Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Gillnetting for Stockers

I was wondering if anyone here has experience with a gill net. We have quite a few ponds/lakes on the farms, with several having being renovated in the last 10 years. We now have another that needs fish. Rather than buying fry BG I'd like to catch a few hundred from the other ponds before the spawn and put them in this newly filled lake.

So I was thinking I could put in a smaller gill net and tend it closely, running adult bluegill over to the new lake. Later it might be used to control an excessive crappie population in a couple other ponds.

I know gill netting is illegal on public waters but I'm assuming I can do as I please on my own land(?)

I'm under the impression that gill netting is nearly always fatal to the fish caught.

Yes, I would think so too if left for hours. But I would stay with it and take off fish as needed. Perhaps it's a pipe dream, though.

How big is the lake you are going to stock ?

Gill nets also cause injury to the fish slime coat which makes them more likely to die later even if they look ok and are taken out of the net ASAP.

You can catch a bunch of pre-spawn BG and move them and quickly populate a small empty pond. Crickets and worms. Make sure you get males and females.

You can also seine a bunch of yoy BG from the existing producing ponds and move them later in the summer.

Minnow traps would be a cheap and easy way to get lots of young BG.

Red_Head -- As already mentioned, gill nets cause quite a bit of fish mortality. Also, some fish aren't sampled well with gill nets. For example, largemouth bass don't go into them very well at all, we think probably because they are sight predators and see the net. Also, gill nets tends to be more effective on torpedo-shaped fishes. Other fish, such as the bluegill with its saucer shape, aren't collected well in gill nets.

I'd suggest that seining or trap nets would be much more effective for bluegills. There have been previous posts on trap nets and bluegills. I'll paste one below, and see if the link works. If not, maybe Ewest can help with the link.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000114

At everyone's suggestion I'll probably drop the idea and just spend a few days with bobber/worms. 100 adult bluegill should(?) be able to turn out a lot of fry in a 3 acre lake without predators. Then next year or perhaps this fall start adding LMB.

RH that first step sounds good. But the other ponds can help you more than that.

Buy an inexpensive fish/minnow trap. Put it out a few times and transfer the small BG as well.

Small 20ft X 4ft X 1/4in. seines are also only a few $. Two 20ft seines joined together with cable ties gives you a very good method of catching lots of small BG and LMB which can be moved later this summer. The seine can be used for years to survey your ponds for balance and growth assessment and to move fish.