they take several days to go back on the feed. This seems to be primarily for fish 8 inches and over.

Bruce what about the RW (Wr) for small BG. Were those #s close ?

Are those similar to yours?

Cecil I use homemade cone traps but I usually trap near a fallen tree where the shiners hang out in about 5 ft. of water. Both RBT & BKT get trapped.
When I fish I use nightcrawler pieces on a bead and blade rig under a bobber to avoid snags, rainbows & brookies but no browns.
Maybe they are holding in some of the deep areas, but 8ft is max depth.
CJ recommended fishing a live shiner but I haven't got around to it.

Bruce, What do you think caused your gills to go off feed when you brought them inside?

I just brought my PS's inside yesterday and they were feeding well today. They weren't eating much outside lately with water temps in the 40's, but inside water temp was up to 58 today so maybe the warmer water speeded up their appetite.

Adirondack, do you sell pumpkinseeds? If not, does anyone else on here?

Walt, I don't think I have seen any PB faithful who have PS for sale. I know Cecil was considering it this spring but couldn't catch enough brood stock. There are several hatcheries that do though. I can catch you all the wild PS you could ever want... HAHA

No Walt I don't sell them but if anyone wants any they can have all they can catch if they come here.
I could also steer you to a mountain lake up here that is loaded with pure PS's, no bluegill around here.
If I get a good hatch in the spring with my selected seed's I would be willing to share them with others.

Not that I would encourage transporting them, that would be illegal.

I'd go with AP's PS, they came from far cleaner waters than mine would... HAHA

CJ is it legal to transport live fish that you catch in VA. or PA., technically it's illegal in NY.

To be honest, I am not 100% sure. However, I do not believe it is illegal to transport fish you caught alive. However, it is illegal to introduce any fish not already found naturally reproducing in that body of water. Snakeheads are illegal to have alive period. If you catch one, the law requires you to kill it on the spot.

I get that a lot with fish I move into cages that have never been in a cage before.

Species can be different in their susceptibility to traps. I remember getting very few largemouths in gillnets when I worked as a biologist intern a couple of summers. It seems the largemouths can see them and avoid them while other species run right into them becoming gillnetted.

I will be getting pumpkinseeds in November from Smith Creek Fish Farm in Bliss, New York. (Near Buffalo) Bill Cody and I are making it a trip. Todd Garrison the owner says he has some of the largest and fastest growing in the region. Here is the link complete with prices:

http://www.smithcreekfishfarm.com/id1.html

I see he does some overnight shipping.

Wow, that's awesome, Cecil. I will be giving them a call tomorrow. I wonder if they ship the 6" PS? Probably not I would guess but you can bet I'll ask.

Man, 6 bucks for a 6" PS, if the demand was big enough it would be profitable, but NY state with all it's tests would make it prohibitive unless you were a big operation.
The guy I was getting my trout from is done, the state would not work with him on required tests even though his water comes from Artesian springs. That trout farm had been there since the early 1900's.
BIG GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM !!!!!!!

Yeah, their prices are just short of outlandish. But I love the idea of having a pumpkinseed pond with a feeder cranking out pellets for them three times a day.

If the PS ate the pellets, it would be even better.

I did some research a few years ago on the health testing requirements of various states for an article I did for our state Aquaculture Newsletter. Funny thing was New York was really lax when it came to health testing a few years ago.Then when a couple of your lakes tested positive for VHS they turned 180 degrees and went off the deep end. Now they require every test in the book for all species --even species that are not known to be susceptable to a particular disease! It's just crazy to have to have a largemouth bass tested for a disease only trout can get and a trout for a disease only a largemouth bass can get!

And last I heard your state still will not allow the sale of largemouth bass for consumption even if they are raised privately in tanks!

Yes health testing is expensive and the government people that think nothing of making more and more testing required have never run their own business, let alone a fish farm. Even without the health testing that price is not that high if you consider the overhead as in utilities, buildings, labor, taxes etc. one must deal with when running a full-time hatchery or just about any business. When it becomes your living it's not as fun as tinkering like we do. I know a few full-time fish farmers and they all tell me it's not an easy living with lots of risk.

One fish farmer I know had to take another job just to stay in business. Granted he is in Michigan that has been hit very hard by the recession.

See my above post.

They are feed trained I was told.

The guy with the trout farm the state put out of business is a welder, he bought the trout farm about 15 years ago as an addition to his income. He told me he makes 10 to 12 grand on the trout he raised, the state required testing would have cost him 8 grand.
He didn't need to be a math major to figure it out.

Sad but true. Actually if APHIS would have had it's way it may have been triple that cost. They wanted us to not only test fish for VHS they wanted us to test them several times a year if the water source was an "Open source." They even wanted to have a vet come out AGAIN to observe every single load of fish that was leaving the farm even though they had been previously tested VHS free. One trout farmer I know estimated that his annual health costs would have been something like $30,000! Fortunately enough fish farmers spoke up and contacted their congressmen and it's been put on hold.

Does Bruce ship any of his bluegill? I would love to get a few!

Find one of his posts and click the PM option and PM him.. Or maybe even title a post, "Hey Bruce how do I get some of your bluegills!" That should get his attention.

There may be complications as he is selling his property and moving to a new one. Hope you can get some. They are awesome.

If by some chance Bruce can't help you they may be other avenues such as those that have them in their ponds.

Perhaps Bruce should have an inventory liquidation sale. (lame pun intended).