Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Bill Cody, about your male feed trained bluegills

Cecil - You are right on about bgill size; females are usu wider thru the back, thus heavier. But are they longer? I have not verified that females get longer than the males. I've seen real big'ns of both sex. I prefer to work with males for two reasons:

1. Mature males are always recognizable for me, no mistakes; at least not yet. I always isolate them if in doubt. Sometimes some female looking fish will later, develop male features as the population allows farther development into breeding condition (delayed maturation).
It only takes one male if your are using all females to produce offspring. Newest research, IL Nat Hist Surv (unpublished except in summer2002 issue F.P. Harvest) verifies this. McD needs to keep more abrest of the newest literature & get it to us in PBoss. So far I have not found any females that develop male features; such as the rare whitetail deer with redimentary antlers.

2. I think the males are better looking fish with more color than the females. Personal preference only, thus I use them. However as stated above males often have not as meaty fillets as the females esp during nesting / breeding season when off feed.
I'm not aware of any egg absorption stress in bgill. Is it more stressful than absorbing sperm? PS- My males still build nests even though no females present.

I had the same probem when I had LMB w/ bgill and perch. LMB & catfish hogging the feed. SMB will not doubt also hog feed away from most of the less aggressive BG. BG will have to feed at the periphery.

What benefit of SMB in the pond? SMB are also aggressive at the pellet food table. They may out compete the perch & bgill at the food table and AGAIN you are back to feed trained fish going off feed. They (pellet eating SMB) seem to be dominate in my pond with perch and during the warmest periods seem to force the perch off feed. No so in the pond w/out bass. Seems to me your trophy panfish pond would be better off if they were on feed and ALSO had huge amounts of natural feed to utilize during periods when you are not feeding such as cold months.

Of the 6-8 male bgill stocked (not my pond) max size usu 11"+ with one 12". They were harvested by the pondowner thus don't know where growth would have stopped before natural death. Now I'm working on my own male bgill crop in my pond; this is year two; they look 9.5" maybe pushing 10". I won't know until I sample this winter. McD wants pictures; we will try to help him out.
Did I cover all your ?? BC