Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Analyzing TJ's Pond- Evaluate My Fishery

TJ,

I had a similar problem in my smallmouth pond. As you know I also have hybrid stripers. The bluegill, however, were getting out of control. I really didn't mind it except that my family and I like to swim in the pond. We all got sick of bluegill continously biting us while we were swimming.

To solve the bluegill problem, I shut my feeders down for nearly 2 months this past summer. My smallies and wipers had to step up to the plate and earn their keep, which they did. Cutting them off from the tasty aquamax morsels meant that they had to eat bluegill or starve to death. Tough love but it worked. My predators adpated, improvised and overcame (thanks Mr. Eastwood). They put the hammer down on the bluegill, we commenced swimming in peace, and the predators were rightfully rewarded with loads of Aquamax this fall.

Obviously densities of predators is an important consideration when determining how long to shut the feeders down. A couple times per week I would cruise the shorelines and monitor progress. I watched the bluegill numbers dwindle until I felt the objective was met. Everyone (fish included) benefitted from this management decision.

It is good to know that pellet feeding smallmouth bass and hybrid striped bass will switch to readily eating small fish when pellet feeding stops. Shawn - can you provide some idea of how big the SMB and HSB were and the size range of abundant small bluegill that they reduced their numbers?. Very many weed beds in your smallmouth pond?

Very cool experiment and observation. I wonder how long before they realized their welfare food wasn't coming and they had to work for it.

Obviously faster than some humans do!


(Okay, okay, I won't do that again!)

Good post Shawn. I have a very predator heavy fishery as you know and I have no doubt they would hammer the BG hard if I shut down the feeder for a while. I wonder what kind of impact it would have on SMB, HSB, YP WR? Did you notice any weight loss, body condition changes?

Remind us again why you stocked BG into your SMB/HSB pond?

My predators were in great condition prior to and after this little experiment. My smallies range from 3/4lb to 2 lbs+ at this time. My wipers are from 1.5 to 5 lbs. My initial class of bluegill and redear (class of 2010) are doing great with some fish pushing 9 inches. The last two years of spawn were the biters. I have no weeds whatsoever except for a small patch of cattails that I manage, but I have plenty of hard cover (hone hole trees and shrups, rock piles, gravel beds, couple of porcupine attractors, cubes made from pallets, and log configurations/cribs.

The bluegill numbers were getting out of control. I could go to my dock and scratch off periphyton from the floats and just like Pavlov's dogs, I would schools of little bluegills converge on my location. When walking around the pond's edge, I could see them everywhere. When the feeders went off, it became very evident that I had too many. I got great joy, however, from watching a few smallies that always preferred to pick bluegill off than eat pellets. The pellets left the little bluegill vulnerable- they couldn't but to go for the pellets- but the smallies would hammer them. However, there were literally only a few smallies that used this technique. Most of the smallies preferred the Aquamax Welfare Program. When I cut them off, they did switch to working for a living and started hammering the bluegills, as did the hybrid stripers.

When the mass genocide of small bluegills was ended, it took over a week to get a frenzy of feeding with the Aquamax again. The larger bluegill and the smaller smallies never missed a beat, however.

Speaking of the smallies, I have two distinct size classes from the original stocking of 4" fish from 2010. Some are living like rock-stars and have crazy growth rates, while others are healthy but mediocre. I thought maybe this was a gender thing, but we whacked 10 of them early last summer, and they were just as likely to be males as females. I also pulled otoliths to confirm they were the same age and they were.

I've had reproduction of the smallies but they don't recruit to the fishery. The reproduction is very limited and they don't make it past 2.5-3 inches. This has happened for the past two years. Perhaps some of them could have snuck through this past year had I not shut the feeders off, but most small things got eaten when I shut down the Aquamax.


TJ, I resepctfully decline to answer your question as to why I stocked bluegill- lol. In hind-sight, I would have done some things differently.

Off to Tennessee in 3 minutes for the Southern Division AFS meeting. I will hook up with Lusk, Grimes, Cruz, Robinson, Bales, Lewis, Beasley, and Goldsby on Thursday afternoon. Should be a good time. Catch you later.

Awesome post Shawn, this is invaluable information for anyone with BG management issues. Also fascinated with your 2 classes of SMB...trying to figure out here the potential reasons for that.

I think you could afford to stock a few WE and see how well they do on your BG - my adults have figured something out and provide a great bonus catch.

Do you stock YP in this pond? If not, wondering your reasons.

Do your BG serve as primary forage? No GSH in that pond?

If you need some advanced SMB let me know - will be trying the new SMB reproduction pond this year and anticipate much better collection numbers.

Wish I were a part of that group in TN...have a blast and get some new big money clients!