Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Unfortunately, hard-to-catch bluegill die uncaught

Giant bluegill sometimes just fade away.....



See. He's even waving farewell. Length 11+ inches.

Please, please let him have swelled up some after he died. He looks like he swallowed a DMD can. He must by 4" wide, Bruce.

Lusk says since fish have mamaged to make to trophy class category, they deserve to die an honorable natural death and not end up in someones frying pan.

You really nurse those babies don't you Bruce?

Bummer Bruce.

He successfully managed to avoid all the risks inherent in the pond to reach his potential and be king of his domain.

Did he get to pass on his genes ?

? age = scales - otoliths

What would he have weighed, Bruce?

I don't know how much he swelled, but when I saw him languishing around two or three days before he was of formidable width.

Definitely an honorable death.

That fish would have been age-6. I've caught him before and he stayed in the same general area his whole life. Oh, and yes, he passed on LOTS of genes.

Estimated weight, probably maxed out at or around 2-2.

....and Sunil, that is a quarter and not a dime. I already know what you're going to say.

Bruce,

I know how hard you worked on your fish projects. And a loss is something we all have to deal with.

Now throw that sucker in a Thermophillic Anaerobic Digester and lets make some Electricity.

You really get some top notch fertilizer out of it, and you could also add all of Cecil's wheelbarrows full of aquatic vegetation into it.

I was going to ask him what he does with the stuff.

Hmmmmmmm....I've heard this before.

Cheers, mate. Into the digester you go. He'd make enough electricity to run a small ant city for half an hour.

Here' he is, not quite fitting into a five-gallon bucket.

The ants around here use the benefits of people having electricity, they just don't have to pay for it.

I wonder how many maggots it would take to fire up my chainsaw for a few seconds? (properly equipped of course)

He would feed a lot of ants for some time.

Maybe you should just leave him in the bucket and with time lapsed photography, see what he turns into.

It would be an interesting process.

Great engineering insights could be contemplated and discovered.

He'd last about 1 day in the BSF bin.

Might just be enough time

Why do I smell an odor when I look at this fish?

Bruce,

Wow nice fish!

You are making the gears in my brain turn once again. My plan up until today was to release male only gills from the cages into the .62 acre pond (which will be drained, rotenoned and fish free as of this fall) but now you make me wonder how many of those big boys will die a natural death. Since I get a hundred bucks minimum for a 1 lb. plus gill (probably much more for a bruiser of that size) I can't bear to think many will die a natural death. I'm finding lately with my smallmouth harvest that once a fish has been caught and released in a pond they get much, much, harder to catch again. And since there will have to be some culling for periodic harvest in the open pond...

Now I'm thinking I should keep them in the cages until they are big enough to harvest. If I only knew it can be done with big ones and not just small and average gills. I guess I'll find out. I suppose if I start them in cages at a very young age natural selection my take care of the ones that don't adapt to cages.

Nice Bluegill, Bruce -- even in death. My condolences.

But . . .

Thanks to Pond Boss Magazine and the forum, I have some real big bluegill in my pond. Maybe now is the time I've been waiting for to ask this question.

Should I keep some of the really big bluegill?

I set my BG limits based on median length. I throw back those over the median length, and I keep those under the median length.

Throughout this season, that has been about 8.5 inch for females, and 9 inches for males.

The other night I kept a 9-1/2 inch female that had a lot of red sores. But I threw back several really nice 9-10 inch females (not a single male was caught).

I don't know if I should be taking some of the big ones so they don't die of old age. If so, how many? Should some of the the biggest ones gain immortality by shipping them to Cecil?

I sure hate to see them float up from old age. So far, that hasn't been happening.

Any suggestions?

Thanks all,
Ken

Isn't dying from old age what most of us are shooting for? I have enough ideas to last at least to 90. (I'm not sure what that is in BG years.)

Because I don't want to turn this into a foreign currency discussion, I'll refrain from commenting.

But that does look like a penny that has been spray painted silver.

I think you shouldn't worry about keeping big bluegill. What's your true goal? If it has nothing to do with eating fish, then I think you should release the absolute optimal specimens, but I'd never, ever hesitate to harvest suboptimal fish. That would include fish with Wr's under 100, fish with parasites, etc.

If your goal is to eat fish, then keep some of your best females and enjoy. They're great deep fat fried in canola oil. But maybe consider always releasing the very best condition males so that your chances of catching a giant are as high as possible.

If they float up of old age, so be it. I've probably lost bigger than this and just didn't know it. It just so happened this fish was in a little pond.

I downloaded and enlarged the coin; can't tell squat about it.

However, the bottom diameter of a typical 5 gallon bucket is indeed 11".












Now how do we know that's a 5 gallon bucket?

Harvest philosophy of your fish is a personal thing and itgoes hand in hand with the goals that you have set for your pond. If it really bothers and troubles you to see your oldest largest fish die of old age then you should probably harvest at least some of the biggest ones. The number to be harvested can depend on size of pond (numbers present) and how many of your largest fish that you or your guests would like to be able to catch. Leaving a larger number of them in the pond increases your chances of catching a trophy sized fish especially for special guests. I prefer this style of management, because I prefer to eat and clean the intermediate sized fish compared to largest ones. Killing the largest ones for cleaning problems me EVEN MORE than seeing them die of old age.

A neighbor prefers another harvest philosophy. He harvests all the largest yellow perch because he hates to see them wasted as natural deaths. He catches lots of large fish (10"-14") but very few of what I call trophy perch (14"+). Whereas in my pond catching 14+" perch is common place. One can blend these two harvest philosophies in a form of "slot size limit" and allow a specific number of the largest ones to be harvested each year. When that number is met, then harvest of that size class stops for the year. From thereon intermediate sized fish can only be harvested.

I did some quick calculation, and if that's a dime, then that bluegill is 6.9 inches.

My winter project is to carefully paint a wooden stick with fake inch increments so I can post some impressive pictures next year.

Did I just say that out loud?

They're great deep fat fried in canola oil.

Peanut oil is my favorite, with all the proper fixings.

"I did some quick calculation, and if that's a dime, then that bluegill is 6.9 inches."

See, Brother? You are already trying to cloud the issue. It's a penny, painted silver.

poor lil fishie , big meanie pants bruce