Here are some ideas for improving your bluegill (BG) population. The information generally applies also to coppernose bluegill since their reproduction (fecudity), habits, and behavior are similar to 'northern' and or pure strain BG. Note that CNBG are not cold water tolerant and do not survive well in ponds that get ice cover. This was written for someone with a smaller pond, but the information can be applied to larger ponds. As time allows more items will be added by the other moderators and myself as we find useful information on this topic. You can Private Message any moderator with your big BG ideas to get items added to this Archive topic. Thanks for using Pond Boss Forum.
See below for the two philosophies of stocking bluegills and bass southern vs northern ponds
Stocking bass and bluegill: north vs south:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=413792#Post413792Here is a link to some handy nice Excel calculators for relative weights for LMB, SMB, HSB, WE(walleye), BG, BCP (blk crappie), YP (yellow perch). Plus standard weights for LMB, SMB, HSB, BG, Crappie, and CC.
http://texasprolakemanagement.com/blog/relative-weight-calculatorsSeveral things to do for producing larger BG in the smaller pond. Here is the topic that started this Archive.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=189987#Post1899871. The pond should be bass heavy with the population dominated by 6"-12" bass. The pond can or will have some 14"-16" bass but not lots of them. At most only a few larger bass per acre and whenever you catch one 15"-16" remove it. This means harvesting primarily the largest bass caught in the 14"+ range. Harvesting one 16"+ LMB makes room for 3-6 smaller bass that eat more little BG (1"-3") numbers than that one big 16" bass who eats mainly fewer BG and of 3"-6" size range. There are previous posts about why to do this. Larger bass can be caught by fishing with smaller BG (2"-4") under a bobber. Get the bigger bass out to make room for smaller bass who eat more smaller BG.
2. Feed the BG but just don't use generic catfish food or similar food in the 32% protein range common at various stores. NOTE: Purina Gamefish Chow (GFC) is 32% protein containing various sizes of pellets. IMO Use Purina Aquamax Carnivore (blue bag), Optimal BG or a fish food that has 41% protein.
It grows bigger BG faster. Both are good fish food, but the AM Carnivore and Optimal BG are the better foods. Better food grows better animals. Plus they eat it better. For small ponds your size (0.1-0.5ac) and feeding mostly BG, a one or two 50 lb bags should last you one whole summer. Aquamax Carnivore is more expensive than GameFishChow, but what value do you place on having trophy BG? Obviously the bigger the pond, the more pellet feed that will be needed and vice versa. Also if you have other fish eating the pellets, then a lot more pellets will be needed. Catfish and other fish such as gizzard shad, carp, koi, and even bass can consume lots of pellets that should be going to feed BG. IMO Remove catfish from trophy BG ponds. In small ponds, you and another pondowner can share food purchases. Buy a bag of Purina 5D05 (3/16") and a bag of 5D06 (5/32") or 2 bags of Optimal Bluegill Junior and Optimal BG and mix the two and then split it between the two of you. This gives two sizes of high protein pellets; one for smaller BG 3-5" and one for 6-10"ers. Try not to hold or store Aquamax Carnivore pellets longer than one year.
During long term storage,,,,, the pellets can loose some of the nutrient, vitamin, and flavor qualities.
See what pellet feeding and a high numbers of minnows can do to produce growth of newly stocked bluegill in a new pond habitat. Note his feeding frequency. Growth from 1.5" fingerlings to very nice 7"-8" fish in just 4 months is possible even in northern ponds over the course of one summer. Getting good growth early in the fish's life is VERY important to producing the trophy size bluegill.
Number of growing days with water over 55F results in bigger bluegill faster. However BG grown in southern warmer waters do not grow as long as those in cooler northern water. Northern BG can grow really big it just take them longer.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=389022#Post389022Pellet feeding bluegill test trial by Lakework.com in Georgia
https://lakework.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Bluegill-Feed-Trials.pdfAnother example of nice BG after just 2 years.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=389057#Post389057How to manage BG 2-3 yrs after stocking to get trophy BG?
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=activetopics&range=7&type=tFIN CLIPPING AND TAGGING TO MONITOR GROWTH AND WHEN STOCKED
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=544843#Post5448433.Harvest mainly the
female BG to help produce larger BG overall. Release larger male BG. Searching the old topics will produce lots of posts that will teach how to tell males from females and why to do it (see item 6). There might be a topic on this in the old posts or at bigbluegill.com (on the homepage, see on left side under RESOURCES the Heading of "Differentiating between male and female bluegill".
