Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Bluegill growth rate; bluegill management?

I have been reading this forum contemplating a pond in my future. I never dreamed I would consider having a pond after my grandfather's turned into an algea covered snake pit. So, I have a few questions for ya'll.

My primary interest is large bluegills for the table and fishing for kids. So, how long does it take a bluegill to make it to the 1 pound range? Also if you manage for big bluegill, how many can you harvest per acre/year?

Oh, if bluegill are the focus, does it reduce the need for pond depth? BTW, I am in North Louisiana.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ed - I hope you get lots of opinions on this one. Hopefully we can get southern experiences or experts on big bgill. Here's my northern two cents.
A one pound bgill is a big fish; around 10.4" long. I personally think the 8.5" to 9.0" bgills are easier to clean than the 10"+ fish. Fillets from the 8"-9" fish are nice serving sizes and cook quickly. Also bgill 9+" quickly dull my knife. Once the fish gets 10"+ the meat on the back gets a little tougher and somewhat thicker than the rest of the fillet; which makes cooking somewhat uneven. Anyway, I'm off topic.

If I was in LA the coppernose would be my first choice for stocking/growing/catching/eating. But based on our northern bgill, not coppernose, here are our optimum growth rates. I stress optimum, everything working just right.
2-3" fingerlings stocked in early spring can get 7"-8" by the end of the first summer. This is with unlimited premium food. Ideally bgill hatchlings could in the south get 3"to5" by one yr old.

Once they are sexually mature annual growth slows. The second year in pond (3 yr old fish) they could gain 1" = 8"-9". After 9" long, I usu only get 1/4" to 1/2" added to the length per year. A southern bgill could probably gain 1" per year after the 9". (1 lb = 10"-10.5"). NOTE: coppernose may have slightly more weight at 9.5"-10" than standard bgill.

Northern bgill grow slower and live longer than their southern counterparts. It is not uncommon to see bgill live 7-9 yrs in northern ponds. After they reach 9" they are lucky to gain 1/4" to 3.8" per year and add 1.5"to 2" before death. A 11"-12" bgill is a trophy class fish. If someone says they have over 12" bgill I would like to SEE PICTURES.
I think a key point to getting good growth from already big (9") bgill is to NOT keep them in crowded conditions. There is a word of "lebensraum" in population biology. It is from German and means living space or territory requirements as requirements for healthy life/growth. Crowded conditions reduce the lebensraum and then slower growth & poorer health results.
So I think an important point is to keep the young bluegills dramatically thinned in your pond so the existing adult fish have lebensraum and better growth should result. To keep bgill heavily thinned, a strong population of bass smaller than 14" is important. Trapping and manual thinning of bgill may also be necessary. Remove all bass larger than 14", protect bass smaller than 14".

Harvest. With fertilization and or a pellet feeding program you should be able to safely harvest 25%-30% of your crop each year. Here is the unknown part. How many pounds of bgill per acre can you grow per year?. It will depend on a lot of things. If we assume 300 lb/ac/yr production then a harvest of 75 to 100 lbs of bgill per acre is not unreasable. Assuming 40% waste for offal then 45 to 60 lbs of fillets.

Since you have a longer growing season you should be able to add a little to each of the examples; except bgill life span. But, I'm not sure how much more you will get because you are in LA.

I'll let your southern neighbors answer your pond depth issue for a trophy bgill pond.

Read yourself to death on this web site, and order the catalog and books. Cecil Baird can better answer your questions and might correct or clarify some of what I am about to say, believe him more than me.

Bluegill can mature sexually at about 4 inches long. If they are allowed to spawn, their growth decelerates significantly at that point. In other words, they grow rapidly until they spawn, at which time growth slows. They usually nest in large groups. The bigger bluegill will keep the smaller ones out of the group, so the smaller ones can not spawn, hence they continue to grow.

