I'm losing five to 10 bluegills a day in my 1/10th acre bluegill pond. Why? Probably because I put in 500 6 1/2 to 7 inch fish last spring and they are now 8 to 9 inches. Good growth but apparently they have reached or surpassed healthy carrying capacity and are succumbing to stress and disease. I'M WEARING MY SIGN!
I'm also losing about that many after I transferred 180 to the big pond via angling. Most likely that's because moving fish is stressful and moving them if they are already stressed is even worse.
Live and let learn I guess. I will be seining and draining the pond Saturday with the help of Bill Cody and let the chips fall where they may. I may just fillet a good number of them other than a select group of fast growers that I will put into my perch pond. I did put four or five bluegills that were definite males and looked like they were on steroids into the perch pond, and they are doing fine. No crowding - no stress.
Hopefully some of the males will survive this in the big pond, and I will be able to cull them out of the big pond this fall and put them back into this pond AT A MUCH LOWER DENSITY!
So you can have too many fish and it can be stressful to fish causing disease! Your fish could even end up floating all at once like Bruce's! I'm on my way to being a certified fish farmer. You have to kill at least 10,000 fish to be part of that hall of fame.
