Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Sunfish-Including Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass Bluegill size, genetics or environment?

Nice picture. Your picture shows very well that pumpkinseeds (PS) will grow to nice harvestable sizes when the habitat is good. Many northern members here are now trying pumpkinseeds as an alternative pan fish to bluegill in pond management. Hopefully others using pumpkinseeds in the future will share pictures of the pumpkinseed harvests from their pond.

To address your renovated pond depth question, I would remember that the more shallow water you have the more weed and filamentous algae pressure you will get. These plants rarely grow in deeper water and they cause most of their problems in shallow water next to shorelines (littoral zone). Ideally a pond/lake needs only 25-35% of shallow water with structure/cover to produce a quality fishery and even less shallow water is needed if the fish are fed pellets which very well supplements the natural forage available. To minimize weed problems especially in ponds that tend toward clear water (vis 4-8ft), I would minimize areas with shallow water and regularly feed the fish a very high quality fish food to produce a high harvest, high quality fishery.

As an example, go to Google earth and look at your example of the big BG lake using aerial view. Now estimate the amount or percentage of shallow weed zone shoreline water where light will penetrate to the bottom (weed growth zone) compared to the area of deeper open water. This will give you a good idea for the amount of shallow water in a water body that is able to produce big BG.