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#43744 04/03/03 03:41 PM
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I have a good chart to tell if my LMB and Bluegill are the correct weights for their length; however, I have not been able to find a chart anywhere that tells me how fast (long) these two types of fish grow year by year. I understand that conditions vary greatly, but under "average" conditions in a balanced, fertilized and fed (managed) pond in the central US, can anybody tell me what to expect out of these fish? Thanks in advance, JB


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#43745 04/03/03 05:28 PM
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Well, jbrockey, the reason for this is simple. There is tremendous variation in growth of these fishes across the country, and even in different waters that are nearby.

Let me give you a couple of sets of numbers.

First, here are the South Dakota average growth rates (in general, should be slower than more southerly locations). These are average lengths in inches, by year.

age 1: 2.2 inches
age 2: 4.1
age 3: 5.6
age 4: 6.5
age 5: 7.1

Our FASTEST bluegill growth was an average of 8.8 inches at age 5. The SLOWEST bluegill growth we found was 5.9 inches at age 5, in pond with pretty high bluegill abundance.

Largemouth bass:

age 1: 3.8 inches
age 2: 7.2
age 3: 9.8
age 4: 12.0
age 5: 13.5

Our FASTEST largemouth bass growth that we have seen was 17.2 inches at age 5. Our SLOWEST growth was 10.5 inches at age 5, in a "stunted" bass population in a pond.

Hopefully, this give you some idea of the range that we see.

I'll bet that someone else can post some growth rates for Virginia. I'll watch the website, and if they don't, I'll dig some numbers out of a couple of books that I have.

Dave


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#43746 04/03/03 05:30 PM
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Ooops -- if you couldn't tell, the first set of growth numbers were for bluegills, and the second was for largemouth bass.

Sorry,
Dave


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#43747 04/03/03 06:55 PM
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Thanks David! Anybody have any numbers for southern waters so I can split the difference?


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#43748 04/03/03 08:09 PM
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I can not be as specfic as Dave, but in GA if my clients are not getting 1-1.5 lbs of growth per year I feel I'm not doing my job.


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#43749 04/04/03 09:41 AM
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Jbrockey -- I've got a three-volume set of books entitled "Handbook of Freshwater Fishery Biology" that contain fish growth information from across the country.

In the book, there is a summary of average growth for largemouth bass in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, combined.

Age 1 5.2 inches
age 2 9.3
age 3 12.3
age 4 14.7
age 5 16.7
age 6 18.1
age 7 19.3
age 8 20.7

Now, remember that these are "average." That means half of the bass in the state should be longer than that at each age, and half are lower. This summary includes public waters and private ponds, and is based on thousands and thousands of fish. The fastest growth in this largemouth bass summary was in Catawba Lake, NC, where age 6 bass were 20.3 inches long.

For bluegills, the author called it a "southeast" average. It looks like several states are included (DE, MD, VA, NC, GA).

Age 1 2.8 inches
age 2 4.3
age 3 5.6
age 4 6.7
age 5 7.7
age 6 8.9

So, on average, it takes about 5 years to get those true 1/2 pound bluegills. The fastest growth included in this summary was from a Georgia water body, where the bluegills were 11.0 inches at age 6.

So, that should give you a little more food for thought. My best guess is that the good pond management firms in the southeast should easily be at the upper end of these growth rates with fertilization, feeding, and small bass removal programs.

Dave


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#43750 04/04/03 10:15 AM
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David,

That is exactly the information I was looking for and could not find. Thank-you very much. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this for a total stranger. To quote my son Scott, "you are the man"!


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#43751 04/04/03 10:51 AM
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Thanks David for your research and post. Question, I have a copy of "determining the age of fish" June 2002 by D.L. Garling and Keith Ashley from the Michigan State University for Michigan ponds, why are their rates of growth faster than ponds further south of Michigan even on average, keeping in line with your data especially for LMB and the bluegill in the early years? As you can see the ranges seem higher even if you average them out over most years? These are their rates and ranges of growth by age and inches per year as per their bulletin.

