Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Bluegill Brood Pond by Default?

Shucks went out to take a gander around the buglight tonight and noticed some bluegill fry. This pond was supposed to be all male bluegills! Must have been at least one female in the bunch.

Although I dilligently sorted early on when first planting the pond, I did have a few hundred in a floating cage that I had not sorted that stopped feeding. I than observed two morts. Consequently I freed all the bluegills and did not sort. The water got so warm so quickly I was afraid to handle them, and if they were suffering some form of stress handling would have made them worse. The cage was simply flipped over.

Anyway fortunately I have another pond devoid of fish next to it that I could plant with definite males from this pond. Or I can drain down this pond in the fall and leave in the fry for grow out of a future crop.

Thoughts? Bruce? Bill? Anyone?

I feel your pain!

My idea of the perfect bluegill pond to raise two-pounders would be as follows:

1/4 acre, easily seinable, clear water pond.

Start with 1,000 age-1 bluegill

Raise these fish for one growing season, then seine and reduce to 250 males in best body condition.

Raise the 250 age-2 fish for one more growing season, then seine at end of year and reduce to 100 males in best body condition.

By now you would presumably have 100% certainty as to sex and you would have all fish which do the best job of utilizing artificial and natural feed.

I still think this type of option is completely open to you, Cecil, either by utilizing the current pond or moving your age-1's next year to the unoccupied pond. I don't think the situation is that bad. Actually after next year you could combine your best females which you would be culling out, with my feed trained super-growers into a production pond. Who knows what kind of gorilla you might grow!

Cecil, what is a mort? A mortality?

CB1 :

Like Bruce I don't think the expt. is changed that much by this discovery. If you only saw a few yoy BG and not a pond full then you probably only had/have a few Female BG. I even bet some of the yoy BG may become extra food like the tadpoles. I like Bruce's advice move on to the next step when conditions warrant. The most it could mean is an * that the study is one generation behind your original time line. I don't think this will impead your this years growth rates much if at all . If only a few females then a large % of males will not have expended time , energy , and effort of spawning and "raising" offspring. The males would have exibited some spawining behavior anyway as noted in prior posts on the subject . You should be out only the energy associated with a few males raising a few fry. ewest

ps : If at proper time you move some of the best males into new pond and leave some along with yoy and add a few females to existing pond , not only would you have a new male BG only pond you would have a control pond against which to compare the new male BG only pond .

Dave,

Yes. it's short for mortality. If you want to get really fancy you can use the word morbitity for any fish showing signs of disease but not dead. I suppose morbs would be short for that.

Bruce, Ewest,

Thanks for the comments. I will take them into consideration for my next option.

Bruce,

I have caught a few gills out of this pond on a flyrod. All were so pale in color it would be hard to tell males from females at this stage. The fish I planted from about 6.5 to 7 inches were 2 year olds. One positive is if many of these fish have not reached sexual maturation they may reach a large size faster. For the number of fish I have in this 1/10 acre pond there weren't that many fish bedding from what I could see (over 400 fish).

I'm wondering if I should get some feed of the appropriate size for the smaller fish to give them a jump start. The pond is heavily dyed and I have to wonder how good the zooplankton population is as it probably stifles the phytoplankton.

Cecil, Just a quick thought on my part, would add some LMB predators to control the offspring of the spawning BG and continue on with the pond. Provided the LMB you add are not large enough to prey on your larger males your pond would still show significant growth. In your other available pond I would start the project over in it with a new supply of all male BG.

Cecil,

If you really want to jump start your YOY's then maybe you should consider making a smaller pellet size available. In a strange sort of way I LIKE the idea that zooplankton may be in short supply, because after one year it will be easier to ID fish that do well on pellets. They'll be a lot larger. Maybe with a mixture of pellet sizes then the bigger, older BG's would target the bigger pellets and the YOY's could sip up the smaller ones.

Bruce and CB1 :

Just an observation . From my experience the very small BG/ fry+ to 2 in. will not go out in open water to eat pellets or otherwise feed if there are adult BG , survival over hunger I guess. Instead they will stay near shore or in thick cover and feed on soft pellets that have sunk to bottom or into cover. This is not the case when all BG are about same size. Because of this I placed the feeder to feed with multi-size pellets so that dispersal pattern places some just off pond edge or over cover. ewest

I agree. Dispersal pattern is important here. It's probably an underrated issue in all arificially fed ponds.

It is a good thing this pond is small. Only one school of fry so far? I have the seines you need for the next phase.

Bill,

Actually I have now seen fry in the daytime on the other end of the pond.

Don,

Don't think I want to add any largemouths. I think they would grow very fast in a pond like this and before I knew it they would crowd and stress the bluegills at feeding time. I know this because it happens everyday in the bass pond. If I wanted to add a predator it would be some of my female only perch that have limited mouth size even when they are large.

I think I'll make this my broodstock bluegill pond and chuck males culled out into the other fishless pond. The other pond is right next to this one with only about 4 feet dividing them.

Since the bluegill fry are photoreactive (hang under the buglight at night) this may make feed training them a cinch. This is what yellow perch growers do to feed train their perch fry.

Question:
Are the BG pale because of the heavily dyed water?
I caught some BG Sat morning from 2 different ponds, one that stays very muddy & another with prob. 3' vis. The BG from the stained pond were very pale & the ones from the clear pond were beautifully colored.

Ric,

I think you're right. However the dye is breaking down a little with visibility getting better and the bluegills seem to be feeding quicker when I throw in the pellets. Maybe since they are definite sight feeders this may be the reason. Or it simply may mean they are through with spawning and are focused on feeding again.

I may consider attempting an algae bloom next year with a grass carp or two. If it's going to be a broodstock pond an algae bloom should be better for the fry and subsequent zooplankton production. I really don't like the way the dye looks either.

Rick :

Fish in water with suspended sand , dirt,-- opaque water are often light colored . The fish's eyes sense all the light reflected from the particles in the water and above and through their chromatophores try to match the surroundings . In clear water they turn to their natural color. I don't know how dyed water effects this but the dye does stop or limit certain light waves from penetrating the water. I would be interested in any one with dyed water reporting on how the dye effects, if at all , the coloration of their fish . ewest