Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain I want Big Fat Bluegill

I have a small pond in my back yard on its 4th summer. I transferred about 20 adult bluegill from another pond four years ago, so there are a lot of smaller BG of various sizes.

I love to eat bluegill, so I want to do everything I can do to help them grow big and as fast as possible. Most of the posting I have read is using BG as food for bass, but I want to raise them to eat myself (I'm the predator).

I'm in SW Michigan. I pellet feed and just started to aerate. I have a good amount of plants and bullfrogs (lots of tadpoles right now). No other fish are in the pond. From what I read, I assume some Flathead minnows would be good to add. Anything else I should be doing? Other than the pellets, what do BG eat?

Sorry for not know much. I'm a newbie but learning.

Look out, forum, it's another engineer!

Welcome to the Big Bream Club. You don't have to have 'em to join, just appreciate 'em.

BG eat mostly small invertebrates - bugs, insect larvae, etc., both aquatic (growing in the pond) and terrestrial (falling in the pond).

The #1 thing you will have to do is limit BG numbers in the pond. Our chief resident Big BG expert, Bruce Condello, points out that the way to grow any species you desire to it's maximum size is to have WAY more food available for them than they can eat - so they stuff themselves all the time. Holding down the total number of BG means much more food for each BG remaining.

How big is your small pond? This will help you decide how you want to limit BG numbers. You may want to introduce a predator to eat small BG, either a numbers-limited predator, such as HSB or (usually) CC, or a reproducing predator like LMB. If your pond is small enough and your available management time is sufficient, you may want to limit BG numbers by angling, trapping, and seining. Or a combination of these two basic methods may work best for you. (For a pond under 1/4 acre, I think I would consider HSB and the human effort methods.)

Feeding pellets is a wonderful way to increase the amount of BG your pond can sustain. Make sure you're not feeding in excess, as this can lead to water quality problems and possible fish kills. Proper aeration will help you avoid these.

If you don't subscribe to PB Mag, I heartily recommend it. There have been probably 6 or so articles on growing big BG in the last year and a half, so consider getting those back issues. See Bill Cody's article indexes (indices???) in the archive section of the forum.

For a newbie, there is perhaps no better way to much a great deal about ponds than reading Bob Lusk's Basic Pond Management book. And search the forum for BG threads with Condello's inputs. That's the best place to find info from all the Big Bream Boys here.

Yeah! Welcome to the Big Bream Club.

Theo's answer is so good it should be archived. I'd only add the following. If you can use previous Pond Boss articles to learn to ID male vs. female bluegill, then you can put heavy harvest pressure on females. This leaves the male population intact to grow faster, with less competition for food. Then if you want to get fancy you will start to harvest male bluegill that have inferior body condition.

One of our forum members took my advice on harvesting all females (NEDOC) and he's got nearly ten inch bluegill all over the place.

Welcome !! These should help. Outside of good water and lots of food and proper harvest the single most effective thing you can do to get larger BG is to delay the onset of sexual maturity in male BG. You do this by having no or few females and being sure not to harvest the biggest males. This suppresses or delays the need/tendency for other males to divert energy to reproduction and allows that energy to go toward an increases size. Allocation of energy to reproductive functions (e.g., gonadal maturation, gamete production, nesting and spawning activities, and brood defense) negatively affects growth rate and, ultimately, maximum body size.

Welcome bkundework to PB forum …I love BG posts – especially “Big Fat Bluegill” posts...

And to think I used to think they were only “bait”...

Wow!!! This is an unbelievable message board.

My pond is small. About 30ft square, 4-5 ft deep. I dug it as a test pond to see if it would hold water and sustain fish through the winter. Now that I know it will, I want to raise bluegill. I think bluegill is about the best tasting freshwater fish around these parts.

I've only known about this message board for a day and I have already learned a lot. I hope my boss doesn't find out how much company time I spent reading today. haha. Looks like I have a lot more to learn and a lot more reading. I'll have to limit my daytime reading time to my lunch break.

A few more questions if that's ok. How long does it take for a bluegill to grow to 9 or 10 inches if they have plenty of food (keep in mind my Michigan winters). If I thin out the herd by netting or fishing, what size of fish should I remove? I'm assuming if I have lots of small one to remove the mature females. What size would that be?

Thanks to everyone.

Welcome bkundework,

The people above who answered your questions, plus a number of others on this forum, have helped make my pond a bluegill fishing heaven.

Last night, in 15 minutes, I caught eight bluegill. Their sizes were 5, 7, 9 , 9.5, 9.5 10, 10, and 10 inches. The 5, 7, and 9 didn't go back in. The other five were husky males who went back. Two years ago I would never have thrown back a 10 inch bluegill -- that is, if I had even caught one.

Lots of great people here, and lots of invaluable advice.

Good fishn'
Ken

Welcome, I think one of the first things you should do is decide how many bgill you would like to or expect to harvest per year. We can help you with figuring out this number, but remember it has to be a reasonable or realistic number. The higher the number the more management will be involved in reaching the goal.

Theo mentioned that you could use channel catfish to thin bluegills in your small pond. I would not do that for at least two reasons. 1. Catfish in your small pond will tend to make it murkier or cloudier than if they were not there. Adult bluegills and bottom invertebrates will feed and grow best in water with visibilities of 2ft to 3ft. Catfish could easily spawn and young add new catfish to your small pond – not a good thing if you are interested in lower suspended sediments.

A pond 30x30 is small, 900 sq ft. Without it being a flow thorough system, I think it will be difficult for you to manage and properly control a reproducing population of bgill in such a small pond unless you pull a seine through it twice a year – spring and fall. This will allow you to keep good and proper numbers of bgill in the pond for proper “balance” which will result in optimum growth. As "ewest" points out, a reproducing population of bgill will result in less than the best growth rates due to several factors.