LMB:

First summer: 1-4"
age 1: 6-8"
age 2: 8-10"
age 3: 10-12"
age 4: 12-14"
age 5: 13-17"
Life Expectancy- 14-15 yrs

BLUEGILL:

First summer: .5-2"
age 1: 3-4"
age 2: 4-5"
age 3: 5-6"
age 4: 6-7"
age 5: 6.5-7.5"
Life expectancy- 10-11 yrs

Thanks for your thoughts and possible variables to increase their growth rates especially in the early years even though the water temperature should be marginally cooler. Great forum and great discussion. Bill Cody (Ohio) and others whats your thoughts on these numbers?

Rowly

#43752 04/04/03 12:15 PM
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Rowly -- the first thing that I would say is that this is a CLASSIC example of why there really are no good "averages" floating around for various fishes. There are just too many variables.

I suspect that Don Garling's paper was sort of a generalization. I also suspect the numbers are OK, in a certain context. For example, I'll bet if you stocked a new Michigan pond, you could expect these growth rates for your stocked fish. After all, they are going into a food-rich situation. Say that pond in Michigan can eventually support 40 pounds per acre largemouth bass and 150 pounds per acre of bluegills. Well, when you first stock them, there are very few pounds of bass and bluegill, and each individual has LOTS of food. After about 5 years or so, though, there will be a lot more mouths, and growth can be expected to be slower.

So, I'm guessing (it's just a guess) that the Michigan report gave some expected growth rates for newly stocked fish. Those two summaries that I posted above (one for SD, and one for further southeast) were based on established fish populations.

So, you've put your finger on just why I was leery of posting in the first place!! :-)

Like you, I'm very interested to see what some of the southern biologists will say.

Hope this helps,
Dave


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#43753 04/04/03 02:32 PM
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David, I agree with your thoughts. Truely, growth may be somewhat greater where the fish are uncrowded and temperature and food supply are ideal. This fact gives us northern pond owners some hope in establishing good/great growth if managed properly and having a little luck on our side. Last year was the first year of ownership of my 17 acre lake (old gravel pit)in Southwestern Ontario, Canada and I had tremendous growth in my bluegill, LMB and SMB that I introduced. Who says growing fish is an exact science...... Thanks and looking forward to other comments and discussion. Pottsy whats your northern thoughts?

Rowly

#43754 04/05/03 05:21 PM
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On the topic of BG, I would encourage people to read the last issue of IN-Fisherman mag. David has a telemetry article about gills that is very interesting. Dave, I have some clients that might be interested in purchasing their own equipment. Do you have the info on those?
Robert

#43755 04/05/03 09:18 PM
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About the Michigan study by Don Garling.

I don't know much about the study by Don, but I do know Don and he is typcially involved with Aquaculture and raising feed trained fish. Were these fish artifically fed fish?

I feed smalmouth and largemouth bass, bluegill, perch, and three species of trout and I can tell you the growth rates are astounding with fish that are fed pellets vs. those that are on natural diets. I have bass that are 4 years ahead of normal growth rates by feeding them daily in summer.


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#43756 04/06/03 11:47 AM
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Rboert B -- do you mean that you have clients who are interested in telemetry of their own fish?? Interesting!

First of all, I'd encourage them to check with their state conservation agency (e.g., Wisconsin DNR). Some states are probably going to have some regulations that do not allow such tagging? I'm not certain, as this will certainly vary from place to place. I also realize that the private pond/private livestock versus public waters issue could arise. I'm simply saying to check into it first.

For that last telemetry study that we did for Nebraska bluegills, we used radio transmitters from Holohil. Being a state agency, we always have to get competitive bids, and Holohil has won the last several bids. Incidentally, we have been very happy with their equipment.

http://www.holohil.com/links.htm

There are at least two other companies that produce good radio transmitters.

ATS
http://www.atstrack.com/

Lotek
http://www.lotek.com/freshwater.htm#help

This can get expensive. Just in general, the transmitters can be $160-170 each, and the receiver will be several thousand dollars.

Also, don't start anyone on telemetry without sufficient information. For example, radio transmitters do not work well in high water conductivity (high dissolved solids). I'd say that any water at about 800 uS/cm conductivity or above will probably require the use of sonic (sound waves) rather than radio transmitters. The sonic system requires a hydrophone that picks up sound signals under water, and of course the receiver is different from a radio receiver. Radio waves will come out of the water and through ice, and can be picked up with a hand-held antenna. We've only worked with one company for sonic transmitters.

