Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Harvesting large bluegills in a trophy bass pond.

When I started managing my pond a couple of years ago it was heavily bass crowded. I have removed about 200 bass and now have an explosion of forage fish as I had hoped to accomplish. There are very few bluegill that were not born this year that are under 9 inches.
I have a very healthy population of adult bluegill, mostly males in the 9 to 12 inch range. Is this a good thing for a trophy bass pond? I know they are producing a lot of offspring. Or are they competing with the younger bluegill that need to grow into that 4-7” ideal food size? As well as competing with my up-and-coming young bass? I am currently feeding MVP twice a day. If I need to harvest some is there a recommendation on how many in a 3 acre pond?

I am not sure my recommendations from here in E. Texas would come into play where you are when it comes to a trophy lmb pond but I don't pull out my largest bg. I look at them as my breeders that produce the most fry in my 3 acre pond. But I do enjoy catching them on my 3 wt fly rod for sport and will catch and release them. I will pull out the next size under those big bg for eating when I want some good tasting fish. By doing this it makes room for the new bg fry and will help to balance out the size's of bg. I will pull out around 50 per year.

Large BG (males and females) produce many more offspring than small BG. Same for LMB and WE. Others likely as well. See an upcoming article in PB mag.