I know this may not be a popular opinion, but I really believe that given what I know now ... I feel positive that I could grow a notable number of 2lb bluegills with fish sourced right off my local fish truck, no pedigreed genetics needed. . .
sprkplug, I totally agree with this but perhaps not for reasons you may suspect. I would propose that there is no such thing as very poor bluegill genetics for growth. The reason I propose this is that bluegill survival should favor the faster growers. In any situation where predated, natural selection should weed poor growth genetics. This is not to say that all genetics are equal, only that they are relatively _good or great_ but never poor when the BG brooders were subjected to predation.
In Alabama, the DOW tested whether there was anything special about the genetics of BG in the world record BOW. They concluded that when introduced to other environments they were not measurably different than other BG. I think this is important. I think it is unlikely we will ever develop better BG strains than nature or that genetics will contribute any more than a small difference.
