Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Small pond for big bluegill/hybrid striped bass

The more I read about coppermose bluegill the more I like the sound of adding them and a few res with the hsb. I was thinking of emptying out 1/4 acre pond using rotenone wait a month or two then adding about 100 -150 hsb fingerlings and 300 coppermose bluegill and 75 res. Then I could give the bluegill in the 1/3 acre pond a little more of a chance to grow out. If i can continue to remove every small < 5 inch sunfish i catch and all the cc i catch that should give them enough space to fatten up a bit. After about 3 months or so catch as many fish out of 1/3 Acre pond as possible then rotenone, wait a month and start transferring about half the hsb res and cnbg from the smaller pond to it. I can even attempt to select for male cnbg and res only.

How does that plan sound? I know moving that many fish by catching them would be a little work but I have plenty of willing volunteers to fish and help .

Sounds like you are planning to have the same thing in each pond. If I had two small ponds like that, I would tend to go with totally different fish in each one. For example pond one=LMB and BG thus creating a trophy BG pond, and pond two= HSB, SMB and YP.

Would the number of HSB required to eliminate manually removing BG be feasible for a small BOW where optimal growth of the BG was the goal? A good question to which I don't have a good answer. Feeding is also a wild card as it would be needed for both to meet that goal.

Lsutgrfan - note that some here (above posts) have noted that CNBG will not survive in ponds too far north. You are in LA and CNBG will do okay for you. The other fish mentioned as options were YP-yellow perch, WE-walleye, and NP-northern pike and these fish are not options for you. They prefer cooler water. Main species for you to consider are CNBG, regular BG, HBG, HSB, and varieties of LMB. SMB in proper combination with other forage species is an experimental option in LA to see how well they would survive and reproduce. Golden shiner is a forage species in your options. YOu should test your alkalinity to see if it needs lime for good fish production. Test kit from aquarium store will give you a good idea of your alkalinity.

Now...on to business. Yolk, I appreciate your reference to the Romanovs'....I too tend to think of HBG in a royal light, so we share common ground there. As far as the difficulty you've encountered with your theory, I suggest approaching the problem from another vector.

I fear you've overlooked the obvious.... that being that the fish in question was in a weakened condition. Consider this: I stocked adult RES at the same time I stocked that fish. Yet I have neither caught, nor even seen one, in the time since. In light of this, there can be only one conclusion: My HBG have killed and eaten the RES. I submit that the consumption of so much inferior genetic material played havoc with the fish's immune system, contributing to his being susceptible to injury sustained in a fall.

When I caught that fish, he had a crudely fashioned necklace around his head, and dangling on it were the opercular tabs from five or six RES....I didn't give it much thought at the time, the HBG's penchant for being extremely aggressive yet having questionable taste in fashion being well known... it seemed perfectly normal.

So you see that once all the evidence is taken into consideration, it plainly shows that there's not a genetic weakness inherent to HBG, rather it's a case of hyper-aggression and displayed dominance over all other lepomids that will lead to their eventual demise. These fish may need counseling if they are to survive, but they are actually quite tolerant of being dropped. So in conclusion, I regret to inform you that there is no Constant of Death where HBG are concerned. I hope you haven't spent all the grant money.

Travis, what do you see that leads you in that direction? Always interested in the varying interpretations of species identification.