Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Red Ear

At my parents house they have a 10 acre neighborhood, community lake. shared with a dozen other houses. It is the typical Bass Bream lake. But the only thing is, when we fish for bream, we seem to catch mostly Redear and very few Bluegill. In fact the bream fishing seems a littel slow to me for this time of year. I really don't know if we have ever caught alot of Bluegill in this lake. It has alway mostly been Redear.

What could this mean? Could the redear population out grown the bluegill? If so, why?

Any one???

Some questions
Are the gills getting a lot of fishing pressure from kids?
Is the pond rocky and better habitat for redears ?
Is it bass heavy?
Do your fishing tactics tend to favor redears?
Are carp in the pond?
How olds the lake?

Bluegills are not getting pressure from kids

Pond is not rocky, but is located just below the fall line. It is mostly sandy dark soils

It might be Bass heavey but does not seem that way

I fish with night crawlers with a float rig about 2 to 3 feet deep. In both near structer and in open water.

The lake is about 25 years old....
We do have grass carp....No catfish of any kind
only Bass bream and grass carp.

I’m not an expert by any means.
My guess, if there’s a lot of open water with good depth and little vegetation bluegill recruitment maybe low. Redears favor deeper water than gills.
I would guess if gills only spawned once, like they will if they don’t have the food they like, redears could have a bigger spawn and out produce em
I have a friend that thinks grass carp raid nest while they graze.
I’m just throwing out ideas

Well it has me baffeled for quit some time now. The lake does seem to fit the deep open water description, not a tremendous amount of cover, but some......I wish some of the experts like B. Lusk or B. Cody would chime in...this is not a Catfish discussion or pond building discussion...this topic should be right up their alley.....

If your pond is Redear dominate, you're probably having a tough time getting the Bluegill to establish. In ideal conditions, Redear may lay between 15-30 thousand eggs. Redear spawn in March in the South, May farther north. Bluegill spawn from April on. Cull a few...I'm guessing that you see stunted Redear growth, and that they are robbing the Bgill nests from the start. I also suggest that you add 30 or so 5+" bgill adults to jumpstart the food chain.

big pond - Here I am; you got my attention.

Your situation is very ODD and I find what you say very puzzling. Rarely do redears outcompete bgill due to lower egg production potential. But, note, I am not calling you a liar. Since I can't come look at your lake I have questions.

1. Where are you located? I could not find this info on your PB forum "profile".

2. Are you very postitive these fish are redears? Any way that you can post a photo or send me a photo of one or several these fish? Maybe a couple or three sizes?

3. How big are they as an average most abundant size?? and what are the larger sizes you can catch fishing with your worm technique?

4. Were bgill common or abundant in past years? and how long ago?

1)
I am located believe it or not in North Ga, but the lake is in Northeast Columbia SC

2. I am almost certain these were red ear. We caught about 10 fish and 2 were blugill and the rest were redear. You could see the faint red on the outer edge of the littel black flap

3. Sizes have ranged any where from 5 to 8 inches

Does not really mater where we catch them either..The lake does have grass carp that was stocked in there nearly 12 years ago. But the lake does have lilly pads down one side of the lake length ways. The lake in my opinion does not have a great deal of cover or structer. It is a big somewhat open lake. This lake is in a nice neighborhood, with about 12 houses around it Including my moms house. The lake size is 10 acres...measured from "terraserver.com"
The lake has two BIG creeks that flow through it. Most of the time the water is very clear, to a greenish tint in the deeper parts of the lake. The lake is about 13 to 15 feet deep at the deepest end.

4. Were bgill common or abundant in past years? and how long ago?

You know....they seem to be....I think??? You know as I think about it they were very good at one time. This was YEARS ago though.... maybe around 10 or 12. The lake was really good in 1984 when we moved there. But as development went on It slowly went down hill. In 1994 my brother caught a 4 pounder (LMB) and then in 96 he caught a 6 pounder. There were numerous stories of fish being caught bigger than this! I sort of think when the grass carp were introduced they had an impact in some way....just my opinion.

The soil in the area is of a sandy nature, this place is right below the fall line go nearly 10 to 15 miles North West from there and you will be in red clay peidmont hills. Being in this area the water has a natuarl dark coloration comeing from the two creeks, but when the water goes in the lake it is some what clear...would never tell it was dark...

I hope this gives enough information....

Well Bill Cody have I stomped you on this one??? :p

b_p - not really stumped yet. I need one more piece of information before I can form an opinion on your situation.

I want to see a picture of several sizes of these redears. Catch one, two or three of them and get a fairly, close, clear photo. Send it US mail to me or email it to me. I will give you the appropriate address when you are ready.

OR catch one of the 5" to 6" fish and measure the total fish length AND then measure two distances of the open mouth; the distance between the upper jaw and lower jaw then measure the WIDTH of the open mouth. i.e. I want the distance or length of the vertical and horizontal axes of the stretched open mouth. Meassurements in inches or millimeters is okay.

Measure the fishhes mouth??? Wow you are scientific!! That is impresive..I will see what I can do I need to get back over there, but when I do I hope to do both....
Man I wish we had some one this smart with cats.

big_pond - Yes get me some mouth measurements of these fish and we will have some learning experiences when when you come back with this info. Try and measure a 5" fish plus if yuoucan catch them a couple larger ones hopefully a 7" or 8" fish.

Can you get a photo of 3 or 4 of these fish together in a pile or group?.

Yes....yes I will....when I get back to SC in about three weeks......first sunday in September..

I'm just throwing this out there. Could they be bluegill - redear hybrids?
I noticed you said You could see the faint red on the outer edge of the littel black flap
The red on our redears is deep red or deep orange.We have hybrid bluegill/redear that have pink there like you describe.
Of course you live in a different part of the country, and from what I understand hybrids of species don't or barely reproduce, but like I said , I'm just throwing this out there.

Good point roadtrip; you are on the right track. I was not going there until b_p gave us some more information. Pictures and mouth measurements will tell us the details and we can finish "The REST Of The Story".

Yeah...I just have to get back there and take these measurements on these fish...I will get the photos as well..I will also tak picters of the lake...

Looking forward to your return.

Could be pumpkinseeds too. Pumpkinseeds ares sometimes mistaken for redears. Both have a red red/orange tip to the opercle. I'm guessing this is why Bill wants a photo.

Nhaa...they aint pumpkun seeds...I can tell..