I am thinking that maybe the best way to achive your goal is to use single sex fish in this very small pond where you expect an annual harvest of fish. I think you could grow an 8.5" - 9" BG in southern MI in 4yrs and if optimum conditions maybe 3 yrs. Yr 1=3.0", yr 2=6.0", yr 3=8"-9".
1. Where or how did you get your bgill for stocking?
2. How many bgill would you like to get out of this pond per year?
3. What is acceptable harvest cleanable size of BG for you?

Given the size of the pond (900 sq. ft.) I would also be hesitant to take up biomass by adding another large species. With a breeding population of mixed-sex BG in place, that leaves the options of 1) starting over to go same sex BG and 2) harvest, harvest, harvest!

Given no larger predator, I would consider adding those FHM (and/or Gambusia) to try and turn a non-BG eco-niche into food for BG. Larger BG should be able to utilize smaller minnows, perhaps biasing the pond in favor of the larger BG sizes a little more. But with breeders in place, you're going to have to pull out pretty much all the smaller BG you can. And all the larger females as well.

Trap and seine??

Maybe even find a local fish hauler who would take a few thousand fry and fingerlings off of your hands two or three times a year??

I would go with a male only put and take BG pond. As Theo notes a few FH or gams would help.

Does "HBG" stand for Hybred Bluegill and do they grow faster than regular bluegill? Can hybreds reproduce?

Yes , possibly but only for a short period, and yes but at lower rates than either parental. HBG are anywhere from 66% to 98% males ( the 66% rate is from a possibly skewed study) most report in the 90% + range. I believe that a male only BG pond will exhibit equal or greater growth rates and bigger fish than a HBG pond all other factors being equal.

IF he adds FHM to the pond the BG will not be able to control them to the point of the pond being over populated with FHM which will make the pond cloudy - murky. This low water transparency will I think result in slower growth of BG. I would only add FHM to an only BG pond, if the BG are were not going to be fed pellets.

A reproducing population of BG in 900 sq ft will over feed the invertebrate community and growth will not be anywhere near or equal to Condello's BG growth rate that Condello has in a controlled fish population pond that has abundant invertebrates as supplimental forage items.

Did bkunde ever answer my questions? How can we provide answers or advice if we don't have goals other than "Big Fat BG"? He needs to do more homework reading or someone else has to provide some homework reading assignments for him starting with info about HBG. I'm too busy to look all these old posts up for him. Cody, Conndello & Baird wrote "Behemoth Bluegills in Small Ponds" Parts I, II, III, (Pond Boss Mag, Mar-Apr, May-Jun, Jul-Aug 06) exactly for guys like bkunde. bkunde has a steep learning curve in front of him.
1. Where or how did you get your bgill for stocking? Describe the type of BG adults in this pond. A photo of several of the larger ones would be nice.
2. How many bgill would you like to get out of this pond per year?
3. What is acceptable harvest cleanable size of BG for you?

Bill I agree but we can help. We do need some info and goals. I think he could use a "few" FH to help with feeding the existing many BG until some can get big and he can remove enough to get control. I feel sure he does not have the invert. population that Bruce does. I am not sure anyone does.

Ponds can have high density invertebrate populations similar to those of Bruce's pond, one just has to follow his example. A few FHM is difficult to produce in a pond that does not have bass or some sort of small predator. I doubt a pond with just a normal BG population will result in a few FHM. FHM reproduction will almost always outpace BG predation. Does anyone out there have just FHM and BG in their pond? If so how, is the balance of numbers?

Sorry not to reply sooner. All this information is a bit overwhelming. I'm trying to find the time to do more reading.

My goal is to have large BG for eating; maybe to harvest 100 to 200 per year, possibly more if a small pond like mine can handle it.

The BG I have I transferred from my fathers pond. Sorry, I don't know what kind they are. I will try to catch or net some and take a picture in a few days. We are very busy right now with graduations.

Again, please excuse my newbieness. What are the invertebrates you are referring to and what can be done to increase their numbers. How large can BG get? How old will they live to be?

Hi bkundework. You can use the website from this thread to ID your bream.


http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000638

Here is a picture of a bluegill from my little pond. My guess is it is about two years old and I believe it is a male (threw him back to get bigger).


My son and I fished out about a dozen females that appear to have swollen abdomens (thought they were carrying eggs). What we found was their stomachs were full of pellets, bugs, and some kind of black wormy looking stuff that looks like roots of a plant. Not sure what that is. We have a lot of plants in the pond; something I call "fox tail" (don't know the official name). It has a long stalk and black roots every two to three inches along the stem. Would fish be eating this plant or is it something else?

That's not a bluegill, bkundework.

It's a green sunfish, or some sort of hybrid thereof.

Maybe 50% bluegill--tops.

IIRC HBG get pushed really heavy (by the State and hatcheries) in Michigan, compared to purebloods.

The fish (notice I didn't say bluegill) that I have I transferred from my father's pond which is about 10 years old. He stocked his pond with 5 or 6 different types of fish recommended and provided by the local co-op. All he knows about his fish was that they were suppose to be BG, HBG, and sunfish but that is all he knew about it.

I took the picture of this fish because it looked to be the largest we caught. There were others that had smaller mouths but I assume my fish may all be a mish-mash of cross breading. I'll post more pictures as I hope to learn more about identifying the different breads.

Knowing the cross breading nature of the fish that I have, what do you experts recommend I do? If I want big fish to eat, am I wasting my time with these fish or will they grow to adequate size? Should I kill off the pond and stock with pureblood bluegill?