Here's one of our redears caught and released last spring. In older times redears were called "Government bream" and stocked along with other fish in ponds, One of the reasons is spelled out here:
"A few freshwater species of fish have a very unique diet. One of these is the redear sunfish (Lepomis microlophus), also called a shellcracker. Redear play a distinctive role in the balance of a pond ecosystem by targeting mollusks such as snails and small clams as their primary food source. Pond managers and fisheries biologists often stock redear into ponds because their unique diet helps break the life cycle of fish parasites that hamper the health of other fish."
It appears that a handful of green sunfish and GS/BG hybrids were able to move up the spillway of our pond from the intermittent stream it empties into during a freakish 15 inch rain event a few months after our pond was stocked. The first spring our redears spawned first next to the spillway and later our bluegills spawned in several spots. All spawning this first spring occurred in shallow water next to banks which made it easy to monitor the beds. A seven inch green sunfish showed up first on a bed with the redears. I removed it by planting a .270 next to it. The shock waves rendered it easy to remove with a long handled net. I caught another green sunfish and one hybrid that were feeding on pellets along with the BG using a pole and small piece of worm. We remove all green sunfish and hybrids. I doubt we can get rid of them but can reduce their impact. I know green sunfish and hybrids have their following but I simply don't like them and don't want them in our pond,
We continue working on the spillway by adding "rocks." Rocks are plentiful in this area and stabilize our spillway well.
Largemouth bass are capable of controlling our bluegills, we simply just don't have enough yet to do the job so I aid them mechanically.
