It has almost become a mantra to eliminate Green Sunfish.

Why? What is the REAL downside? Just what damage do they really do?

Yeah, I know that they have a large mouth and compete with LMB. Just how bad is that? I also know that they seldom reach the ultimate size of of a BG or CNBG and thus take up water space. (D.I.E.D. would disagree here.) Yeah, they spawn earlier but seldom more than once and become early predators. Is that real bad?

OK, here we go. Hit me. The bell is ringing for Round one.

It all depends on your goals Dave. Interesting questions - I will set ring side and watch - at least for a while.

So far the only down side that I can see is that you get labeled an nut squad, kook, deranged, lunatic, mentally incompetent. You hear phrases whispered like..

doesn't have both oars in the water,

elevator doesn't go to the top floor,

lights are on, but nobody's home,

one sandwich short of a picnic,

one taco short of a combination plate,

wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

Course then again some of my posts may have something to do with this treatment also.

You can't blame those poor GSF for ANY of that.

we at the GSA shall not rest until the good word about these terribly misunderstood "hearty denizens of our ponds" has spread across the country!!

In terms of significance (cause and effects) to LMB growth, i think GSF contribute way more as forage than they do as "stealing" food from the bass.

Well Dave I certainly do not want to get on the "s" list of the GSA! Especially after reading the newspaper article I read about the GSA!!!!

My problem is I have so many of them they stay silver dollar sized and there are so many I can't fish for anything else because they steal the bait and are normally too small to catch. In fact they are always too small to catch even when I catch one of them (just as likely to hook one in the belly or gills as the mouth).

So I need to thin them out, which will be good for the remaining ones. If fact in a lot of reading about them if I had some decent sized ones I would like having a few.

Another thing I have to say about them is when I am swimming and am standing still for a few seconds they try to bite my nipples off!! Sometimes they even jump out of the water to get to my nipples!!!! Not an endearing quality to say the least. But I forgive them for that because they know no better and it keeps my lazy fat ass moving doing laps because I know they will bite me if I stay still!

Best regards to you and the GSA

Bill, those nips also happen with bluegill. Bluegill are tough on moles but I haven't heard of the getting airborne.

I think your overabundance would be the same no matter what species you had.

I see your problem now Bill, you have miss identified the fish that you have. You don't actually have any Green Sunfish. What you have in your pond is the very rare and deadly Purple Nurple Sunfish.

You need to get one of these to swim in....

Well Jeff it is heading in that direction.

When I first built my pond I was a bachelor and since I pretty secluded I skinny dipped. Then the cc were getting pretty big I got insecure and wore a jock strap under my shorts and pulled my shorts off, swam in the jock, then when I got out pulled the wet jock off and put on the shorts. When I got married used the same routine. But then a relative of my wife had a seventeen year old daughter, that for reasons you don't even want to know, moved in and now I am a daddy again!!! and have to wear shorts in the water.

I guess I could wear a t-shirt but damn it I like to feel the water on my body, not a soggy drag.

It only happen once and the weather was hot and the GSF were very active. I was standing on my knees looking at something growing on my dam and got a worse than usual bite on my nipple several times, the left one. It had it red and knew he was making progress so stayed on the left one (it was already sore from the previous day) finally I said, well never mind, but stood up and moved out a little deeper where my nipples were about 4"'s out of the water and the little bugger jumped up and tried to get it. My response swim my lap to the other side of the pond.

Instead of a t-shirt with its drag maybe I should just wear a bra........but never been the cross-dresser type! But at least I won't drown like your attire would result in. Would you be more understanding if I made a small donation to the GSA?

Bill:

I never go swimming without a full spectrum of personal protective equipment.

My experience with GSF is they have always been too small to be of any consequence. The largest one I have ever seen was around 6", and DIED's pictures of full grown GSF were astonishing.

I suppose they they were so small because of insufficient predators in those waters. I would like all the diversity possible, but since my pond is a bit small-ish, I will be cautious for now.