Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose HBG?

This one seems to have a much smaller mouth than others. Is it a HBG?


Caught this guy on the next cast. Hitting a popper with the fly rod. He seems to have smaller mouth also. (Just curious). If these are regular bluegill, I may have problems controlling them, as I only have SMB, and a handful of HSB to control them. Plus I personally think, after swimming with them, that they are a hybrid piranha.

second picture looks likes purebred, mean, green GSF. They are aggressive!!!

Did you stock GSF?

First one could easily by hybrid but I'm not the expert on whether it was a male Bg x Female GSF, or vice versa etc.

Oh, and my bad, I just noticed it is your birthday!!! Happy Birthday! Hope you and the pond can celebrate many more Bdays together. Have a good one!

I'd bet Hybrid on both

I found this in your post from May 2015:
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Rainman brought in RES, YP, and GS last week.
Hope to get SMB stocked this fall.
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Rainman? any GSF, or HBG in the stocking list?

Also just saw in your signature line that you did stock:

RES, YP, GS, FHM, HBG, SMB, and HSB..
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.

My money on both being HBG. I will say the faces are to me a little off meaning the slopes above the eyes. Maybe something caused from inbreeding.

I stocked these separate from any of the fish I bought from Rainman.
There is a hatchery near me that sells HBG. The owner said they wouldn't spawn like regular bluegill. I was hoping they wouldn't spawn at all, or have 90% males etc..
Most of the ones I've been catching have a much larger mouth than these two.
I was trying to figure out just exactly what I've got.
I was just wondering how fast they will multiply, assuming that if they are regular Bluegill they will be much more prolific. (And I don't really have a way to get rid of the larger ones.)
I'm really getting to the point where I dislike them. I swim in the pond pretty much every time I'm there. They are very aggressive if you are just floating around. Maybe even holding on to an adult beverage, thinking that another year has passed by, too darn fast.
They are fun on a fly rod..

Hybrid on both, and Happy birthday, Jeff!

Sorry Canyon, I won't set foot in MI with fish....the rules have a magical way of changing there, without notice or due process.

They are both HBG, but the fish in the first photo has a better than average chance of being female. The second photo is classic male.

The fish in the first photo not only could be a female it could be a 2nd, 3rd or other generation HBG, thus the what looks like a smaller mouth.

Thanks for the info. They are probably the original stockers from last year. I put them in fairly late in the summer, and they were pretty small, so I doubt I had any recruitment from last year. Now this spring is another story. There were beds all along the pond banks. Many were RES, but I figure some had to be these HBG.
There's many schools of tiny fish in the pond now. Many are the FHM, and many are the GSH that have survived and flourished. I'll put out a minnow trap in a month or so, and try to see what is there. I've still got millions of the great big tadpoles. They fill the minnow trap in less than a minute once it's put out.
I'm running the feeder a lot longer. It would be nice if these HBG would fill up on the Optima and not on "me!"

I was thinking about putting HBG in my pond that is to be dug next month. I thought they were not supposed to bite swimmers much , maybe only when smaller? Maybe you just got some ornery ones.

Very aggressive compared to normal BG. If I had a do over, I would not have put them in. I'm catching every one I can, and they are not going back into the pond.
They are fun to catch though. The grandkids always have something that's biting. (Pun intended.)

I can honestly say we don't have any issues with biting. All small BG will bite motionless swimmers, hybrid or otherwise. Once they grow large, the biting incidents become a non issue.

Hmmm, there may be hope. I guess it depends on how the reproduce. If there are lots of little ones, there will always be biters, if they don't reproduce, maybe some will survive. If they stop chewing on swimmers (floating)..
Thanks