Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Bluegills for stocking

Have had difficult time finding native bluegills for stocking. The fish farms in my area only carry hybrids. Since the goal is to create forage for bass, my plan is to transplant some fish from local waters. It seems that I've read somewhere that 10 breeding pairs per acre is an adequate number. These fish will be introduced to a 2-acre gravel pit type pond. Should I also add a few pumpkinseeds? Would appreciate any comments on selecting suitable fish and numbers. Thanks.

Steve,

Others more knowledgeable will have to fill you in on the stocking rates of the larger bluegills. However it can certainly work as I started a pond this way a later planted hatchery supplied bass. Typically it is better to get a particular size and number of fish from a hatchery but as you say it is hard to find regular bluegills in certain parts of the country.

I too ran in the pushing of those damn hybrids over regular bluegills. They have there place in small ponds where the pond owner is interested in only bluegills, but I think there is a lot of salesmanship and misinformation out them telling folks that hybrids are superior. If you want big bass you can forget about using hybrids. They won't provide enough forage for the bass.I wouldn't have them in my ponds.

I would avoid pumpkinseeds too. They do not grow as large as bluegills and tend to hybridize with your bluegills.

If you have a gravel pit have you considered smallmouth bass and yellow perch? Smallmouth can be hard to find too but I do know of a few sources.

One more thing. Very carefully look at the bluegills that you are putting in. MAKE SURE THEY ARE ALL BLUEGILL! A very common thing is for someone gathering fish from the wild, not to be careful and they introduce green sunfish or pumpkinseeds -- which you don't want.

In fact, it can get tricky in that there are hybrids of bluegills X pumpkinseeds or bluegills X green sunfish out there that look almost identical to pure bluegills. Adults should be easier to differentiate.

Cecil,

Thanks, hadn't considered naturally occurring hybrids. Are the hybrid traits obvious(e.g. light blue on the edges of the fins and operculum)? The reason I asked about the pumpkinseeds was for snail control. Have recently seen substantial numbers of snails and tracks in shallow water. Thought that a 80/20 ratio similar to standard recommendations for bluegill/redears might help to keep the gastropods down. If this dilutes the quality of the panfish, I'll stick to bluegills. Are the sexes difficult to distinguish and should I try for a specific ratio of males to females?

Steve and Cecil;

Great correspondence, Steve I to have a gravel pit some 16 acres not to far from you in South western Ontario and have added both bluegill and pumpkinseed at your ratios from nearby waters. Yes these fish do mate together and produce an interesting offspring (good or bad I don't know?). However, my thought process is this and similar to your's Steve, I to have snails in my tank and I thought both fish could cohabitat well together to feed differently and ultimately help the intended growth of the LMB, at the same time catching some large bluegill/pumpkinseed for supper. Cecil I have caught some 7-8" pumpkinseed this spring with good weight. In my tank I also have SMB that I added last year some 40 adults and many many I believe stunted native yellow perch. I hope these adult LMB and SMB will reduce the numbers of perch and thus increase the overall size of the perch in the biomass. Any thoughts and best of luck. Bill Cody told me that the SMB may not survive with LMB but I had to experiment and created some rock structure for them to help increase their odds a little.

Rowly

My take on the pumpkinseeds is they typically do not reach the maximum size of the bluegills and when they hybridize with the bluegills they can bring down the maximum size down of the bluegills. This is what a local biologist told me.

However, the pumpkinseeds do have shellcrusher teeth like the redears so they are more geared to eating snails. Bluegills do eat them too although they do not have the speciallized teeth.

Maybe both your ponds are better geared for pumpkinseeds as they do prefer cooler water, and as a taxidermist I have taken in some dandies from Canada. I think the present world record is now from upstate New York or at least it was.

As far as telling the hybrids apart, I would get my bluegills from a body of water that has no pumpkinseeds or other sunfish. I have several around me. If that is not possible only plant mature fish (can see colors more clearly, and if they have anything other than an all black tab on the opercle don't plant them. It there is a little white, silver, or red. red/orange showing on the end of the ear tab it's suspect. Also a bluegill will not have any vivid markings on the cheek as in a pumpkinseed or hybrid. Green sunfish will typically have some orange/yellow somewhere on their sides with some orange/yellow on the lower fin edges.

