Roadtrip, The guidelines say 1,000 bluegill per acre. 750 to 1,000 in an 8 acre tank will take a long time to properly populate. Yeah, I know. It's expensive. You also need about 5 lbs. of fatheads per acre.

I seldom disagree with anything Eastland says but I believe I would rather stock in the spring. Just my opinion. Nothing really wrong with stocking in the fall but they just seem to live there during the winter without growing or spawning. In the early Spring I see a lot of baby bluegill from the previous fall. You will have some mortality without any real benefit. I would not neglect the fatheads. Their young can feed everything in the water. They are just as prolific as bluegill.

Coppernose is a neat fish. However, they have never really shown any advantage over plain old bluegill. Occasionally, Coppernoses don't make it for some reason or another. I have never heard of native bluegill failing. There has also not shown any indication that Coppernoses get any larger than native bluegills.