Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Green Sunfish (GSF) size to keep

I had the GSF invasion in my new pond last year, and have since trapped or caught out quite a few of them (177 so far). Last night I caught a 7" that weighed 7 oz. I also had some 1.5" in my trap along with a 4". I usually throw back all GSF that are 3" or less for bass food, figuring the 9-11" LMB and 10-14" HSB wouldn't be able to eat the 4" and bigger.

Does this sound like a valid approach to eliminate GSF while still taking advantage of the food they provide ? Should I remove ALL regardless of size ? Would there be a downside to using a slot for culling, say all 4-6" must GO, all babies stay, and large adults (the few that make it above 6") stay to breed more food. Is cross breeding with CNBG an issue if larger GSF are present?

I have Tilapia and CNBG to feed the bass, plus AQMX twice/day.

Thanks,
Darryl

Darryl do you want the bigger ones to eat ? You can of course mortally wound the bigger ones (or for that matter all of them) and put them back in for fish food. The plan you are on should over time get most of the GSF out as the CNBG will out compete them through spawning with your help. If I were going to draw a size line based on the size of your LMB and HSB it would be 4 inches. Less than 4 - put them back - 4 or over take them out or wound and put back.

Probably not a problem with crossing with the CNBG but why chance it ? Because they take up space , don't produce as much LMB/HSB forage and compete with CNBG I would not want an ongoing population spawning in a LMB/BG pond.

LOL This is great !!! ewest's dark side is coming out, now we know how he really feels about Green Sunfish :

mortally wound the bigger ones, or for that matter all of them, and put them back in !!!

I suspect a revolt from the local GSF lovers or PETA !!!

late edit: If you already feed and have Tilapia and CNBG, toss all greenies over the shoulder for the critters.

Be sure "mortally wounded" really means "mortally wounded." I thought I was doing that with GSH, then I re-caught a couple of Shiners that had recovered.

I can't find an appropriate emoticon to express my feelings about this.

Archer, I wouldn't really worry about them. Over time, they will not be able to compete with Bluegill spawning rates.

Eastland nothing dark about making forage fish more subject to being foraged. At least that way its quick and useful in growing fish and not death by a thousand coon or ant bites. I call that practical fisheries management . This of course assumes you want to get rid of the GSF from a LMB/BG pond. If one is trapping them anyway and intends that they become forage then why not be efficient at the job.

Archer, if you throw them back in, you will continue to see them mixing with your CNBG population, if you catch one, don't put in back in alive.

Ewest, if archer just throws them into a blender, he can dump them back in to feed the smaller forage fish! Is there a battery powered "pocket blender"?

Mortally wounded and returned for forage??????

Green Sunfish smoothies?????

Does the blasphemy never stop?

The GSA will in conjunction with the Warmouth Technology Foundation (WTF) has developed a "new and improved" Black Soldier Fly. We have bred hordes of them and will be releasing them in the general vicinity of anyone that continues to abuse the either the mighty GSF or the magnificent Warmouth.






Preliminary testing indicates that although these new and improved BSF warriors may not critically injure you they could in fact cause a serious skin blemish.

You have been warned.



PS we had to abort Operation Angry Weasel. As it turns out weasels are both hard to catch and difficult to train. In addition they are easy to anger and can give a vicious bite especially during training sessions.

WTF?

Don't knock the Warmouth Technology Foundation. They are a classy organization.

Heck they even have their own T Shirts...

WTF, we know about fish!

GW, DIED, JHAP: I am a new member to this forum who has been reading threads over a few months. I am humbly seeking membership in the GSA.

I have begun attempting to manage a 3/4 acre pond on family land. My goal is good bass fishing while limiting stunted bass as much as possible. It used to be a catfish pond. They're gone, and it became overrun with GSF. Before I became educated about pond management whatsoever through this forum, I put in 50 LMB (form a buddies' pond) around 1/2 lb. each to "eat the pond perch"--(I didn't even know they were GSF at the time). That was 3 years ago. Now my population of bass is exploding. I am currently trying to remove slot-size bass! I have caught some bass over 3 lbs. I assume those are my original releases. I also am currently trying to catch and release BG (bass forage-more info I gleaned from this website- I didn't previously know that GSF wouldn't breed enough to be a good source) from a buddies pond into my pond. I wish I had more $ to spare to buy adult BG; I am doing it the "hard way". I released 28 BG the other day, 2 were found floating the next day. Approximately how many adult BG should I plan to add to establish a breeding popula

GW, DIED, JHAP: I am a new member to this forum who has been reading threads over a few months. I am humbly seeking membership in the GSA.