Firstly, Rowly. I did not say SMB would not survive with LMB. I think I said that SMB would not reliably reproduce when combined with LMB esp in smaller ponds. The larger the body of water the better the chance of SMB successfully reproducing w/ LMB present. Both will co-exist, but the LMB will outreproduce and eventually (numerous yrs) crowd out the SMB if SMB are not restocked.

Secondly. If the snails are Physa or Physella yellow perch will clean them up. Species of snails in this genus have thin shells and it is easy for perch to crush them. Other snails such as Planorbids, Pleurocerids, and Hydrobids perch cannot eat.

Thirdly, Steve. Try contacting Dan Laggis, Gobles, MI (Laggis Fish Farm 269-624-6215 evenings). He does not sell pure bgill but may know where you can get some locally. Ridgeview Fin Farm abt 4hrs southeast in NW Ohio has pure bgill. Laggis is 3.5 hr from me been there couple times.

Bill, spoke to Laggis and quizzed them extensively about pure bluegills with no luck. There was one new fish farm that claimed to have pure bluegill, redears, and pumpkinseeds but when the ice melted they were all dead. I've called every licensed fish farm in Michigan within three hours and they all push the hybrids pretty hard. I guess you can't blame them from a business standpoint. If adult fish are transplanted can they be expected to spawn this year in the new surroundings? Any recommendation on numbers for a 2-acre pond and male/female ratio? How difficult are they to sex?

Bill, yes your right my writing must have been a little off and unclear....that was why I tried the LMB and SMB together in my situation.

Rowly

Mix those perch up. 10 bluegill to 2 pumkinseed. Worked fine for me. Also add a few silver shinners. Perch may cross but not always. Look at the wild, in the lakes around here there are 4 different types of perch and there a big ones and full-blooded ones. The bass dont care what they are as long as they fit in their mouth. i put 50 bluegill to 10 pumkinseed with a bunch of mousquito fish and freshwater shrimp in a tank. I put bass that were 3inches long 8 months ago and they average 1.2 pounds. I stocked the fish at the same time and the perch spawned twice which fed the bass well. So think about that combination.

Steve- Getting brood stock bgill from a local lake will be okay. Do you know any local lakes or places "noted" for larger bgill" (8.5" to9"+)? Maybe ask at some local bait shops. Ideally you want good genetic stock that has "large size" genes. If caught in May guaranteed spawn in June for MI waters. Sexes will be pretty easy to recognize when caught in May. I can send you some sex recognition stuff. email me.

Bill,

Excellent point I forgot to bring up. I'm also a true believer in good genetic stock. I put in some 8 inch bluegills in my warmwater pond from a local lake that has produced bluegills up to just short of 12 inches. Anyway the bluegills were 10.5 to just short of 11 inches 2 years later. Of course in a new pond growth rates are phenomenal.

Completed the transfer last night, 35 bluegills into 2-acre pond. Approximately 50-50 male to female, average length about 6-inches. Hope to see fry in about a month.

Update on results: Did some seining this past weekend and could not locate any bluegill fry. We did catch large numbers of small LMB (1-2"). Could the bluegill fry be in deeper water or thick weeds? The seining was completed in shallow relatively weed free margins. We stocked emerald shiners this spring, which I noticed were frequently swarming the bluegill beds in large schools. Could the shiners be responsible? Currently have approximately 40 11-inch LMB, about the same number of adult bluegills, and a smaller but still visible population of emerald shiners in 2-acre pond. The bass out recruiting the bluegills has me worried. There are also other native species of unknown numbers.

Steve, try looking for the B-Gill fry in the shallows, right on the edges of the pond in substantial weed growth areas or matted algae. Note that they may be quite small >1 inch in length.

Steve, go out at night about 10 or so, after the sun has been down awhile and check around the banks of your pond. thats when the small b-gill come out to feed. thats when I see all my babies! It's amazing what you'll see.

