I am removing the small bluegill because the pond is obviously overcrowded with small bluegill. My question is how did it get this way? I should have many large bluegill since none have been harvested. When I throw out the pellets, there are sometimes large splashes (indicating large bluegill feeding) -- however, the majority of the time the pond surface looks like light rainfall is hitting it (indicating very small fish feeding).
I'm wondering if someone has come in and shocked my pond and harvested all the large bluegill. That's the only thing I can come up with. The fact that I was catching large bluegill during Spring 2002 indicates that the 400 that were introduced in December 2000 had grown to that size. Therefore, the first several generations of bluegill should be at least hand-sized by now.
I am not removing bass because the pond is bream crowded and the bass will help with this problem. My goal is to grow large bluegill that will eventually wind up in my freezer. Somewhere my "plan" has gone awry.
I guess another possibility is that someone has removed most of the bass -- that would also lead to a bream crowded situation.
There is structure in the pond. I put in several tree tops when the pond was constructed. I would estimate that about 20% of the pond has structure.
Any help would be appreciated.
