Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Feeding Bluegill a natural diet

I have a 1/4 acre pond I just bought w my house.
Only has mosquito fish (must be thousands of them).
Must be working bc very few mosquito bites.

Saw a couple of koi in there.

I want to stock BG for the dinner table. I have read a lot of info on this forum and have learned a lot. Thank you all!

I imagine will need some bass to keep the BG population in check. Since BIG BG is my goal to eat.

I dont want to feed the BG any commercial feed. I want to keep the BG diet as natural as possible and dont want to sepnd money on food for them. So I imagine they can feed on the mosquito fish, but dont want them eating all of them, since they seem to control the mosquito larvae

Is there a risk of them eating too many mosquito fish as I dont want the mosquitoes!!

The other related question is I have not seen anyone talk about feeding BGs live bait. If they need more food, can I feed them some live bait, for example, beetle larvae. mealworms, or something like that?
Many thanks!

It's more economical and easier to feed the fish pelleted food. You'd probably have to dig deep to afford live bait in the quantity that you'd need to feed.

For instance, I feed approx. 50# of pellets per month in my pond (besides all the natural forage that they eat in the pond). To get the same equivalent calories to the fish I'd have to feed around 500# of live bait.........

I agree 100% with ESSHUP.

I don't believe that small impoundments can provide adequate forage that can compete with commercial fish-based feeds.

It is like feeding your pet cat or dog a commercial feed. Having taken in many abandoned animals, I know they can survive on things lower on the feed chain. But, just how well?

It takes a pretty large fishery to provide substantial growth of any species.

A number of Pond Boss members recently travelled to Lake Erie for some incredible walleye fishing. This was a nearly dead and very polluted lake not too many years ago. It took a major effort to bring it back. It also took a lot of extreme steps.

I feel ponds are similar, but on a much smaller scale.

If you don't feed your BG, they won't grow or reproduce very well. That means that your bass won't have anything to eat. You have two options if you want to harvest bass. You can feed and treat the bluegill as VIPs who sacrifice their children. You can also supplement the the feed to the LMB by treating them like royalty -- feeding them regularly with something like Purina Aquamax LMB. In any case, you need to feed a lot of pounds of fish. It isn't going to happen with just sun and rain.

As we often say, a pond is much like a garden. It needs weed control, it needs thinning, and it needs a lot of good plant feeding, whether directly, or through the worms, nematodes, and other biological critters.

Good luck,
Ken

I agree that feeding the fish is the fastest, easiest way to put a big belly on your fish. I use four or five feeders on my smaller pond and the fish around the feeders will be much bigger then the areas where I do not feed. After Cecil wrote about his pigs( he can really grow all kinds of fish) having fatty cells and imperfections in their innards, I would not eat any fish fed these high fat diets. This is only my view but I have donated the last thirteen years battling(it is winning) cancer. If you want to grow them to be big this is the way to go but I do not think it would be good to eat these fish at all. We only eat crappie(they eat shad) so I do not think they will hurt you but I would never feed these huge, obese fish to anyone. I hope everyone has a full pond loaded with lunkers.

Justin12, I'm just repeating this infor from what the experts have said in previous threads, as I am new enough at this to mostly just repeat what I have read.

According to several on this forum, it takes approximately 10 pounds of forage fish to put on a pound of predator. While your misquito fish may be thick, in a quarter acre pond they probably don't weigh in aggregate 10 pounds. You do the math.
(of course BG do eat lots of other things besides fish to gain their weight).

Can you have a natural quarter acre pond without supplemnental feed? Absolutely. I know of many around me about that size that have never seen a bit of artificial feed. But at a quarter acre, you are not going to get big pounds of fish production.

I don't know if this is an accurate analogy, but I would compare the production of a quarter acre "natural" pond to be on par with an unfertilized garden the size of a large dinner table. If you want it to produce more, you have to add the resources to do so. Either way is ok, just depends on how many pounds of fish you want to support. And if you try to do it by buying forage fish (minnows, etc), ten pounds for every additional pound of BG is going to get costly.

I built a forage pond specifically to raise FHM to supplement the fish in my larger pond. I think it will help and it will work, but it definitely was not economical (just part of the cost of my hobby). Feed is cheap compared to raising or buying fish for feed.

People may want their pond to be "all natural", when in reality building a pond is completely unnatural. If nature wanted a pond there, she would have put one there. We can only manage it to the degree that satisfies our own perception of what "natural" is.

What do you have in mind when you say big bluegills for the dinner table? As in how big do you want the fish to be, and how often do you intend to have fresh fillets for dinner?

