Stocking and existing stock.... - 07/14/04 05:12 AM
Hey, nice forum, just what i've been looking for. Okay,a few years ago I dug out about a half acre pond about 10 feet deep. It has only settled at about 7 feet which is fine by me. By using composted hay and liming it, it has turned out to be a aquarium like set-up. Now since it's so small I decided to stock it with only big catfish and bluegill. I got some nice catfish in their approx. 17 to be exact 3 over 10 pounds, 1 at like 30. I have about 30 bluegill( with hatchings over 100). I have about 10 bluegill over the 10 oz. mark. Now I have notice the 2 ponds i have been using to stock my smaller pond, one for the catfish and hybrid bluegill, the other just bluegill, that the hybrids have crossed bred with some of the native bluegill from the other pond and have made sorta like the body of a hybrid bluegill but the head of the green sunfish and mouth of a warmouth(goggle-eye). It seems that these spawns are already at the 3 inch mark and just 2 months ago they were minnows. As you probably already see i'm tryin to achieve a pond with Trophy bluegill. Will these green sunfish get big or have the cross breeding stunted them in any way? Also, one of the main reasons i'm writing this is because I have read an done some research on the coppernose bluegill and i'm really interrested in stocking some in this pond. But my problem is the know how. I got some big catfish in there the big boy is like 30 pounds and the other channels are still at like 3-4pd, I'm worried they would eat all the gills i stock in a matter of weeks. It's a small pond maybe a half acre being generous, but it has held up well and the fish are growin. How many should I stock? 150? any help would be great, Thanks Josh