Caught these fish the other day while fishing with Fred "Rionator". We both agreed that these were a cross between a Green and a Bluegill. Did some checking and found that there is a cross between a female Green Sunfish and a Male Bluegill that is called a Georgia Giant. These fish are some super fighters and were caught on both Berkley Power Worms and live night crawlers. Fish were caught on a local private pond and were released to fight again. Been getting a few of these each time I fish that pond. The pond mainly has Copper Nose Bluegill.

Banker, the standard hybrid bluegill is a cross between a male bluegill and a female green sunfish. Supposedly the Georgia giants also had one or more other sunfish species mixed in, but there's not a lot of reliable info out there on them as the originator of them was not very forthcoming with info. Some people have grown them pretty big, others have had bad experiences with them. Pure-strain coppernose will get bigger with proper management.

Looks like dinner!

Now that's what it was :P I have caught plenty of these at calaveras lake as well as dunlap .

Thanks guys for the replies. "Tennessee Pond Manager": Thanks for the information. You are right there is really not much information on em. "Tun3R": Learn something new every time.

What beautiful sunfish hybrids. Way to go guys.

Thanks "Dhogdog" for the reply. Yes Sir they have some beautiful colors!

Nice ones!
I've got a friend that has a pond in Cuero that he stocked with hybrid bluegill that he got from a hatchery several years back that looked like those. We had a blast catching them using a fly rod.
Unfortunately his ponds were victims of the severe drought we had a couple summers ago.

Very nice Banker ,ive caught some out of the Cibolo that had a similiar look.

I read about them years ago .....called em something like that
we tried a few similar hybrids in one of our ponds ....
they wasn't too terribly impressive for us .....
those look like nice ones right there though
KABOOM

Thanks guys for the replies. The pond is in very good shape. It's deep and has some really nice grass beds as well as some gravel bottom areas. The Green/Bluegill mix fish are in super condition and all of em are good size. (Great Fighters on Ultralight). The pond as mentioned before is loaded with nice Copper nose Bluegill. Just my two cents I think some bigger bass and a couple of gar would really help the quality of the Bluegill. I don't think there are that many predator fish in the pond. A lot of gills need to be taken out.



Still is a super place to fish when the opportunity is there!

If the owner of that private pond will let you take some out that would make for some fine eating!
That was the problem with that pond I was catching them in near Cuero. The owner didn't want us keeping any of the fish, and then about a year or so later the pond dried up with the drought. What was sad, was that the little creek that fed it quit running, and that was the first time in many, many years that it had dried up.
Hope he has better luck with his pond!

Pretty fish

+1. Nice Fish.

Beautiful fish!

DANDIES!

Thanks guys for the replies! Pond fishing for Gills is hard to beat. Jim: Yes sir, you are right on the money. Taking a bunch of those gills out would help the condition of that pond a lot. For what we can see there are very few predator fish there. As for the owner allowing any fish to leave? I guess I will just have to ask!

Nice Fish. Looks like you guys have one heck of a "honey hole"! I did a little checking up on the Georgia Giants and found out that they were produced from a fish farm in Georgia and they are under a patent. Some articles stated that the fish grows faster than the standard sunfish and crappie and they can get up to five to six pounds. I also read that the Georgia Giants have been stocked in numerous ponds,lakes,and rivers through out the United States. They seem to be a very interesting fish. Again those are some super fish. Good job guys.



Side Note: Chuck. You should PM me the location of that pond!

Caught this one today. Had another similar a couple weeks ago. Both on a senko!

Impressive size!

Nice ones "Fish&Coach". Those are HUGE! Also thanks "Fish&Coach and Curtis for the replies! Curtis: That is some good information. Based on what I have read and was told by other anglers the Georgia Giants are supposed to grow fast,and get big. Can you imagine catching 3 to 5 pound fish. They are also some super fighters.

Nice Fish "NDN98". Starting to love those Georgia Giants.




Side Note: I have caught Bluegill/Redear mix, Bluegill/Redbreast mix,and other hybrid sunfish. I have not caught a Bluegill/Green mix at least I don't think I have. I would love to see a stocked sunfish that can get up to 3 to 5 pounds. That would be awesome.

Keep in mind that 95% of the articles online about Georgia Giants were posted by the people who sell them - this has been widely observed not just by me but many others in the fish business. They present their posts as though random anglers had made them, but such is not the case. Also, there was a long discussion that went on over a good period of time on another forum frequented by some of the most knowledgeable bluegill experts in the country, and one of said experts had a very bad experience with these fish, actually posted photos of severely deformed fingerlings he had been sent as part of his order.

