Today I Saw hundreads of 3/4"- 1" bluegill swimming around the dock and near the grass. the water temp was 56. Is it normal to see that sized bluegill this early. I guess I thought that last years young would have grown bigger by now.

Those may be from a late hatch. Have you seen some 4-5 inches as well. What and when did you stock?

I've noticed the same thing the last couple years, and have suspected holdovers from very late fall spawn. I've wondered if bg this size have an impact on YP yoy, as I haven't seen any YP of a size that I'd have expected from a successful spawn last year, which was the first year the YP had reached spawning size. YP are very early spawners, and there's not much to eat in the pond right now...I hope those little BG aren't putting the hurt on the new perch.

You are in a completely different situation Yolk.














I didn't stock GSF in Gopack's pond.

I think I may have seen just a few around the 3-4" range running away from the bank as I walk by. This is the first I have seen anything other than really big blue gills ( as far as bluegills go) since I moved in 6 years ago. pond is quite old and hasen't been stocked with anything that I know of in at least 10 -15 years.
My banks with vegatation are also full of gambusa(sp?) and snails whitch I have never seen before . This maybe a positive result of a 3 year FA infestation

Man, you try to do a good turn, maintain the supportive, amiable nature of the forum and this is what it gets you. Well, JHAP, I'll just have to do my best to ignore you, you may consider the "other cheek" to be turned squarely in your direction [the old adage not specifying WHICH SET OF CHEEKS was to be turned].

Gopack the bigger BG are not shallow yet - still off the banks. Watch to see if BG start bedding in about a mth. Or you could fish for a few and see what you catch.

GOPACK,

Like Ewest says they are most likely a late spawn. My bluegill production pond had up to four spawns last year and the last hatch went into winter as 1/2 inch fish. They were hatched in August. You're probably had a little bit longer of a growing season before winter than mine here in northern Indiana hence why your fish are a little large than mine were.

Approximately 1000 of mine are now in my indoor RAS and having been brought in from a floating cage February 2nd they are now 1 to 1 1/4 inches in length.

I thought about catching some and putting them in the cage; Do they start to take feed from you pretty good? or does this stress them out and cause mortality

Right now is a bad time to handle bluegill in the cold water. You'd have better luck once the water gets above 50 and is climbing. You also need to use Aquamax 5D01 for fish this size.

My buddy caught a BG that was about 3" in our pond a few days ago.

Yesterday, in a friend's pond, I caught a LMB that was no more than 5" - probably closer to 4".

On a serious note (yes I can be serious) this topic reminds me of one of Bob's mantras about observing pond nuances. He wrote an article about it in the Nov-Dec 2009 magazine and discussed the topic at the conference. The premise is that you should carefully observe changes to your pond - they will provide you key information as to what your pond is doing.

This topic has got me to thinking, I wonder what this year of strange weather will hold in store for some of our pond meisters across the US.