A 1/4 acre pond will be hard pressed to provide very many meals of home grown Bluegill, while still maintaining a population of larger fish.....you will after all, probably be harvesting the largest specimens, which can lead to smaller and smaller fish. Especially without supplemental feeding.

Bringing more natural food to pond:

Black Soldier Flies

wow that s a lot of bait Esshup

How much do u pay for 50# of pellets?

Do u eat the fish that you feed?

I was thinking of growing/raising my own bait. I dont know if it will work, but I understand that a person can grow mealworms which I think is beetle larvae and also black fly larvae, all high in protein and fats

thanks Catmandoo, I am learning that stocking a pond is not a simple as throwin some fish in there and letting them multiply !!!

I was hoping the BG could fend for themselves for food and then the LMB can eat the small BG for their food. Also hoping I coudl cast a net for the fish, take some small BG out, chop off some fins, throw them back so the LMB have easy prey. Cull the larger LMB out every so often so they dont eat the big BG.

I thought I could pull this off, and also feed the BG some larvae that I raise. Guess I have to re-think this.

Talapia is sounding a lot easier to grow!

thanks Kenc
yea, the only reason I want big BG is for the dinner table. If its not a good idea to eat the BG that are fed pellets, then I have to find another fish to raise. I wish you the best of health in the future!

thanks Snrub!
Im doing the math Wow, not what I expected. sounds like my Mosq fish would only be a snack for the BGs!! uggh!

my small 1/4 pond is spring fed that has been there for 30 years I am told, but that really does not help in the scheme of things.

thanks Sprkplug
I was naively thinking 3 fish meals a week for 2 people.
using a cast net mostly, and maybe pole fishing when we have time.
wishful thinking I guess!!

Ive caught many BGs years ago (not in my pond), all small. its a lot of work, but the fillets are probably the best fish I have eaten (although never eaten crappie, or walleye).

for one 200 lb adult for one dinner, having to fillet 4 smaller BGs is doable, I think anything more would become cumbersome

thanks fish n chips
great link!!!

Most of us feed our fish one of the AquaMax pellets. A 50# bag runs 25-40 dollars depending on which pellet and your particular supplier. (call your local feed & seed or ag supplier) These pellets are mostly fish meal and a grain. I'm not aware of any reason not to eat a fish fed pellets. Lot of us do eat our fed fish.

A possible approach is to build another pond to raise forage fish. Fathead minnows reproduce like crazy, but if they're in a pond with BG and LMB, they won't survive. If you raise them separately and dump them in small fish will be happy to chow down. A large LMB wants to eat larger fish. He'll be looking for BG-sized dinner.

If you have BG, you won't have mosquitos. But, I don't recall anybody posting that they lost all of their gambusias.

I'm paying around $40 for a bag of AM500 or 600. Yes, I eat the fish from the pond. I'm not concerned if they have extra fat on them, that's trimmed off before cooking anyway. They aren't like beef where the fat is marbled thru the meat.

Lots of good questions. I hope none of them become political or controversial. If they do, I'll take them back, or ask the other moderators to do what they feel is necessary.

Cleaning BG

As for BG dinners -- a number of years ago I volunteered to put on a filleting workshop at a Pond Boss conference. Cecil Baird, Bruce Condello, and maybe even a few others of us crazies had a for-fun filleting competition. I think I came in third, but that was at about a minute to fillet and skin a bluegill.

I've since adopted new techniques that don't get quite as much meat off a fish, but it is even faster. So, I know that with just a little practice, a lot of bluegill can be filleted and skinned in a pretty short time.

Cast Nets

I have three cast nets. One at 4' diameter. One at 8' diameter. And, one at 12' foot diameter.

Catching eating-size bluegill, in any quantity, using a cast net is not going to be easy. Bluegill are fast. When in schools, they still keep a fairly long distance from each other. The 4-foot net might bring in one dumb and slow BG of edible size. Same with the 12 foot net. A 12 foot net sinks a lot slower than a 12 foot net, and they can get out from under it before they get caught.

I find that the cast nets work well where I have plenty of open and flat area, and where there are a lot of fish per square foot. They work well from a boat in deep water, where there are large schools of very tightly packed fish per square foot, and you can yank the bottom closed really fast after throwing the net.

But, they don't work worth a darn in a pond for adult Bluegill, Bass, Catfish, etc. They have meager efficiency for getting fingerlings.

A seine could work.

BG Size/Number per Person

The number of bluegill per person really depends on how the fish are prepared. We host a lot of bluegill parties at our house/ponds. We find that it takes approximately 2-1/2 bluegill (8-9 inches) is enough if we batter and fry them. In this case, we fillet them and cut each fillet into 3-4 pieces, each a little bigger than an inch square.