Another thing to consider is that they like any hybrid between two different species are subject to outbreeding depression, which can be summed up by saying that the first generation is the only one that has the exceptional genetic potential, and by the time you get to the third or fourth generation - and remember, bluegill spawn multiple times a year, and they can spawn at three inches, so that third generation can come around pretty quickly - most of the fish will have genes that are dramatically inferior to their grandparents, inferior even to a pure-strain stunted bluegill. The very worst pond I ever worked with in terms of trying to get the bluegill big in it, was a four-acre one that had these fish stocked in it a few years prior to my involvement, such that by the time I came along they were already overpopulated and the gene pool was pretty miserable. These inferior F-2s, F-3s, etc. will also spawn with the pure-strain bluegill in the pond, and more often than not it happens that the poorest genes of both parents predominate in the offspring. What you end up with is a pond full of 2-3" bluegill that wouldn't reach one pound, much less three or five, if you fed them twenty-four hours a day.

If you want outsized bluegill you're much better off with pure-strain coppernose. I have seen photos of many, many coppernose over three pounds; the California state record bluegill caught in 1998 was a coppernose that weighed 3-14. But I have never seen a hybrid bluegill, Georgia Giant or otherwise, over two pounds. I caught a hybrid that weighed right at two pounds in July of last year; but the owner of that pond caught a northern-strain bluegill a year earlier that he claims was 10" tall and 14" long (he didn't get a photo). And of course the world-record bluegill was a northern-strain, as were most of the state records over three pounds. Multiple studies have shown that hybrid bluegill grow faster than northern-strain initially, but eventually their growth plateaus and the northern-strain, under ideal conditions, catch and pass them.

Thanks TN Pond manager that is some good info.

There is so much to know about different spices of fish. For what I am learning there is a huge difference between a public water body and a private pond or lake. In a private water body the lake or pond can be managed by taking out a certain amount of fish each year where as a public water body the fish count would be hard to manage. I can see that if certain types of fish are stocked in a public water body they could have a very negative effect on that water body if not managed. Would love to see some more independent studies on the Georgia Giants. You are right "TN Pond Manager" there are few studies out there.

Great information TN Pond Manager. Thanks for sharing.

purebred greenies is the way to go if you want big ferocious sunfish imo. I'd love to have a pond of these guys with plenty 2+... they are pound for pound one of the most fun freshwater fish I've encountered, never mind the stunning looks!

Purebred green sunfish will not make it to two pounds. The IGFA world record for the species is only 2 lbs. 2 oz. The Texas record is 1 lb. 3.5 oz. In contrast, the IGFA record bluegill weighed 4 lbs. 12 oz.; the Texas record is 2.02 lbs. For my state, the green sunfish record is 1 lb. 4 oz., while the two record bluegill (they tied) weighed 3 lbs.

Oh, I was under the impression they got to the 2-3lb range in pure bred form... ah well. 4lb is nuts for a pure bluegill too, let alone nearly 5lb... gawwwwwdang!

I guess the Redear is going to have to be the giant of the big Sunfish (excluding the LMB).

Someone mentioned that 95% of the posts or something like that that favor the GG are from sellers. I wonder how many of the negative posts are from competitors.

Here is one from a non-seller. I wonder how many of those who post negatives have actually grown the GG under controlled conditions. I have...and have fully documented my study. You can read about it on my website.

I found that most of the [censored] posted on the 'net is just that...[censored]. The GG have a place for the smart pond manager. The advantages they offer are low reproduction, quick growth, aggressive feeding, and survivability in low O2 conditions.

They are not suitable for larger bass ponds and are not recommended to be stocked with other bluegills...however Nature finds a way. In the pond I stocked them years ago, they have somehow crossed with coppernose that I never stocked there and the resulting fish is pretty amazing.

Yes, they have a place. Yes, there is a lot of mis-information out there from people who have other motives. Don't believe 95% of what you read on the 'net. Go fishing and find out for yourself.

This subject is readily researchable by anyone who has a computer and the willingness to do the reading. Georgia Giants are a hybrid; outbreeding depression is not some concept I made up, or a theory that has not been proven, but scientific fact. I didn't learn it from a competitor of the hatchery that sells Georgia Giants; I learned it from scholarly articles written by fisheries biologists. There have been not one or two, but many studies on the performance of hybrid bluegill compared to regular bluegill, done by fisheries biologists working in the field. I suppose the person who posted above would lump all of them into the category of having other motives because they don't recommend the fish he likes.