I have begun attempting to manage a 3/4 acre pond on family land. My goal is good bass fishing while limiting stunted bass as much as possible. It used to be a catfish pond. They're gone, and it became overrun with GSF. Before I became educated about pond management whatsoever through this forum, I put in 50 LMB (form a buddies' pond) around 1/2 lb. each to "eat the pond perch"--(I didn't even know they were GSF at the time). That was 3 years ago. Now my population of bass is exploding. I am currently trying to remove slot-size bass! I have caught some bass over 3 lbs. I assume those are my original releases. I also am currently trying to catch and release BG (bass forage-more info I gleaned from this website- I didn't previously know that GSF wouldn't breed enough to be a good source) from a buddies pond into my pond. I wish I had more $ to spare to buy adult BG; I am doing it the "hard way". I released 28 BG the other day, 2 were found floating the next day. Approximately how many adult BG should I plan to add to establish a breeding population for bass forage?
Also are BG caught off their bed(is this unethical??) for stocking gonna be all males? I caught some that looked like what I think are females.

Also, (this is for GW, DIED, JHAP) the remaining GSF in my pond after the bass decimated the small ones are rather large! 3/4 lb is what my buddy and I have been catching! We caught 7 in that range a couple of weeks ago. I catch and release them(even though they compete w/my bass) because they are fun and interesting. I like them also because my son will soon be fishing and they are easy to catch.

One more thing--My pond is in the middle of a pine forest with sweetgums and other trees and grassy spots around the waters edge--also lots of deer, turkey, frogs, etc use my pond.
Question: Do pine trees around a pond affect it? I think I remember hearing somewhere the runoff from the pine needles being acidic(??) and affecting catfish ponds(mines not a catfish pond now, just wondering if it would affect bass/lepomis..

THANKS and I love this forum!
Matt

Cougar,

Although you first committed a minor blasphemy, the GSA membership committee will overlook this indisgression and recommend you for full fledged membership. It is obvious that you saw the light and realized how magnificant the mighty Green Sunfish is.

You must arise each day and take the following oath that was penned by Bbjr:

I pledge to manage my pond in the best interest of the almighty green sunfish and protect it from heretical blasphemy.

You will receive in the mail your membership package along with the secret decoder ring, GSA iron on patch and a metric to american conversion chart (since Mr. Condello refuses to stop using the confusing and antiquated metric system).

Remember however, although you can quit the GSA only we can terminate your membership.

Oh and in response to your other questions/comments:



3/4 of a pound is a fair size GSF. DIED has a few that are 1.25lbs (we're not worthy). They are real fighters which is why we like em.



My pond is surrounded by Pines and Cedars, I've never noticed any real problems. The pollen can be a pain but other than that I've haven't noticed any issues.

cougar:

To look at your non-GSA related questions (if I may have the dispensation to do so from GSA Grandmaster JHAP), we usually recommend at least 30-50 adult BG per acre to introduce a good BG population. You are probably past that point now; I don't think more would hurt.

I bet you are catching both male & female BG off the beds, but Condello, Cody, or other more experienced PMs would probably have a better idea.

Any forest, especially pine, is liable to acidify a pond's water to some extent. PH test kits aren't too expensive, IIRC, and would help let you know if lime application (to compensate) is warranted.

FWIW, I think it is only unethical to make me get out of my bed. Fishing off spawning beds may go with or against the grain of the management of a particular species.

Thanks for the replies Theo and Jeff!

Been busy transplanting more adult BG(14 more)

Jeff, where should I send my dues?

I will have a GSF over a lb in the not to distant future!

welcome cougar. i wouldnt worry about the GSF competing w/ bass for food for long in the presence of BG. from what i have learned and seen, GSF are preferred bass forage over BG because of their slimmer body shape. the BG may actually take hold quicker because the bass have "the other green meat" choice on the menu. the BG will eventually outcompete the GSF, and large GSF will become a rare treat in your pond. thats my take on life anyways, glad to have you aboard

ATTENTION: COUGAR AND ALL GSA MEMBERS

We at WTF, in the spirit of friendly competition do hereby challenge you to a contest. The goal is to be the first to produce a world record specimen of our chosen species. To claim victory one must satisfy all rules and conditions as described by the PPRF and the fish must be entered on the site as per said rules.

Gentlemen, start your fishes.

