Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain harvest size bream?

im wondering what is a harvest size BG or RES.
i also see some post where the say to harvest all matrue femals an return all males . is this correct an why?

kemp31:

1. If you don't have the March/April 2005 issue of PB magazine, order the back issue. It has installment 1 of Bruce Condello's big BG secrets.

2. The current issue (March/April 2006), already being read by lucky folks in PA and NC, contains another article on big BG by Condello, Baird, and Cody. Which I can't wait to read.

3. The Diferentiating between male and female BG thread contains truly vital info on sexing BG.

4. With BG, the basic principal as I understand it from sources 1 and 3 above is that big male BG dominate the spawning scene and their presence encourages small juvenile BG to grow bigger before sexually maturing. So yes, you want to harvest small BG males, which should remove just juveniles and the small lurker/cuckholder/sneaker males, while leaving as many of the big bull BG as possible. This also leaves the best male BG genes in the pond. Bruce (IIRC) says that it's hard to overharvest females, since only a few will produce a huge number of BG fry.

4. Preferred sex/size harvesting of RES has not been as well studied, to my knowledge, but I'd love to be able to optimize my Redear harvesting to maximize their growth as well.

FWIW, in an attempt to implement the Condello approach last year I pulled out all BG between 5.5" and 7" that I caught. In theory I removed all larger females, but I hardly caught any.

My RES harvesting strategy was intended to keep Redear numbers up and to preserve the largest specimens - I returned all viable RES to the pond before they spawned and only took out 7" to 8" ones afterward.

kemp31 :

Theo has given you good info. A couple of points. Bruce's BG are not in a mixed LMB/BG pond where forage is key. Theo's are in such a pond. There is a big difference in the two situations. Large BG males are the protectors of the eggs/fry. If they are missing a much higher % of the eggs and fry will never reach swim up stage (extreme predation). There is a lot of conflicting info on BG size, population dynamics, stunting and the effects of fishing on the population. These data and factors indicate a greater effect on BG populations the farther north the water and the less trophic condition ( productivity} of the pond. Because of faster growth rates and shorter life spans of BG in southern waters you can harvest them sooner and it is less likely fishing (in moderation) will effect the population. But you have to account for the effect of LMB predation and it can be very large. I try to keep some smaller males and a few females prior to the spawn and not keep any large males until after Sept. 1 and then only in moderation. I almost always release RES. We have LMB predation and forage numbers are key for us. We have family who keep BG and RES and I factor that into the balancing equation.

kemp31 - The bgill article that Theo referred to is in two parts. Part II (May-Jun 06)deals with managing bluegills, esp males. To my knowledge there has not been a lot of research about RES social spawning behavior compared to bgill. I think(?) RES probably have some of the similar complex spawning behaviors as bgill. I think you will find that RES are more difficult (less frequent) to catch than bgill. Since RES are not as prolific as bgill I think you should harvest a higher rate of bgill compared to RES. I predict it will be hard for the RES to out-produce and become as abundant as the bgill in your pond. RES will probably be almost a bonus fish compared to the catch rate for bgill.

Also I am not aware of any research that compared the longevity of northern and southern bgill that were raise in similar conditions/habitats. I think that at least some of the shorten life span for southern bgill is due to crowding conditions (stress). But if bgill life spans are similar to other fishes then what ewest says about bgill longevity is probably pretty accurate.