Sonotronics
http://www.sonotronics.com/

As usual, this is probably either too much or too little information!! :-)

Dave


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#43757 04/06/03 03:54 PM
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Thanks for the info Dave. Please don't worry about too much info. I'm sure others will agree.
Robert

#43758 04/06/03 08:41 PM
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Notes. Garling's age/length data is also in the Managing MI Ponds booklet. They say these are rough statewide values. Growth in MI can be somewhat greater where fish are UNcrowded and temp and food supply are ideal. Growth can be slower where fish are overpopulated.

I've seen early spawn fed bgill be 2"-3" by the end of first year. 2nd year with feeding they can be 5-7". However bgill spawned in late summer/August cannot get much bigger than 3/4" by year 1.

Farm Pond Harvest Mag claims bgill with feeding can be 8.5" at 2 yrs. I've observed that once the bgill reach the 7"-8" range the growth slows to 1/2" to 1" per yr. At 9" about all I can get them to grow is around 1/2" per yr. They spend too much energy with reproduction and food doesn't go toward growth or body mass.

I'm not real familar with how fast bass can grow. I always thought that LMB were doing real good in the north to gain 1 pound per year which corresponds to abt 1" in length/lb in the length range from 15" to 20".


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#43759 04/07/03 08:43 AM
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Cecil and Bill: Thanks for the info. provided, Cecil, with Bill giving that info. about growth of LMB and bluegill I believe the length ranges are natural growth from throughout the MI state and not from supplemental feeding of high protein pellets to each species. It seems the keys is not to overpopulate for maximum natural growth within each waters biomass within the northern waters.

Rowly

#43760 04/07/03 12:36 PM
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Rowly,

If I recall you had some pretty darn good growth rates for your first year fish. As for averages I would have to guess that the numbers coming out of northern Michigan would be pretty close to what we could expect optimally... on average. Certainly as has been mentioned there are SO many factors... Forage, population density, genetics, water temperature....


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#43761 04/08/03 09:07 AM
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Pottsy, your correct I had great growth in my YOY bluegill and LMB especially last year (1st yr). However, the "carrying capacity" for the LMB was very low the first year. I may add up to 12 adult LMB per ac this spring or some 200 LMB of various sizes from 7" to 16" but more heavy on the smaller sizes to concentrate on the large numbers of 2-4" BG from last years spawn. Hopefully, the growth will still be good for the LMB. The numbers of bluegill needed are staggering eg. in my calculations if you need 16 BG at 3" per lb or 8 BG at 6" based on their weight chart then thats 11,200 -6" @ 7 lbs of forage for every bass or 32000-3" @ 10 lbs forage per acre or less if you avg. your sizes overall and weights between 7-10 lbs of forage per adult bass. Those numbers are eye opening. Having said that, I have schools and schools that when approached by boat "rain" the water in movement, but how does that equate to the numbers required? Only, time will tell....I may need to reduce my numbers in half and take it slow to achieve good bass growth (6 adult bass per acre seems so low). Whats your thoughts guys????

#43762 04/08/03 09:06 PM
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You should see a noticable decrease in forage numbers at the end of the summer with 6 to 10 extra bass per acre. Make sure the abundance of forage is still present before adding the predators.

Ten pounds of forage fish looks quite a bit different in a bucket versus swimming in open water.


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#43763 04/08/03 10:33 PM
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We just had this discussion on another page. Bill is right on. six bass per acre will make a significant impact on your fish population. I think it is best to forget about how many forage fish you are seeing and concentrate on the weights of your largemouth bass. Calculating relative weight will be a good tool for determining if bass are growing at proper rates. If there is room in the fishery for stocking adult bass it will be obvious. usually the bass will be very fat, too fat for their length. and hard to catch by hook and line.

I see many guys who just HAVE TO stock fish into their ponds no matter what data you present. in their mind stocking fish is the key to good fishing. This is far from true. Remember healthy fish spawn just fine on their own. For me the fun part about managing ponds is watching small fish grow into big fish. If you are happy with the fishing, and your fish are growing at proper rates I would shoot at anyone who tried to stock a fish into that pond.


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