Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Question about raising bluegills

Well the bluegill production pond was drained, sterilized, and refilled complete with spawning beds I hope the fish will use. Really late on this as I was held up by the smallmouth bass I was holding in the same pond. Temps have been just over 80 F. for a few days and fish have been on the beds in the pond they came from for almost a week with some already off the beds.

I planted 6 males and 8 females in this 1/10th acre pond that I caught one by one out of the all male bluegill/female perch pond, and walked quickly back to this pond via a 3 gallon buck. The females came out of a floating cage where I seperate them from the free swimming males.

My only concern is I could be too late and the females are already reabsorbing their eggs. However after Bill Cody pointed out to me the "rolling spawn" thread which I somehow missed, things may work out.

Interesting thing was once I released a male back into the pond I caught them from --- if I deemed it was not suitable -- that turned off the fish in that spawning colony and they got impossible to catch. Even if I released the fish a good 20 feet away I could see the fish bee lining right back to the colony.

I've heard fish can give off a "fear scent" which alerts the others. I also had a customer tell me when they really hit the smallmouth in a Michigan lake they put them temporarily in a live well because as soon as they released a fish the smallmouth stop hitting for the most part.

I apologize if I already posted this but here are the beds I made in the newly filled pond that were previous beds but I filled them with stone. They are now under about a foot and a half to two feet of water.