I am going to turn an old catfish pond into a cnbg pond. It is about 50'x50' and 8 ' deep in the middle. All of the catfish are gone and there is a healthy fhm population now. I plan to bucket stock cnbg from my big pond. Can anyone suggest a number of 6-8 inch fish to insure that I get a mix of sexes. I plan to catch the large adult fish and transport them in the next few days.

There are a few threads on sexing Bluegills that might be helpful. Here's one.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=21505

Even if you aren't perfect at sexing them, it should be better than just stocking by numbers and hoping for the best. Hopefully, one of the pros will be along that can comment on whether you want a 50/50 mix or maybe more biased towards one sex.

Keep us in the loop and let us know how it goes,

Bill D.

Edit: What predator are you stocking to keep the CNBG population under control or is your plan to use this little pond as a forage pond for the main pond?

Thanks, Bill. Those pictures certainly will help. All of my cnbg are light in color but the male characteristics should be enough to guide me. I am hoping to make this small pond strictly a forage pond. I have three other ponds, the largest being about 6 acres, and I hope to transfer forage size fish to the them in the future.
Tom Sterling (Shelby County).