Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Texas bass/bluegill pond

A Hardy Welcome. You are doing something very right to get BG that size in 2yrs10 months! Good job growing fish.

These are my thoughts.
Firstly, that is a male BG due to distinct shape of the dark gill flap since the flap is relatively large and almost rectangular. Gill flap on a female will be slightly to noticeably smaller and more rounded - less 'boxy'.

For best BG management for big individuals you want to protect the big males and harvest predominately the girls. It is the big males that promote fast growth of the younger male BG by discouraging early maturation of the smaller males, thus the young guys grow faster when behaviorally dominated or bullied by the numerous big 'bull' males. A a result the the teenage males don't spend much time chasing girl BG. When the BG balance is as I described the teenage males will not become fully mature to spawn until they are around 8" long. So teenage males and females can and will look a lot alike. A bully male will have this 'boxy' obvious large dark gill flap. Provide us a few pictures and we can verify males & females for your pond.

Catch several large BG >8"+ with all the same close size and compare the shape of the dark gill flap. Those with the noticeably larger 'flaps' will be the males. Use photographs for comparison if you want to quickly return all fish alive to the pond. Or harvest 6-8 bigger BG and closely observe them.

Secondly that BG is way too big to be eaten by a bass less than 10-11 pounds. That size of BG is able to safely mingle with all the biggest bass. Your 5 lb bass are going to be looking to mainly eat BG that are 5"-7" long.