If we poach BG fillets for 8 minutes in something like fresh chopped tomato/tomatillo/onion/jalapeno/garlic/cilantro salsa, it takes about one, to about one-and-a-half fillets, plus side dishes.

All Natural

This is where I worry that the train could go off the tracks.

I received one of the very first "Master Gardener" certificates back in the mid-1970s. I was young. And, I was kind of controversial in the program because I insisted on using only non-synthesized and non-chemical solutions to home garden problems. I'm still about 95% there for home production. I'm not so there for commercial production.

When it comes to feed, whether for warm blooded animals, fish, or even vegetables, IMO we have to look at how these feeds and procedures affect our bodies and our environment.

If we are depleting non-sustainable populations for these feeds, that is a problem. If these feeds, or what they are feeding, are seriously affecting our environment, including our ground water supplies, that is a problem.

As I mentioned above, look at what we feed our pets. When I was a kid, we fed the dogs and cats our left-overs. I think my dogs and cats are now a lot more healthy eating food designed especially for them.

I have some concern over fish food We go through ups and downs of fish meal sources, like menhaden. As we learn at conferences and workshops, the major fish feed companies, like Purina and Cargill keep looking at ways to minimize depletion, while improving nutrition.

Ken

Ken, is there a video or YouTube tutorial that you care to share on new and improved bluegill filet techniques? I rarely keep the bluegill I catch for 2 reasons. 1. I never catch... much less ever even see.. bluegill like the ones that inhabit the ponds of the posters on this forum, and 2. When I'm done filleting, either the scraps of goo called mangled meat isn't worth anything or I'm bleeding from my poor technique....

So far I have the ultimate solution to cleaning fish. My wife cleans all of them. I did not ask her to. Did not expect her to. But she sees me start in with a knife and a fish and quickly takes over for some reason. Doesn't hurt my feelings one bit.

And she does a great job cooking them to. How could I be so lucky?

The only downside I see is unless we watch a movie together, the TV is always on a cooking show. I've watched more cooking shows (usually while reading PBF) not of my own choice than any person should ever be expected to. I figure when cleaning fish she considers it improving her culinary skills.

You can feel sorry for me if you want. I'll take the trade off. Her cleaning fish for me being exposed to cooking shows.

My grandmother would have my hide if she knew I ever filleted a fish. She preferred them scaled, beheaded, guts removed. Roll in flour with some pepper and a bit of salt. Fry in Crisco in a cast iron skillet. Nothing left on the plate but the bones and fins. She'd eat the crispy tail, and thought any eggs in the fish were a delicacy (she's the one that got me eating them).

She liked to scale fish with a grapefruit spoon. The teeth on the end helped get under the scales near the fins.

Any BG 5" and up was to be kept or I caught hell for letting them go. She passed away in 1998 at 99 years young.

Ken, she was a great gardener, and ALWAYS had flowers and veggies. When I helped clean out her basement I found powdered DDT, powdered Rotenone, there was asbestos wrapped on the pipes in the basement, and the area betwen the 1st and 2nd floor was insulated with vermiculite, and it was also poured into the walls where they could. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all those things are good. She and her husband (my grandfather who passed away in 1968) always took care to use long sleeve garments when spraying, gloves and dust masks. She ended up with skin cancer in her later years, and had to take precautions when going out in the sun. But, she didn't let that slow her down a bit. She lived in the house next door to us, and when I was living at home I had to get outside after a snowfall at first light or she'd be out there shoveling. Dad had to do the same thing after I moved out, even during the winter of 1997/1998.

In our house I do all the catching, cleaning, and cooking of fish. But, I don't have to watch cooking shows, so I suppose it all works out. (My wife is an excellent cook, but I do all the wild game)

On the other hand however, I have been subjected to her idea of what constitutes "good" TV on occasion. It didn't take long for me to condense all the elements she finds appealing, and try and condense them into one program.

The concept would be a competition, where the contestants are required to design and create their own fashionable clothing. Then, those same contestants would be required to dance in that clothing, where they will be judged yet again by a panel of individuals devoid of any talent or knowledge regarding dancing, or fashion, or pretty much anything else for that matter.




Oh, and all the contestants would be vampires. Melancholy, moody, melodramatic vampires.

Makes the cooking shows sound not so bad, thanks.

Esshup I've often thought that preparing the smaller fish would be better the way your grandma did it. But one thing I've learned in 40 years of marriage (33 to the current and last wife), is when to shut up. At least part of the time.

We used to travel a lot in Mexico years ago. When one ordered Pescado Frito, that is exactly what you got. A fried fish........all of it except the guts. Head, eyes, everything. It was delicious, but a little different getting used to for a Midwestern landlubber. Red Snapper fried whole, big enough to hang off both ends of a platter......yummm.