Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations bluegill female/male ratio

do you all catch more males than females? i do by a landslide. i do at my newest pond and did at my old pond. i always removed the females at the old pond, but i never thought i got the majority of them since i didn't fish much. here at the new pond the bg are only 2 years old, i haven't taken very many out of it yet. i hand feed from time to time in between times the feeder going off. it seems like everyone that comes to the surface has a copper head.

i read where the hybrids throw mainly males, is this the case with cnbg?

Scott,

I will offer an opinion, might be right or wrong.

I think BG/CNBG spawn are pretty much 50/50 male and female. IME the mature BG females spend most of their time in deeper water than the males, so I would expect a biased catch of sexes based on what depth you're fishing. Again, this is just my experience/perception. I will be interested to see what the pros say.

i think i have asked the same question before and someone said they were about 50/50. my dock is in fairly deep water, by no means the deepest, i figured both sexes would be addicted to the feeder though.

Ever seen one of those old westerns on TV where the men sit down to dinner and the women pull up a chair when the men have eaten their fill. Not saying this is a good analogy but.....IMO mature BG males are bullies, dominant and more aggressive when feeding than the females. Again, I am very interested as to what the pros have to say.

everything you read says take all the females out if your plan is big bg. it's even kinda hard to get a mess to eat if you are only targeting females. my cousin came here to catch some for his pond last sunday. he brought his boat so he would have an aerated tank to transport them in. we caught 35 adults in less than an hour and very few were females. most were males about 9" long. i"d like to thin my population, but not the males.

All the science indicates BG are 50/50 male/female both regular BG and CNBG. Big male BG that are dominant and not subject to predation take control at both spawning and feeding. BG do segregate at times with males away from females. Not unusual to catch bunches of one gender when they are apart.

There was a time in my life (over 10 years ago) when I did quite a bit of fly fishing for BG during the start of the spawning season in public waters, usually mid april through May. When you encountered a "spawning bed" it was common to catch 6-10 males before you would catch a single female. I attributed this to male dominance or, possibly, protection of the nesting area.