I haven’t gone after any BG yet. I have seen them when feeding and there are several in the 6” range. And they spawned at least once this summer. I’ll post some pictures when I catch a few.
I want to thank u for your post, it has help me because I have a daughter who has a similar situation in her pond. She purchased the home and property last spring and it has a pond just under the half acre. We fish it a few times last spring and found a few small cnbg in it. Guessing it went through a fish kill at some point in time. I stocked the pond with some nice sized cnbg from my pond at that time. My cnbg originally came from Todd about 3 yrs ago. I was not sure which path to take from this point on but after see what you have done with your pond, I think I may follow the same path because she is like you and wants a place where family and friends can come fishing for fun. I will be picking up some res and some feed trained lmb along with some hsb from Todd soon. Have not made a request for the fish yet, but he has always been a good guy to work with. And I am sure they will take good care of me, as they have always have. It's about a three hr drive for me one way but well worth the trip. I think I will take my daughter along with me.
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
Sure thing. I stocked mine all together at once. Todd informed me it would be ok to do that if stocked in the right numbers. Sounds like you are ahead of the game with your daughters pond with stocking some large BG early on. I kind of wish I had done that but I am closer to 4 or 5 hours from Overton’s so it made more sense for me to knock it all out at once. I plan to go back this Spring and get some Tilapia to hopefully take some pressure off the BG. I have seen quite a few BG that are too big for the LMB to eat so I think I am headed in the right direction. Glad I could be of help.
Post here also for record keeping: I hadn’t been seeing any CNBG fry and was starting to get a little concerned. I went out tonight with a flashlight up in the mouth of the creek that feeds into my pond. It is about 12-18” deep and I saw hundred of CNBG fry darting all over the place. I also saw several bullfrogs and crawfish as well. Pleasantly surprised.
Well, I may have answered a lot of long standing questions about my pond today. If you start at the beginning you will see that I fished and fished my existing 1/2 acre pond and caught nothing. So, I “thought” it was empty. I did however hear some large “swirls” when night fishing one time. Well, I proceeded to put $600 worth of CNBG, RES, LMB and HSB in last March. I have recently been catching LMB in the 1 to 1.5 lb range. Today I caught this hog!! Think it must have been the source of the “swirls” I was seeing. Still have a bunch of CNBG coming to feeder so she hasn’t completely eaten me out of house and home. I have not caught a HSB in a while. She may have taken care of them. Looks to be close to spawning right? I know it may have been best for my overall pond to take her out but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. 8 lbs 1.5 oz. Couldn’t get a length. She was twice as long as my measuring tool. Thoughts?
Only thought is that is a heck of a nice fish, especially for a small pond.
4 acre pond 32 ft deep within East Texas (Livingston) timber ranch. Filled (to the top of an almost finished dam) by Hurricane Harvey 9/17. Stocked with FHM, CNBG, RES 10/17. Added 35lbs RSC 3/18. 400 N LMB fingerlings 6/18
My boys and my favorite pastime is to explore the creek that feeds our pond after high rain events. The creek bed that is normally dry comes to life. Today we saw a large female crawfish clutching a ball of eggs. Thought I would share. I have always heard about it but have never seen it.
One of my Overton’s HSB caught a year after stocking. Nice growth if I do say so myself. And I was out with my 5 year old son and he had just gotten tired for the evening. He was walking back to the house when I caught this on the next cast with his little Zebco 202!! Felt like I was fighting a shark on the little thing. My son was mad he quit too early. Sorry for bad picture quality. My 7 year old daughter took the picture and it was getting dark.
One year progress on some of my stocker fish. CNBG were 2-3" and are now around 7". LMB were in the 4-6" range and are now around 14". And the HSB were around 10". I haven't had the opportunity to measure one yet, but they are probably around 15-16" and fight like a son-of-a-gun!! I am only feeding the Sportsman's Choice from Tractor Supply. I can't afford the expensive stuff. I could only imagine how big they would be if getting higher protein content. Maybe someday. Picture 2 is my major goal coming to fruition!! This was my son's first fish to actually get to the bank. He talked about it for the rest of the night!! Money well spent. Thanks to Todd Overton for the quality fish!!
AM MVP or 500 will cost you about $10-$15 more per bag, but you could feed less of it and may still get better results with less waste left in your pond for the same $. Just a thought.
Fish look great.
Last edited by BrianL; 03/26/1812:30 PM.
1.8 acre pond with CNBG, RES, HSB, and LMB Trophy Hunter feeder.
My boys and my favorite pastime is to explore the creek that feeds our pond after high rain events. The creek bed that is normally dry comes to life. Today we saw a large female crawfish clutching a ball of eggs. Thought I would share. I have always heard about it but have never seen it.
So, this weekend one of my pond goals was met. A friend of mine brought his eight year old son over who liked the idea of fishing, but couldn't stay with it very long because he got bored. Well, he proceeded to catch 25 hand-sized bluegill in about 45 minutes and I do believe he is now hooked on fishing. The smile on his face was priceless and his dad was elated that hopefully this was the break through that would turn his son into his fishing buddy.
I should have taken some pictures to show, but I am determining that my pond must have had an existing BG population before I introduced the CNBG. About half of the fish he caught were obviously not CNBG because they didn't have any of the coloration that the rest of them did. There wasn't any GSF characteristics in them which I am glad of. But it was weird that almost every fish looked different. Is this typical? Is this just the CNBG and BG mixing into a Hybrid of the two and each one looking slightly different? Sorry for no pictures. I'll try to get some next time.
Bluegill can take on a lot of different "looks". Even the same fish under different conditions can change their coloration and pattern significantly. Add in male vs female for even more variation.
I'm kind of like the kid. I like catching BG. Lots of action.
Does anyone else notice their fish, specifically LMB, getting lock-jaw when all of the fry start showing up? I am seeing large amounts of CNBG and LMB fry in the shallows right now. I haven't been able to catch a LMB since they showed up. Is this because they pretty much have an all-you-can-eat buffet right now? I would tend to think if they are actively in a feeding frenzy it would make them easier to catch. I have also thought that it may be because I have caught all of my original stockers at least once and now they are hook shy? Thoughts?
I don't think that the fish eat much during spawning times. Maybe the LMB are spawning too. And, how much fry do larger fish really eat, I don't know, but I would think that the larger fish would not be full of small fry.
It's been a while since I have updated my pond thread. We were in Houston this weekend visiting friends. There was no way I was driving North on I-45 headed home without stopping in at Overton's. I picked up a few pounds of Fall Tilapia snacks for my LMB and HSB. The kids had a blast watching them scoop the fish, weigh them out and even helped me get them in the pond.