4. Don't overfish the small pond while releasing larger bass. Harvest those larger bass 14"+. Over fishing a small pond causes fish to be hook smart (shy) even the big BG based on the angling method used. A larger pond of 2+ acres can withstand a lot more fishing pressure than a 1/4 ac pond. For small ponds smaller than 1 ac, spend more time feeding fish, harvesting small fish with traps and seines, and angling for biggest bass and keeping records of lenghts and sizes of fish caught. Trends of growth and size structure of BG & bass will be evident after several years of keeping records.
5. Initially or whenever small BG appear abundant,,,, manually harvest some of the 2"-4" BG with angling and trapping until the pond becomes bass heavy. You know a pond is bass heavy when you mainly catch bass in the 6"-12" range and very seldom catch a large (16"-19") bass. Small BG that would normally be discarded can be used for hand feeding of them to big bass. I often cut the tails off the small BG and/or some/all of the side fins and toss them back into the pond. These impaired small BG swim abnormally and are easy meals for larger bass or catfish. This also conditions the larger predators so they are easier to catch when using BG as bait.
6. Get and read the 3 back issues of Pond Boss Mag (Mar-Apr, May-Jun, Jul-Aug 2006) of Growing Behemoth BG in Small Ponds by Cody, Condello and Baird. They discuss lots of details for producing trophy BG and recognizing male and female bluegill.
7. Visit the website bigbluegill.com and read some of the good items there about producing large BG.
Discussion of bluegill hybrids (intergrades), RES, and growth of bass and other forms of bluegill.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=432446&page=1Discussion of Bluegill subspecies.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=279801To grow some BIG bluegill in a new pond one has to consistently do numerous things that are different than wanting to grow big largemouth. Here is a majority of my post from a previous thread for someone wanting mainly Big BG in a new 1/4 ac pond. If you want to see all the video for this information click on the link that takes you to ways to see the interesting informative videos.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=568348#Post568348 Let’s think about all this and not forget the intended GOALS for the small ¼ ac pond.
GOALS were
Quote
“My plan is to grow the largest BG’s I can while providing a source of drinking water for deer, turkeys and doves. Thinking of stocking CNBG at this point strictly for the size aspect. Possibly some RESF and traditional BG as well.”
“Considering the small size of my pond, I was planning to stock any predator fish other than BG, CNBG and RES. I really want to get the Fatheads & possibly PK shrimp started first. I’ll gladly set up a deer feeder with pellets too, but think the minnows and shrimp will be the best start. Still wait a couple of months for the forage, or forage right away, then the predators later?”
Save and annually review my suggested requirements to verify and remind you that you are doing the right things and staying on track for growing trophy bluegill.
You can grow some really big BG in 1/4ac pond. It know it can be done and I have done it, but you will need to do all the right things in the long run to get consistently big BG year after year in a small 0.25ac pond. A small pond can easily get out of balance with TOO many fish of the wrong sizes for the intended GOALS of growing big BG.
The traditional pond stocking philosophy of first adding forage minnows and bluegill as food for producing big sized largemouth is not the GOAL here of DeerTexas. See my commentary at the end. He wants to grow big BG. Thus experience and studies have shown one should use a different stocking plan than the plan for growing big bass.
For consistently growing big BG you want to have overcrowded smallish bass that are very efficient predators for the annual big crops of small BG that will be produced by the prolific BG spawners. More on this later.
I think to be successful, one of the first things DeerTexas needs to do lots more homework. The more homework you do and understand the concepts of carrying capacity and what it takes to grow trophy class BG the better the chances are of achieving your GOALS of producing big BG and then in the LONG term keeping trophy BG always present in the pond. This is the BIG later challenge for all pond owners that initially do manage to grow big fish only in early years of the pond’s long term history.
Listen several times to the link to Bob Lusk’s Growing Giant Bluegill. Listen often until you can recite from memory all the strategies or fundamentals Bob provides for growing big BG. Then be diligent for consistently implementing all those fundamentals.
Bob Lusk on Growing Giant Bluegill
SEE THE LINK & VIDEO
1. Overcrowded bass reduce BG’s ability to produce BG overcrowding of too many small fish. In addition to numerous bass, you can also manually rake over the nests during the active spawning season. Do your best to maintain numerous small bass. Harvest all bass larger than 13”. There will always be a few bass present bigger than 14”-15” that anglers do not catch. LMB become hook smart and avoid capture. Preserve and promote most of your bass that are less than 13”.