DIED, right now I don't have any bass over about 3 1/2 lbs. These are my original stockers. In other words, they're just not big enough to eat my big honking GSF! Are you saying that over time that as my big GSF get old and die off that eventually between the effects of bass predation and the BG outspawning them I will have no GSF? Sad. It would be fun to keep a few big GSF around.
Had I known all of this 3-4 years ago(how big GSF would grow when their #'s are limited) I might have introduced HSB or single-sex LMB and tried for a big Lepomis pond! Now that I have many LMB, I feel it irresponsible not to try to redeem myself be introducing a more prolific food source(BG).

GW--you are on!

My remaining GSF are growing as I type!

I stocked about 20 adult WM from Mr H's big pond to his small pond. The largest was about 7 inches and maybe 1/4 lb. How can I possibly win? These WM are in a pond with a similar number and size class of RES, and about a million FH. Basically these WM have as many minnows as they care to eat.

WTF??? Are you challenging us to a friendly competition?

From what I have been able to determine the world record GSF is 2 pounds 2 ounces and world record WM is 2 pounds 7 ounces.

Even DIED's GSF have to bulk up to obtain world record status.

That being said in the spirit of friendly competition we accept the challenge. Using the GSA's red phone I spoke to the Govenator this morning. He is fully behind this competition. He told me "JHAP (we're on a first name basis), Don't be a Ghurly Man, the GSA must win this competition." Unfortunately due to California's budget crisis he will not provide any funding.




Catching either a 2 pound GSF or WM would be something.

This just in, the California State Assembly has passed a new tax on trophy GSF.

I'm no expert but I don't think that you will end up without any GSF, they are a very hardy fish. But your LMB are a fair size and will get bigger, therefore they will be able to eat larger and larger fish.

DIED is the only person that I am aware of that is actively managing a pond for record GSF. He introduced BG in January 2007 and one thing is certain, the BG definately out spawn the GSF by a fairly large margin. His pond is a dang sunfish factory. We are gonna cull out some BG this summer to help better balance his pond (my LMB will love him for that). DIED and others can probably better answer this question that me.

Is this an ongoing contest? Or is there a cutoff date? 'Cause guys all I'm saying is that I've got 3/4 lb sunfish now....give em 2 more years... who's to say?.... but then again, maybe they've already maxed out

thanks Jeff....also if your pond is in N.CA and you are in S. CA....you must keep the roads hot!

The world record WM was caught 165 miles from my place. It was caught in a river, not a pond. I'll bet it didn't have the supply of minnows that Mr H's WM have. Oh yeah, if they get tired of eating FH there is a good supply of crawdads in the pond too.

the GSF stock that i used was already predisposed to large sizes. they came from a bass heavy pond w/ decent weed cover allowing continued but limited GSF recruitment. the predation has been so heavy for so long though that all you see or can catch are gargantuan sized examples for the species. all other "eatable" sizes are decimated.


cougar, my guess is you will end up w/ a similar scenario to where my fish came from plus the added presence of BG. where smaller year classes of GSF are wiped out by predation, GSF will have limited recruitment because of both masssive BG spawning and bass predation, but you will retain a few rare individuals which may be able to pull off limited spawning (i.e. you'll have rare GSF treats).


GW regardless of forage availibility, you might find genetic barriers w/ yer WM and will have to cull and select to develop yer own GW strain in order to ultimately reach larger (record) sizes.

LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...

I CANT HEAR YOU

LA LA LA LA LA LA....

What's happening with the little guys above the beer drinkers?

"World's Most One-Sided Fist Fights, Emoticon Edition"

hey, GW started it.....

And my 3 lb WM will finish it. (insert fiendish laugh)

I sure do. It's right at 500 miles from my driveway to the gate on my property. So 1,000 miles round trip. We leave So Cal at 3:00 in the AM to avoid LA traffic. I do all the driving. A couple of trips ago my wife fell asleep during the drive. When she woke up she said "I just had a nice nap." I stretched and yawned and "So did I." She is more careful about falling asleep now.

DIED and GW, play nicely!!!

Remember we are allies in this war against sunfish oppression, not enemies.

What is the best way to wound a GSF or HBG (and still have them be lively eneough for bass to want to feed on them) ? I'm trying to get rid of the HBG in my pond. Eventualy the BG will out spawn the HBG but I am impatient and I want the HBG gone now. If I can fatten the Bass up while removeing the HBG even better.

try this.

take the HBG in a bucket of water to a place on the pond you know bass hang out. take a pair of scissors, cut ONE gill plate, preferably a smaller one, release fish in water, the fish will bleed out slowly, leave a blood trail and stay alive for ~5 minutes.

cool I'll give it a try. I think i'm just going to do it to the ones under 4 inches.

Thanks
DIED