As to the assertion of misinformation, I am posting photos from a pond I rotenoned a little over a year ago. The owner had stocked hybrid bluegill a few years prior, and they had overpopulated and outbred such that the largest one I found when I sampled the pond measured 6" and weighed a whopping 2 oz. They averaged 4.75" and 1.25 oz. I'm also posting a couple post-rotenone photos so you can see that the average size of all of the bluegill in the pond was actually considerably smaller than my sample.

I sampled a pond in Brentwood last fall that also had hybrid bluegill in it. They had been in the pond a few years, and were well into outbreeding depression. They averaged 1.7 oz.

As to Georgia Giants tolerating low oxygen levels, that's a new one on me. I'd love to see the scientific data that supports that - pretty sure there is none.

Here's a link to a publication from the University of Georgia in which it is noted that ponds stocked with hybrid bluegill have to be periodically poisoned and re-stocked:

http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/service/library/index.php3?docID=41&docHistory%5B%5D=1

Here's a link to a publication from the Texas chapter of the American Fisheries Society in which hybrid bluegill are listed as undesirable for pond stocking due to their inferior offspring and their tendency to overpopulate and stunt, which the publication notes will require renovation (poisoning) and re-stocking:

http://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/10/...mendations-.pdf

Here's a link to a publication from the South Carolina DNR in which Georgia Giants are mentioned by name - the publication notes that most pond owners in the state who have tried them have found them to "fall considerably short of expectations," and notes that "renovation will be required about every three years." Renovation in pond management means poisoning the whole pond:

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/fish/pdf/pondmanagement.pdf

The Florida Wildlife Commission also specifically names Georgia Giants as a species that should not be stocked in ponds:

http://myfwc.com/conservation/you-conserve/recreation/pond-management/

Anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear can see who the honest person without an agenda in this thread is, and who the person who is being fast and loose with the truth is.

[img:left][/url]small pond bluegill March 18 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img] [/img]

[img:left]small pond bluegill 4 March 18 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]small pond bluegill 3 March 18 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]small pond bluegill 2 March 18 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]rotenone 8 april 17 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]rotenone 10 april 17 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]rotenone 11 april 17 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]rotenone 17 april 17 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]rotenone 23 april 17 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

Like I said, the smart pond manager will use them appropriately and when they are properly used and managed they are a great fish, fun for everyone.

Mismanaged, or not managed at all and you will have problems. I have had them and their offspring for probably 10 years...absolutely no problems...and hours and hours of family fun.

They make an ideal pond for teaching fly fishing. They are very aggressive, much more so than regular 'gills, and they never get hook shy.

They are not the same as hybrid bluegills and lumping them into that group is a mistake. Just about any fish will overpopulate and stunt if not managed properly...one of the big plus of the GG is their low reproductive rate. Couple that with sufficient predators and no problems.

Mismanagement always leads to problems...and generally the mismanager points the finger at the fish rather than the manager. The fish simply does what it is programmed to do...and in the case of the GG, that program can lead to some great sport fishing for the entire family.

I already provided links to multiple publications written by degreed fisheries biologists that specifically disrecommend Georgia Giants, as opposed to hybrid bluegill in general; one of said publications notes poor performance reported by the majority of pond owners who had stocked them. I wonder if the person questioning all these biologists' competence has qualifications comparable to theirs, or is simply making baseless claims?

Georgia Giants no more have a low reproductive rate than do any other hybrid bluegill - I have worked with more than one pond in which they had been stocked by the pond owner. The pond I allude to in an earlier post in this thread as the very worst one I ever tried to grow big bluegill in, was one in which Georgia Giants had only been stocked for less than two years when I came along; they had been stocked in very low numbers, 400 in a four-acre pond, and they had been stocked with a high number of channel catfish, a fish commonly recommended by biologists who recommend hybrid bluegill as a fish to stock in conjunction with them - 1200 channel catfish. And yet the Giants had already overpopulated such that they averaged about 3" when I took over. So that particular pond was anything but "mismanaged" - it had an extremely high number of predators that should have controlled this fish that supposedly has a low reproductive rate, and yet less than two years after they were stocked they had already overpopulated, and the genes were already garbage.

There is no fish that never gets hook-shy. Hybrids in general, whether it be hybrid bluegill or hybrid stripers, are known for being more aggressive and slower to learn avoidance of angling presentations, but even hybrids learn. Here again, claims are being made that have already been disproven both in the scientific community and among private pond owners.