When mid size BG become abundant and larger than what the 13” bass readily eat, you can use fish traps such as the Z Trap to remove various sizes of young of year (YOY), and/or 1-2 yr old BG that are 4” to 6” long. The large traps can catch 7”-8” BG.
You want to maintain abundant smaller sizes of LM bass to eat lots of small BG to keep the numbers of small BG at low density. Two 8” to 10” long bass will eat more numbers of the small 1”-2” BG compared to two larger 14”-15” bass who usually eat fewer numbers of those larger 3”-4” BG per year than do the 8”-10” bass. Just One small 8"-10" bass can easily eat 300-400 small BG per year. That is around just 1 BG /day; some days the bass may eat 2 to 4 small BG. The smallest BG are the ones that need most to be removed when the goal is growing big trophy BG. Too many BG over eat the small foods and do not allow all BG to get their bellies full daily. Daily full BG bellies are what grows big BG. As Condello below says , Just feeding pellets does not truly create a trophy BG fishery. Growing trophy BG takes a WELL ROUNDED diet of natural foods supplemented with high quality pellets. Lusk and Condello emphasize this in their discussions. Good forms of habitat are important for producing natural foods. Some types of artificial habitats are better at producing natural foods. See more on this later.
2. It helps to harvest or remove the larger BG that are the FEMALES. Learn how to recognize male and female BG. Fewer female BG result in fewer new hatchling BG. BG population control and management are very important. Removing female BG is an important key part of growing really big bluegill in smaller ponds. Removing females helps reduce BG overcrowding. Fewer females results in fewer eggs laid.
Fewer BG in the pond as mostly males allows each of them to get more natural foods to grow better. Predominant big male BG tend to suppress and "bully" the young male BG from maturing and entering the spawning activities game plan. Thus these young immature males will mature later at a larger size as they continue growing fast IF they get plenty of food and are not too crowded. These new larger mature males will fill the void when the old biggest BG die of old age. Bluegill normally live 7 to 9 years.
Males vs Females
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=422568Proper BG Harvest topic
https://www.pondboss.com/news/moderators-corner/bluegill-harvest-guidelines3. Right kind of environment with habitat.
Bob Lusk and Bruce Condello on Growing Giant Bluegill
Article
https://www.pondboss.com/news/inside-pond-boss/growing-giant-bluegillsTake good notes from their discussions above and below for good points on culling and growing big BG:
The Following is a Facebook video with excellent topics for Growing Big BG Bob and Bruce talk about using Tiger-musky to thin out medium size 5”- 7” long BG. Instead of musky, using one or two Z traps in a small pond can be very helpful when you need to remove excess selected medium sizes of BG that are too big for the small bass patrol to eliminate. See about Z traps in #1 above. Proper harvest and removal is a key part of growing all trophy fish.
Keeping BG density lower, especially those medium sizes, opens the carrying capacity for remaining fish and increases the chances of growing really big BG.
Bob and Bruce Condello Video Grow Big Bluegill
4. Understand BG plasticity for implementing selective harvest of the poor performers. Plasticity involves understanding that NOT all fish of the same specie and year class, in this case BG, have the same growth potential. It is natural for some to grow faster and larger than their siblings. Learn when and know what ones to remove for best growth of remaining fish. Use selective harvest. Not all BG have the potential to grow to huge sizes. Preserve the biggest fattest ones which are usually the males. Remember this is only a ¼ ac pond and it is not limitless in the numbers and pounds of fish that it can support or grow. Thus numbers have to be carefully managed toward fewer individuals to maintain trophy class BG. Too many competitors reduces the growth potential of the best fish and stresses the entire fishery.
5. Proper High Quality Foods using the Right Brand Name. Regularly provide the right amount and sizes of pellets as supplemental food or the number of fish present. Feed appropriate amounts year round if they will eat. It is not good for growing big fish for them to lose weight during winter if they are willing to eat good food. Feed enough food for BG to maintain weight during winter. Do not over feed. Optimal fish food has been especially developed to have the high protein, high digestibility and least amount of manure waste products to grow big BG fast. Optimal first designed their fish food formula for indoor aquaculture where manure waste needs to be kept to a minimum.
Purina also has a good multi-size high protein pellet for BG. Use the best food for optimum protein digestibility, the best growth rates, and to reduce amount of fish manure waste that is very important for the next item #6 – water quality. Again do good homework and do not just by the most economical or most convenient brand of fish food. You fish grow best on the best foods.
