Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Could not resist,

Since my only use for the blue gill in the pond is food the larger predators I intend on stocking into the pond, I had to go the exsperimental route. The entire stocking plan is exsperimental any way. The pond was stocked and is full of HBG (8-10 years ago). Only other thing in the pond was Gambusia and GC. I am realeasing about 20 female CNBG to breed with the out numbered Mixed BG. I am sure over time the added Blue gill genes will produce fish that pretty much look like blue gill. They will still have the MIxed gene floating around in the DNA some place. I am very curious to see what effect it will have on the blue gill population over time. as long as they are making babies to be eaten is all that really matters.....
But I think it will be interesteing to see what happens to the future generations........

I'm curious... if no other predatory species have been present, what do your HBG look like after 8-10 years? Do you see all different size classes of HBG? If you have recruitment from the HBG after all this time, you probably already have more females than you realize.

I did not realize the females increased in % over time. Yep several sizes, I see some small YOY each year around the banks, but not as many as you would think. Definitely Hybrid affect has reduced recruitment to some degree up to this point. Some do lean towards a slight advantage to the BG phenotype for sure. Some seem harder to tell from large and some def look like Hybrid as the BG is more obvious but certainly not pure looking. They all still have large mouths are aggressive feeders and are fun to catch on light tackle. I would say they are still overpopulated for the amount of natural feed in the pond. But will need to increase production once I add my predators...They will be eating machines....

Try adding both male and female CNBG and that will pick things up. One successful spawn between BG x BG will produce 1000X what a HBG X BG will. There is some scientific evidence that HBG can't backcross with BG and some to the contrary. In all the cases I have found even if HBG can back cross with BG the fecundity is very low ( several hundred vs 20 to 50 thousand for BG X BG).

I thought about that, But that is not as fun...... I am willing to do the experiment and see what I get with the back cross. If I only stock female CNBG any off spring will be have some hybrid %....Time will tell....

Got 7 female BG stockd over the weekend, Couple were still not totally developed and harder to sex, slight posibily a male got deposited...Caught one nice big adult female RES. I added her too, so if she spawns with one of the MIxed males I should have a real soup of DNA floating around. I figure slresdy gone down the hybrid road so might as well keep mixing them up in the pond and see what happens.

Also Got several hundred Gulf kilies added...

I am thinking if i Keep adding them troughout the spring and after the Panfish spawn I will start adding a few snappers and a couple flounder and a redfish or two. The small snook are have been sen poping the heck out if the Gambusia minnows so they should be getting some size by then as well.