Claims are being made that are absolutely true in my pond...and beyond dispute. I have documented my results in a direct comparison test against copper nose bluegills and native bluegills in separate ponds.

I tested "aggressiveness", "growth rates" and "sustainability". I documented the results in pictures and data sheets monthly for about 1 year.

I found that most all of the problems I have read about on the 'net(mostly by competitors) are because of mismanagement and/or misapplication of the fish. Of course, it will not do well in a bass pond...for several reasons most important of which is its low reproduction rate. Only a fool for a pond manager would try that.

Properly stocked by a smart pond manager, it is a wonderful sport fish that fulfills a specific need in the market...in spite of competitors who try their best to discredit anyone who grows them and enjoys them. I love 'em...and have a huge distrust of pond managers who make blanket statements about the fish. Not everyone will manage them properly, and you shouldn't stock them if you don't intend to manage them.

Managed properly, they are great pond fish and tons of fun...and isn't that what most of us want from our ponds?

For what I am reading in both "TN Pond Manager" and "Meadowlarks" post is the common denominator that no matter what is stocked in a water body it has to be managed in order for it to be a healthy water body. I can also see the Pros and Cons of the Georgia Giants. If either one of you "TN Pond Manager" or "Meadowlark" can give me your professional view on a Redear/Bluegill hatchery. I have caught these fish in a lot of public water bodies and they are of nice size and fight hard. I was wondering if they could be made/hatched in a controlled environment and later stocked in public water bodies. I don't know what it takes for a specie of fish to be stocked in a public water body. I did speak with a Parks and Wildlife biologist who told me that the sunfish seem to inner mix more than any other specie of fish. That was just his opinion.


Side Note: I am learning a lot from the both of you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with the rest of us.

Thanks "TN Pond Manager" and "Meadowlark" for your replies. Both of you gentleman are truly professional experts in the field of pond and fish management. Your facts and opinions are highly respected and I personally have learned a ton of information reading your inputs. You guys really take pride in your businesses and it shows in a very good way. Again thanks for the inputs. Keep em coming.




Side Note: I also wonder why more OFFICIAL studies are not published on sunfish production. I also wonder if a Redear/Bluegill mix can be produced,hatched,raised,and put into both private and public water bodies. As mentioned already both the Redear and Bluegill are breeding in the wild already. Wonder under controlled conditions if a better fish could be produced. Taking the biggest of the sunfish family (excluding the LMB)the Redear and breeding it with the more aggressive Bluegill seems to me you would have one heck of a fish. Oh well easier said than done. I guess I will keep catching what ever bites my bait.

Ad hominem a good argument does not make. I'm still waiting for this person to address the fact that it was not fish sellers I referenced who recommended against Georgia Giants - I didn't link to one single fish hatchery, or anyone whatsoever who sells fish or pond services. None of the top hatcheries in the South, including Texas, sell hybrid bluegill, and it would have been easy to link to pages on their websites noting why they don't; for example, neither one of the hatcheries that the person arguing with me bought his bass from, sell hybrid bluegill, only coppernose; considerable praise was heaped upon both of these hatcheries by this person for their exceptional largemouth - but somehow we are to believe they know nothing about bluegill. I intentionally limited my sources to unbiased biologists who have no financial interest in whether or not Georgia Giants or some other sunfish is stocked in ponds. And yet this other person in this thread continues to pretend as though my sources are all fish sellers - it's simply dishonest.

I have been selling fish for six years now, and as of today 99% of the fish I have sold were ones I bought wholesale from hatcheries and then delivered to my customers, just as nearly all pond management companies do. I could just as easily buy Georgia Giants and sell them as other bluegill, but I don't because of what I've read from many unbiased, biologist sources, and most of all because of what I've experienced firsthand both with them and hybrid bluegill in general.

As to the contention that this person's claims are beyond dispute - just saying it does not make it true. I have read every word on your website documenting your studies on Georgia Giants. The only mention you make of their reproductive rate is to note that the hybrid striped bass you had stocked as the initial predator for them were not controlling the Georgia Giants' offspring - this is the only mention made of their reproductive rate, and it completely contradicts what you write above.

You certainly make no mention whatsoever of GGs having a tolerance for low oxygen levels. The study on the website does not have so much as one oxygen reading. Bluegill, hybrid or otherwise, are not known for having tolerance for low DO. There are indeed freshwater fish that have such tolerance, among them gambusia minnows and tilapia; but bluegill most certainly do not.

