Has anyone here tried a reduced BG stocking rate for a new BOW for growing large gills? Meaning having a FHM & GSH based year head start. Following up with a stocking 100-150 BG per acre and a feeding program. Following with a ladder stock of LMB. Would you get a better % of larger gill making the nest and driving the younger BG to grow? Just something that I was thinking on.

Reduced stocking numbers of BG often leads to a quick overpopulation of the first BG spawn. Reduced numbers could work if there are excess numbers of LMB fingerlings to prey on the first spawn of BG.

Thanks Bill, having said that should the fingerling BG and LMB be introduced at the same time?

If BG are the goal, might reconsider stocking GSH.

Agree with this. I would be leery of providing any other source of forage for those LMB. They should be concentrating on yoy and small BG.

I agree with sprk: if the primary goal is big BG then the predators should focus on BG nothing else.

Yep, and the shad will go after the BG eggs.

Ok so no GSH. Would it be a good idea to start culling every 6-7in female gill of the first spawned fish? Or just let the bass do work?

I can't give you a proper authoritative answer Snakebite but can tell you what I did.

In my main pond the LMB last fall were getting up in to the 12-15" range. Considering that LMB can eat a BG about a third its length, I figured the 5-6" BG I had were either runts from the original stocking or from the earliest spawn from my original stockers which were then in the 8" range.

So figuring that my LMB could not eat the 5-6" BG, and there seemed to be plenty of smaller BG plus a good spawn of FHM, I took a couple hundred of the 5-6" range out of the pond (via angling. transferred the 5-6", C&R the larger sizes). I needed some larger BG to stock in my old refurbished pond any way which had a population of GSF. Stocking small BG would have just fed the GSF. So I had a place to use the 5-6" BG.

Don't know if that was the right thing to do or not, but it made sense to me. Freed up some resources for my original stockers so they could continue to grow larger by reducing some biomass, while still leaving all the BG sized correctly for my present LMB size.

Now the experts can tell you if I did it wrong or not.