This is an interesting situation and will be interesting to see how your fishery progresses. My 1st professional opinion is this Fish Farm should not be selling these fish as bluegill. That technically is fraudulent -"not honest, true or fair and deceitful". Technically these are something other than bluegill, however they are a sunfish.
IMO they could be a hybrid sunfish (mutt or hybrid as named by the NSFishFarm) a cross between redear and pumpkinseed sunfishes which would be a very interesting hybrid sunfish to produce. Redears are not intense cold north tolerant but they do grow large. The Pumpkinseed do not grow large but they are cold tolerant. The RESXPS hybrid would grow large, be cold tolerant and likely be not real prolific. Low reproduction is a feature the N S Fish Farm is claiming which is how the YP for them can reasonably control the offspring from this sunfish. Actually the North Shore Fish Farm may have a very good idea here for a useful northern panfish, if the sunfish are truly hybrids between RES and PS.
Don - Note that if these sunfish are hybrids and not pure PS, I would still add some SM Bass to help with control of the sunfish offspring and perch. However you could stock 20-30 SMB instead of 30-50. If you think the bass are eating too many young fish and you are not seeing any new youngster fish in fall, then remove several (3-5) bass (note: each year you will also loose the occassional bass to deep, swallowded hooks). Then watch for youngster fish the next fall. If still no new young sunfish nor perch then repeat SMB removal and be watchful & monitor. Trapping will be a very good way to monitor for young fish - sunfish, YP, and SMB. Until you see ample small sunfish, YP and fingerling bass, I would not add any walleye or no more than 4-5.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/14/12 06:59 PM.
