Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations fringe benefit fish?

a little "sampling" today and i got some of these. not a richmond mills bluegill by any stretch, but i'll take 'em like this all day long.



i have found it kinda interesting how that in the process of trying to raise big bass, i've got some pretty nice bluegills too as a fringe benefit. it was purely accidental. i never intended these gills to be anything but food for the bass when i stocked 'em. cool though. fun to catch. fun to eat.

i guess my question is has anybody else out there managed to get any desirable "bonus fish" that they never really intended in their pond? if so what kind? and how do you think it happened? this is suddenly very intriguing to me. thanks for any help and responses.

I guess the closest thing I came to fringe benefit fish was when I accidentally dropped a male yellow perch into my all female trophy yellow perch pond. Turns out I drained that pond the following spring as I has some dike issues due to some five star mole boring. Anyway, the fringe benefit was not only did I salvage all of my big fish and move them to a temporary pond while I did repairs, I salvaged about a hundred YOY yellow perch spawned in the trophy yellow perch pond, and was able to get them trained on pellets in a cage with the the rest of the perch their size. So one hundred more perch I wouldn't have had normally.

How big was that bluegill in inches? It looks longer than your hand in the picture.

it was longer than my hand. probably about 11" give or take a fraction.

That guy is seriously ready for some action....spawning, that is.

Dang Eric, that is a fringe HSB... How much did that beast weigh?

man that's a nice one. i'm gonna seriously look into gettin' at least a few of those in the pond. don't know whether they'd survive or not. i'll have to research a little. caught a few at the river and i am addicted now. those are some hard pullin' son of a guns and that's a beauty.

That pic is of a hybrid striped bass. Pure striped will probably survive in most ponds until they reach the 20" range at which time they'll struggle to find water temps low enough and DO levels high enough to survive. Since hybrid striped bass are illegal to stock in VA, I may be finding out for sure just how tolerant pure striped bass are to small pond life.

Yes a HSB from Todd. Appx 20 mths old and Greg (in pic) estimated 3-4 lbs. Went in the pond at 10-12 inches in Dec 08.

Dang Ewest. What a brute. Tell about which pond and feeding regimen. Did Greg shock it up or catch it? I haven't seen mine this year. hope they handled the cold. If yours did, mine should have. May try for one today.
Having fun with a chartreuse bug popper on BG though. LMB just cruising and eating pellets. Prolly busy thinking about spawning.

That is a shock fish. Eating TShad /BG/ LMB/ and some feed blend of GFC and AM 600. Only added 50 to a 16 acre lake. Will add more in due course.

Here is another pic.

dang he is good lookin. You know the HSB and the man holding the fish!