Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Condello strain BG near-ish west-central MO?

Does anyone know of a source for Mr. Condello's famous bluegill within a few hours' drive of west-central MO?

My little ~ 1/4 acre pond's inching closer to completion & while my plans for HBG/RES/YP/SMB haven't changed, I have been doing some thinking. What I really want & mean by HBG are BRES or Specklebelly. There's a source for Specklebelly not far away, but I'm hearing they may be in short supply or even unavailable.

Is there any kind of outside shot of sourcing male-only Condello BG? Was thinking that if I couldn't find BRES from a hatchery, it would be nice to stock some high quality male BG & maybe get lucky & end up with some nice BRES the old fashioned way. I had only planned to stock 50 HBG (along with 50 RES), so I'm not looking for a large number of them. In fact, I'd be tickled pink to get my hands on a dozen of 'em, just to get my little fishery off to a healthy start.

I would be hugely appreciative if someone could point me in the right direction.

I can't speak to the cage volume, but if you're diligent at feeding them six weeks in the cage should have most of them taking pellets.

2-3 weeks your top producers will be obvious and can be released into the pond.
Couple more weeks the mid-tier agressive/slow learners will be good to go.
The last 10-15% will likely never learn to take pellets.

Sherwood and CC, I bought YP and WE from Harrison fisheries here in central MO last March, have not caught any of the YP but the WE are doing great and grew from 3 to 4" fingerlings last march to 15" long this March.
Have had super great luck with Harrisons, would highly recommend them, jury still out on Curryville fisheries, thru another guys money we put LMB and BC in my pond a yr ago last fall, got tons of Bass but have yet to catch or see a BC, and have had several pretty good fisherman including myself try many times to catch some, I was not able to be there to see them put in but am pretty much convinced there's not any in there.

The hybrids tend to grow fast if feeding because they tend to be feed hogs. Very agressive feeding.

I would not purposely add GSF genetics to a pond that does not already naturally have them. I see no advantage over regular BG and some disadvantages, such as their larger mouth (makes them more competetive against small bass for forage). GSF are almost ubiquitous to our area. They and bullheads will survive when other fish will not so the creeks are always full of them. Many ponds have them, wanted or not.

There are a few people that like GSF but they are far and few between. I will say that they are agressive at biting a hook or anything else and for a kids pond will help with the catch rate but their maximum size is not that great.

As far as what we end up filleting, it is largely the hybrids. Generally speaking they are easier to catch than the pure BG and I ended up having so many of them when we fished as we pulled in an eating size hybrid it would go in the ice chest to be filleted. A small one good chance it will get cut up with scissors and thrown back in for the CC. When we caught a BG it might or might not be invited to dinner depending on what it looked like. If it was a particularly pretty fish or looked like good breeding stock it went back into the pond. So if we cleaned 50 fish that day, 40 or them might be hybrids.

We didn't fish that much last year and this year depending on the catch rate will determine what we mostly clean. We keep basically every CC we catch, always have (we have had CC recruitment eveyr year so we have always had a supply - that may change now that our bass population is higher). I suspect, but don't know yet, that this year we will be cleaning a lot of bass, some SMB but mostly LMB. In the beginning of my pond journey our BG got ahead of our LMB and we had no successful LMB recruitment for a few years. Had to supplemental stock some. Now the LMB are recruiting as well as we have additionally added HSB and have been adding SMB from my SMB pond for a couple years. So I suspect, but don't know for sure yet, that what was a pretty slow bass catch rate and heavy BG/hybrid catch rate may now reverse, if the bass have done their job of limiting the BG recruitment. We will see, but I suspect it is time for me to harvest some bass this year.

That's great to hear. I had no idea that YP and WE could live in farm ponds in my area until I read about them here. I would like to try some out. Not too many as they won't be a main fish but more of a novelty. I'd possibly go with a handful of WE. When I mentioned it to my wife, she wasn't too thrilled, knowing that they have pointy teeth and because we will swim in the pond. I told her the only thing that is going to bite us are mosquitos and bluegill. We are intrigued at the idea of having some YP. I've never caught one or even fished for them. I've never even seen one outside of pictures. They are beautiful though.

I was actually amazed at how fast my WE grew, they went from fingerlings to 14 inches in 8 months, they didn't appear to grow too much this past winter but I did filet out a couple 14" fish, mostly just to see how they are and they are as tasty as everyone told me they were.
Haven't caught any of the yellow perch yet, don't know how, had somebody tell me to fish with a worm and bobber which doesn't work at all in my pond unless you want to catch a hundred little BG as fast as you can bait the hook. I don't really know anything about YP, do I fish in open water or around brush, deep or shallow? I been catching the WE on crappie jigs.