This is a great thread, and I've been looking forward to someone initiating it besides myself.
Good job, Chris.
I'd like to make a few statements as to my "mission" if you will on the bluegill project.
My goal really isn't to create a fast growing bluegill. That really isn't a good summation of my intent, and I've possibly made the mistake of not truly clarifying what I'm doing.
My goal is to, through selective breeding, to end up with a bluegill that has, by percentage, more individuals with trophy potential.
Theo is far more knowledgable than I on selective breeding, but my understanding is that cattle, and other terrestrial domesticants, allow for much more control over pursuit of desirable genetics. Individuals can be evaluated, and chosen based on certain traits for future breeding. Fish obviously aren't like this. Each generation has hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of individuals, none of which can be closely evaluated. The only way that the selector, in this case me, can influence the mix of genes is by size, and even that is a little iffy. When I sample my fish in September or October, I select the top ten or twenty percent based purely on size at sampling. To the best of my knowledge, what I'm really sampling is as follows:
1. Selection for speed of growth
2. Selection for agressiveness
3. Selection for fish that prefer artificial feed.
4. Selection for feed conversion ratio
5. Selection for early reproduction
6. Selection for fitness, as it relates to the specific environment in which the fish were raised.
The fish that I choose probably exhibit any of the previous characteristics, or combination of previous characteristic. Traits 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 all could be considered consistent with my intent, but do not include, nor do they preclude length of life. I will not live long enough to create a selective breeding program in which I go back and pick fish that were the progeny of fish that lived a certain amount of time.
My knowledge of genetics, which could be considered good, but not great, leads me to believe that what I'll get is a group of fish that after eight, ten or more generations will have a higher percentage of individuals that exhibit any or all of the previous traits. A crude example would be that I could go from an original group of fish that had 5% of the individuals capable of trophy size, to a group with a 40% chance of achieving this goal. If I ever get there I will consider the whole thing to be a complete success. If I'm 70 years old and still ticking someday, and can stock a small pond with my bluegill and have 9.5 inchers after 2-3 years, I'm gonna be dang happy.
For what it's worth, the data already suggests that I'm doing pretty well. My class of 2003 fish are well over 9 inches right now. These age fish will probably get to 10 inches this summer. Now, of course I hope they don't all die after three or four years, but their overall appearance of fitness is encouraging. Hopefully 125 or so will come out of the holding pond in a couple of weeks and look pretty good.
Regardless of outcome, this whole deal makes my brain churn all the time and beats the heck out of trying to figure out if Pittsburgh is going to cover the spread in the Super Bowl.
To each his own, eh.
Thanks for letting me indulge.