I'm in the decision making process for stocking a 10 year old pond (0.6 ac in southern Indiana, runoff fed) that was never stocked. I've already started the fathead minnows and want to purchase the bluegills soon, but this site has made me leary about hybrid bluegills.

I'd like to have good bass and bluegill fishing, but don't see the pond producing trophy bass. If we can have catchable numbers of 15" bass, that would be okay. But I'd like to get some trophy bluegills eventually for both sport and food. I don't think I will introduce catfish because I don't particularly care for them, either catching or eating.

The pond seems to have a good food chain going: lots of aquatic insects, different species of frogs, plants, snakes, crawfish, leeches, etc.

Based on the above, should I stock with hybrids or pure bluegills? If pure, does anyone know where in the southern Indiana vicinity to get them? Seems like all the hatchery trucks that pass through have only hybrids. Thanks for the help!

The hatchery trucks have hybrids because they haul better than bluegill especially in the heat. Since you want to have bass I suggest pure bluegill since they will reproduce at higher rates to help the forage base for the bass. Maybe someone will chime in with a source in Indiana.

OK, checked the weedy areas and they do have large numbers of panfish fry. Still see roughly equal numbers of LMB fry in the weeds, and only LMB fry where weeds are absent. If you cast a lure into the sandy areas at least 30-40 1-2" bass follow it back to shore. It amazes me that the LMB fry swim with relative impunity among the larger bass. I've never seen a large bass tear into them, although cannibalism must be going on. My impression is that the bass prefer feeding on pellets. Will seine the weedy areas this weekend to get an idea on numbers. Thanks for the advise.

Commissioner,

Go to this site for a list of commercial fish suppliers in Indiana.

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/fish/fishing/commfish.htm

There are a few suppliers in southern Ohio you may be close to also. Let me know if of none of the preceding pan out. I would wait until water cools off for stocking. But suppliers that do not keep fish in holding tanks will not seine until the water cools off anyway.

Since you are in southern Indiana and your email has rangebombs, do you have anything to do with the area where the ANG drops bombs for practice? I used to load those bombs on F-4's for the 122nd CAMS ANG in Ft. Wayne Indiana.

Hi Cecil,
Thanks very much for the information. I called one of the firms on the linked list and they never called back. Business must be good, eh? I'll try another one in my vicinity. I am going to take your advice and wait until the fall to stock the bluegills. Next spring I'll put some bass in and see what happens. What I'm really aiming for is a pond where kids can have fun catching 'gills and bass. I see us hosting parties, church picnics, campouts, etc. and offering fishing.

As for my email, one of my hobbies is manufacturing and distributing Range Bomb Safe Reactive Targets. They are targets purchased by shooters of rifles and handguns. I have dealers in Indiana who sell them at gun shows. Unfortunately the military isn't a customer!

Commissioner,

Doesn't surprise me you didn't get a call back. For some reason it's par for the course in the fish supplying business --at least in my area of the midwest. I have even emailed a few fish suppliers and never got a response. I called one and said, "Hey did you get my email?" The response was, "Oh we never check our email." I wanted to say why in the H#ll do you have one then, but I bit my tongue.

I have one supplier in Michigan that promised me some fish this fall but I need him to send me a cpy of his health inspection report to import the fish. I've sent him an SASE and done everything but shoot him and I still have not received it yet after 6 months. Guess what. I found someone else even though it is a species that is hard to find.

I've even been chewed our just for asking about availabilty of fish. Some of them are quite grumpy. Keep trying though. There are a few that are professional.

I received my bluegills last week and got them in the pond. I contracted to buy 300 pure-bred baby bluegills from the nearest hatchery man and he brought over 400 fish, including some bluegills of breeding size. He said he emptied his pond and gave me what he had, including some redears, but he only charged me for 300 baby fish. Not a bad deal since he said there would be mortality and I only lost two small fish during stocking. Hopefully we get some rain and the pond fills up. It's down about three feet. Next fall I'll stock the bass and see what happens.

This pond is like a giant aquarium. I can hang out along the banks for hours watching my baby fish and other inhabitants!