6.. Have constant good water quality that grows more natural foods and healthier fish with fewer chances of fish kills due to an over productive and out of balance system. Over abundant fish in several ways reduces water quality. Fewer fish promotes better water quality for the long term health of the fishery and the pond ecosystem.
7. Understand pond carrying capacity. Here I use carrying capacity to mean the animal load a system can support. This is the amount of numbers and pounds of healthy BG can be grown in just 0.25 acre. Fish crowding causes the fish to have behavioral and physical problems that result is slowed growth.
Manage the numbers. The BG numbers as big sized individuals are not going to be very many in a small pond due to the LIMITS of natural carrying capacity based on pond size and volume.
My general rule is the fewer of fish there are in the pond the BIGGER the average sizes will be. It is all due to their TOTAL WEIGHT per acre and not just their numbers per acre. Bigger fish weigh more so the increased weights of these larger fish will more quickly fill the carrying capacity. You can’t grow giant BG when there are too many of them in the pond. Plan to reduce the number of total fish as the largest ones grow bigger filling the carrying capacity. Fewer BG per acre will grow bigger faster – It’s Nature’s Law.
Also as carrying capacity is increased above the normal or natural level due to too many fish and too much added feeding in a pond's volume the water quality proportionally decreases.
Regularly reducing excess numbers of the proper sizes of fish (selective removal) opens carrying capacity for added growth of remaining fish.
Natural carrying capacity is largely based on pond alkalinity. The higher the alkalinity the more it has the ability to grow more natural planktonic foods and fish. Thus low alkalinity water grows fewer pounds of fish. Knowing your alkalinity helps determine carrying capacity. When or once the alkalinity is established in a new pond then the usable fertility of nutrients present causes or stimulates the growth at the bottom of the food chain. Fish poundage then responds to the amount of increased low level foods that grow and then move or cascade upward as bigger organisms in the food web. This abundance of natural foods at several levels allows fish to grow fast providing there are not too many fish present. You don’t want too many hogs feeding at the trough or some or many won’t get enough to eat to grow well.
Normally in ponds with good alkalinity the carrying capacity of the panfish can often range from 200 to 300 lbs per acre based on good high alkalinity (60-180), rgw nutrient concentration and water clarity / sunlight. This carrying capacity in ¼ ac becomes 50 to 70 lbs of total panfish sizes. Not a lot in a small pond. Water clarity limits the depth of plant growth. Plant growth can be important in that it provides underwater leaf and stem surfaces for producing invertebrate fish foods.
When one adds fish food and or fertilizer the TOTAL carrying capacity of all species of fish in the pond can be increased to usually around 400 to 600 lbs per ac. A fish poundage of over 500lbs/ac is too high IMO for having “happy water” and a year round healthy water pond. Too much fish crowding causes the fish to have behavioral, physical and later health problems especially for the oldest biggest fish that are the trophy sizes. Old fish often get weaker and less tolerant as they age out.
Special high fertility conditions can produce 1000+ lbs of fish per acre that is dangerously high and results as a constant threat of fish kills due to frequent oxygen shortages.
Natural carrying capacity of the DeerTexas pond will I think be based mostly on the water alkalinity. Fish pellets adds some fish poundage above the natural poundage of foods and increases the chances of oxygen shortages. Pay attention in the Lusk-Condello video in #3 above in the link of how Bruce Condello deals with managing his ponds with the higher fish poundage.
Be very watchful and diligent as the pond ages. Very often the 1st stocking of fish grows to the biggest sizes. BG live to around 6 o 8 years. When those big fish die of old age, the subsequent generations composing the pond’s carrying capacity are usually overcrowded, more stressed and not growing as well as they used to in the early days of a newish pond. Then the overall growth to top end sizes declines, especially for the biggest panfish. All this is mainly because of overcrowding and the pond is at or above it’s carrying capacity. Proper annual fish monitoring and removal of size groups that are too abundant are key items to the long term maintaining of trophy class fish. Management, management, management.
Watch in the link to the video and learn about what Sarah Parvin and American Sportfish are doing to grow trophy CNBG. Keep in mind she has 5 acres of water not a small 0.25 ac.
Sarah Parvin at SlabLab is trying to grow the next new record size BG.
Sarah at time of 7:20 talks about the important function of small & medium bass in addition to selective harvest to keep the population of small BG to a MINIMUM for growing trophy BG.
