Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Transporting bluegill, HELP!

I have a old pond I drained out 2 years ago and reconstructed,it's only about 1/7 acre. I've already added channel cats about 7 months ago and now I'm adding bluegill. A freind of mines cousin has a pond, it's like 4 acres and they have some huge bluegill in it, like over 1 pound. I have tried to add some in my pond yesterday but out of the 7 I caught I notcied 5 were swimming toward the top and then this morning they were dead. I had a areated tank when transporting and they still died, it took me 3 hours to catch those so now i'm wondering what I can do to add them with success, I added smaller ones weeks ago and they are already eating pellets, I just dont get it. Could it be shock? cause they are big ? I think they are copperheards cause they had orange bellys and baby blue gills and a band on their eye.I notcied also that one that died still had the hook in him so i had a feeling about him. The only reason i wanna stock them quick is because I'm worried after it cools up I wont be able to find them again in the pond. Any help that could make this work would be awesome. These suckers are big...

This time of the year it is hard to transport and then transfer fish. Did you slowly add water from the pond into the transport tank or just dump them in the pond? I normally place the tank next to the pond and add a few gallons of pond water into the tank every 10-15 minutes for an hour or so to try to equalize the temps and the chemistry of the water. It worked for me a few years ago when I transported them from across the street out of 100 fish I only lost 3.

Bob

Nope I just grabbed them by the tail and put them in and kinda held them like you would a bass for about 30 seconds when you release. I'll try adding water into the tank before hand. The water I added into the tank from the pond I got them in had alot of bottom silt in it and some of the fishes eyes was clouded, you think maybe this coulda been one of the reasons? Thanks for the help!!!

Bottom silt is real hard on fish that are being transported. Try to use clearer water. Warm water is the very worst time to transport fish esp with out lots of experience as you are learning. Three hrs in an aerated tank in this weather is still very stressfull.

I would wait till the water cools down. You should still be able to catch then in a pond of only 4 acres. If you can't catch them, then something is wrong. Bait? Fisherman? Technique? or a combinaion of all the above.

Older fish often get & have cataracts which gives their eyes a clouded appearence.

I would not even try to transprot a fish that was not lip hooked. Also you should be using hooks with the barb pinched flat or down.

First, you need an aereator. You can buy a simple battery operated bubbler for a small amount of money. If you are holding and transporting the fish for over about thirty minutes or an hour, adding a little ice to cool thier water is good. Since frozen tap water can contain chlorine, freeze a couple of bottles of water and add the frozen bottle to the tank. This keeps the chemicals in the bottle but allows the cold to transfer into your tank water.

I catch a lot of bluegill and use them for catfish bait. So I keep a lot of bluegill alive for two or three days in tanks. The first trick is to put them into the tank for about thirty minutes, then change the water. Upon being placed into a tank, they become stressed and they go potty a lot. This pollutes the water. So I change the water. I either use lake water or use city water and add de-chlornization drops to it. In my experience, if I change the water about every half hour for the first couple of hours (four times) I do not have to change it again but about once a day. Provided that I keep an aereator running and keep their water cool. It seems that they run out of poop within the first couple of hours, so they do not pollute the water so much after a while.

I also devised a ghetto filter by attaching a sock to a water pump (from a small fountain). The pump sucks in water and pumps it through the sock back into the tank. This filters the water. You have to clean the sock often at first and then less often as time passes, as described above.

We have also kept shad alive with the same methods, except we have to add the salt that fishing stores sell in order to keep them alive.

Finally, when adding them to the pond you want to stock them into, do the gradual water adding trick as described in other posts to get them acclimated to the warmer water.