Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose big bluegills

I want to manage my pond for the largest bluegills possible for ice fishing here in mi.What is the best way to go about it ?The pond is about an acre in size.

There's certainly alot of different ways to accomplish this, but the most obvious is stocking hybrid bluegill. They get very large (10" plus eventually), but the problem is they are sterile so you will need to continue to restock occasionally depending on how many you take out for supper.

Alternatively, I can tell you my experience with one good bluegill pond. My grandma owns a small (less than 1 ac.) old (40-50 yrs) simple trianglular shaped pond that is pretty shallow - a small area is 9-10 feet deep in the middle, but most is less than 4 or 5 feet. It is thick with plant life. Water plants of several varieties, algae, cat tails, you name it. Even that middle deeper spot seems to have some limited plant growth on the bottom. It has bass and channel cat along with the 'gills and about 20 years ago about 100 female only crappie were stocked to deal with a total overpopulation of small bass and tiny voracious bluegill

About 15 years ago we used to regularly catch Lunker bluegill (I know that sounds like an oxymoron to alot of you!) that were 12" long by 6-8" tall and easily an inch plus thick! I don't know why they aren't quite that big any more, but it still has some of the bigger bluegill around here in it. Now it's pretty normal to catch 8-9" fish through the ice as well as the rest of the year. I've been removing lots of the 7" and under fish the last three years, both for food and bait, in the hope of letting the big ones get bigger, but no notable change yet. At least I'm still getting plenty of fish over 7" too, but not much 10" plus so far.

In case you're curious, the crappie are Huge by local standards too! Almost every one is 12" or more and fat - the biggest approach 15". This year for the first time I caught a smaller one - maybe 6". I removed it and told everyone to remove any small ones they catch too in order to keep that population in check. There are also about half a dozen catfish between 5 and 10 lbs., and the bass are generally 1-2 lbs with an occasional 3-4 pounder.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions you think I can answer.