The problem occurs when you have a pond of nothing but 4 and 5 inch bluegill, there are no bigger ones to keep the small ones from spawning, so all spawn and then stop growing at 4 or 5 inches. You need some big ones to insure the small ones continue to grow. This is another reason to include bass into the mix of what you have. Bass will eat your smaller bluegill, leaving only the larger ones, providing natural selection so that you pond has big bluegill. While on that topic, imagine what happens to your pond if you remove all the big ones by fishing, and return only small ones to the system.

This is bad news. We would all like a pond in which we can go and catch the big ones, and the small ones will continue to grow into big ones that we can catch later. We would also like bluegill only, with no bass, so that we would have tons of big bluegill to catch when we went fishing. Im afraid it doesnt happen that way. You can have tons of small bluegill, or fewer big ones. And if you have big ones, you can not catch them all out, or the others will spawn and quit growing.

Afraid it is more complicated than we all wish it were. However the complications will give you even more pride when you see yourself overcoming them and developing the managed pond that you worked towards.

Lastly, what is wrong with adding bass? They are fun to catch, they bite and pull violently. And they will help you to manage your bluegill. Then you can have a pond in which you can fish for two varieties.

Ed, I assumed (which is dangerous) that you were also adding bass to your pond to grow bgill. If you don't have lots of small bass you will very quickly be overrun with lots of small bgill and essentially no growth. The big bass (larger than 18") will be primarily eating the 6"-7" bgill that will be filling the space made by your annual harvest. Also your annual bgill harvest should be spread out over the year not all at once.
Nick makes some good points. Lots to know and still more to be learned about raising big bgill. We will see what Cecil provides. Bob if he ever comes back will also lend some help. Surely there are southern big bgill pros out there, they all can't specialize in bass.

In Cecil's post below, he breifly explains some fairly new research that has been learned from spawning bluegills.

Hey Guys,

I'm flattered that you think I know something. You're overrating me. I could not have said it any better than Nick or Bill. Along with what Nick said, when it comes to raising large fish of any species we seem to be our own worst enemies. We only want to harvest the larger fish which has lots of drawbacks. Another theory is we are removing fish from the gene pool that have a propensity genitically to grow faster while we leave the inferior growers.

BTW -- a little comedy. Do you know what is wrong with th gene pool? There is no lifeguard!

One study I saw showed that bluegill courtship is as complex as any other species on earth maybe even more complex.

Did you know there are smaller male bluegills during spawning time that are known as cuckhold males? They actually mimick females in coloration and sneak in right at the time the big male is fertilizing eggs to add their inferior milt.

I sure hope to add another pond to attempt a method Bill Cody is experimenting with to produce some large bluegills. He is feeding training some in a floating cage and once they are feed trained sufficiently the males are culled out. It is important that they are really males! They must exude milt when squeezed even if if they look like males. Sometimes appearances are misleading.

Anyway, these males are placed into a small pond and continued on feed pellets. Since they are all males there is no reproduction and overcrowed fish leading to stunting. Fish on feed have accelerated feed rates so the plan is to grow big bluegills. So Bill, what have been the results so far again?

Thanks for the thoughts guys. Ya'll explained some things that weren't clear in some of the online articles I have found. I don't have a pond yet and don't know for sure if I want one, but it is certainly something to ponder. I am mentally weighing the amount of fish I could get off the land versus its value in other uses. Thanks

Ed, One cannot put a dollar value on the memorable experiences you can have raising and catching fish with your kids or grandkids.

Good results so far with the male only bgill, they are still growing so I do not know how big they will get before the start dying of old age. Some are 9.75" and 10". So far I have managed to not introduce any females. One mistake and it messes up your plans big time. The technique is not for novices. This summer I plan to check the lengths of some older male bgills that have been isolated in another pond.
I think the growing of isolated male bgill is only for small ponds 1/4 to 3/4 ac.

POSTSCRIPT. Male Bgill are up to 11"-12". There are numerous smaller ones that are not as old as the biggest ones. I am getting some deaths of oldest bgill at 11"+.