American Sportfish also comes regularly to SlabLab to remove unnecessary mid-size and under performing BG (while lowering capacity) to keep the largest ones growing. Amer.Sportfish helps with their expertise of harvest and population control as a key importance to keep the biggest ones growing toward that trophy size. Fish crowding slows growth of BG. Too many fish causes growth stressors for the whole pond. Without good proper harvest of the mid sizes of BG,,,, the largest ones do not grow or they grow poorly.
See the following good management summary from a PBForum member and be careful about having good water quality. Too much fertility sooner or later causes water quality problems. Manage the those nutrients for the best year round water quality.
Quote
“Fertilizing the pond can have great rewards, but it carries great risks. Many of the risk factors are out of our hands. The member says I will be using little to no fertilizer, little bloom, fewer fish per acre, and not so many worries about weather and associated fish kills. I will have ~30% shallows and weed beds. Not pristine but great for growing minnows and aquatic live fish foods including grass shrimp.”
Sarah Parvin at the Slab Lab for growing big BG.
Here in this link she shows a really big fat CNBG and talks briefly about carrying capacity
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rRoa8JoXjXcSarah, Slabs And Science
See Videos
32 oz BG at SlabLab
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/j2Vxdg5QR0ESarah’s Feeding Program
See video
At 7:20 sarah talks about the important function of bass to keep the population of BG to a MINIMUM for growing those trophy BG. American Sportfish also comes in regularly to remove BG to keep the largest one growing. Proper harvest is key to keep the biggest ones growing toward trophy size. Without good harvest of the mid sizes the largest ones do not grow or they grow poorly. BG have fairly short life spans so to grow trophy size BG you have to have them ALWAYS growing well each day. When they are loosing growth they are losing how big they could have been if they ate really well every day.
Sarah explains why some good habitat is important for growing giant BG in the SlabLab.
Video
Knowledge and diligent management will grow the biggest BG.
IMO Commentary: Aeration will not stop nor suppress plant/algae growth. Aeration does help improve and maintain good water quality that is essential for a high quality fishery. If the pond accumulates fewer nutrients each day or year this reduces excessive plant growth. Excess plant growth is due to excess nutrients. Killing the over abundant plants/algae just recycles the nutrients in the dead plants to restart more growth because the fertilizers are still in the pond. Fertilizers and nutrients make plants grow more - same as with plants in the garden. Removing nutrients from the pond in any form reduces the amount of plant growth. Adding nutrients adds plant growth.
IMO for growing big BG - leave out the channel catfish. IMO they have little benefit for growing big BG. The trophy BG growers do not say CC improves growing big BG. CC are pellet hogs and compete heavily with BG for fish pellets. Adding CC adds fish biomass weight to the pond’s carrying capacity. Use the pellets to grow big BG not catfish.
I am not sure that adding fatheads will help very much for growing giant BG. Sarah and other Big BG pros including Bob Lusk and Bruce Condello in their management discussions do not say or include that adding FHM are important for growing trophy BG. Instead of adding FHM, I would add structures that are promoted to produce attached growth called periphyton that increases invertebrates. These I think will be more beneficial for growing and feeding the stocked fingerlings and adult BG compared to the benefit of FHM for BG. Small fish thrive and flourish when invertebrate foods are abundant. When doing homework for food promoting structures look at Ugly Tree fish habitat and similar types that are proven winners as fish habitat.
https://uglyhabitats.com/products/ugly-tree-habitat-classic-editionYou don’t want just just fish attractors; you want types of habitat that produce lots of invertebrates on their lots of small surfaces that imitate the leaflets on underwater vegetation where thousands of invertebrates call home. Example: A research study in 1991 by Beckett & Aartila studying aquatic plants in WI found some plants were heavily colonized by invertebrates; a single plant of Long leaf pondweed collected in June held a total of 555 invertebrates, which included 177 chironomid (midge) larvae and 143 tiny aquatic worms. Authors estimated that the pondweed bed 60ft-180ft supported about 33 million invertebrates in June and approximately 30 million invertebrates in August. Finely divided substrates can support or produce lots of invertebrate foods for fish.
IMO - Plan and stock the LMB BEFORE the BG spawn the first time. You really don’t want your fingerling bass eating FHminnows. You want the bass eating lots of the hatchling and young of year (YOY) BG and not eating FH minnows instead of eating the small overabundant hatchling BG. When the LMB are eating FHM or things other than BG this is counterproductive to growing trophy BG. When the BG grow big and are able to or decide to eat some fish fry, I want them eating BG fry not fathead minnow fry. I do not see the benefit of adding FHM for producing giant BG. Others may disagree but then please provide your explanation.