Soon after posting we added a Texas Hunter directional feeder. Once we began a regular, daily routine of feeding twice a day with a mix of AquaMax 500 and AquaMax 600 pellets, our fish really began putting the weight on. In late September my wife caught and released the first of our bluegills to reach the 16 ounce mark, a hefty 9.75 inch specimen. This past weekend we had our youngest granddaughter for a few days and she landed another hefty bluegill measuring 9.0 inches that weighed 15 ounces.
As noted above we stocked in late February 2016 and caught our first bluegill to weigh an honest 16 ounces on the kitchen scale we use to monitor growth along with a bump board for measuring length, in September 2017.
Wife's 16 ounce fish.
Granddaughter's 15 ounce fish.
One I caught and released on a 2 wt fly rod but didn't weigh. A big, hefty fish.
When we began the process, I figured we could get our bluegills to a pound by end of the third summer, but we were pleasantly surprised to find we accomplished it by the end of the second summer. I don't think it unreasonable to think we might have some fish reach 1.5 pounds by the end of next summer.
We continue to mow, weed eat and spray pond side weeds[alligator weed and soft rushes] to encourage local grasses to stabilize the banks. We are able to use a finish mower on a Kubota tractor along 90% of the banks. I manually remove lots of smaller bluegills with two minnow traps and one baitfish trap to assist our bass with their job.