As to your study, as far as I can tell it was not peer reviewed by anyone, biologist or otherwise. And your methods are somewhat less than scientific: your sample size each time you gathered information was five fish. There was no control whatsoever, no bother with creating identical conditions in both the ponds with GGs and the ones with coppernose - just casual observation, such as noting that coppernose "generally" don't reach ten inches until the third year. Perhaps they don't in mismanaged ponds; I've had them reach nine inches in one year, and eleven in two. None of the ponds in the study had anything remotely resembling ideal conditions for coppernose - the coppernose were in ponds being managed for trophy bass, and had significantly less desirable conditions for growing large bluegill than the GG pond. The ponds with coppernose being compared to in the GG study have gizzard shad, which are not present in the GG pond. That's like throwing a hundred deer into a ten-acre pen with a thousand goats and comparing their growth to ten deer all by themselves in another pen - about as unsound as "science" can possibly get.

There's nothing wrong with liking a fish in spite of its flaws. But when someone else merely tries to point out said flaws that are already widely acknowledged among fisheries biologists, simply out of a desire to save less informed pond owners from frustration, trying to belittle and discredit that person with claims one knows are specious, is more than a little dishonest.

Banker, bluegill-redear hybrids do indeed grow well and often bite better than redear. But their top-end size is smaller than redear, and the biggest issue with them is the same as with any hybrid that spawns, i.e. the outbreeding depression. Most states forbid the stocking of any sort of hybrid sunfish in public waters for this reason. Outbreeding happens simply when hybrids are stocked by themselves, but it is magnified and accelerated when they're stocked with pure-strain bluegill because they breed with the pure-strain bluegill and all the weakest genes from both parents get passed on, and very quickly you end up with a tremendous mess.

There has been a lot of discussion in recent years among fisheries biologists about the possibility of outbreeding depression even in F-1 largemouth, and that's not a hybrid in the truest sense since both parents are the same species, just different substrains. There is a lot more debate at this point about whether or not this is a serious issue, but there are some pretty high-profile biologists who feel strongly that outbreeding will occur.

Thank you sir for the information. Come to think of it I have not caught a Hybrid Redear/Bluegill mix bigger than the standard big Redear. I have caught two Redear that were a little over two pounds. The biggest Redear/Bluegill was about a pound and a quarter.




Again thanks for the information!

Excellent post and right on. Management is the key. Poor management almost always results in the blame being applied to the fish. You might recall the case of concluding that Tilapia are bad for big bluegill production based on one extremely poor management event example....the fish almost always gets blamed.

The key is to learn and recognize the programmed traits in the fish and then act accordingly. There is no such thing as a trash fish, IMO...only poor managers who place the fish in an unworkable environment.

I like red ear in the cross. The GG has it along with green sunfish and bluegill. As I mentioned, copper nose 'gills will also cross with the others and makes for an interesting fish. It is a bit strange looking, but grows out nice.

Attached is an example of the copper nose cross I accidentally created. It is an interesting fish. You can see obviously the copper nose and also the green sunfish traits and to a much lesser extent the red ear influence.

These have grown out very well...but I'm the first to admit, I don't have the skills or knowledge to produce these under controlled conditions...if I could I would sell them for sure and at a very high price, LOL.

Thank you Banker for your kind remarks...but I am not "professional", i.e. I do not offer for sale my fish related services, nor am I in any way driven by motives other than pure science. I am a scientist, actually rocket scientist by profession.

I love fish and strongly dislike those who make blanket condemnations of fish, often because of the profit motivation, and those who use them.

In my opinion, after some study, I do believe the GG is a cross between green sunfish, bluegill, and red ear using a back cross technique which to my knowledge has not been copied by others who have tried. The GG creator, although often an overzealous marketing zealot (e.g. hogzilla!!), showed me some genius in what he did with the GG's.

Few people notice but he strongly recommends the stocking of Gambusia aka mosquito fish with his GG's. Now, this isn't about mosquito control, although again the marketing gene kicks in here in the program again, but it is about providing the perfect food source for raising big sunfish.

Genius, pure genius. I have had Gambusia naturally for years in my ponds and never associated the two, i.e. Gambusia with big sunfish, until I read about the GG program. The light bulb went off and I recognized immediately why he recommends that. Big sunfish need those small minnows/bait fish to achieve maximum growth. Tilapia also works extremely well to provide a source of numerous small baitfish.

It is all about management, learning what traits the fish have programmed, and acting accordingly.

Weather you are a professional or not your knowledge is very much appreciated and very much respected.




Side Note: I have been reading up on the Peacock Bass. At one time they were supposed to be stocked in Florida waters. Don't know if they ever wore. Don't hear anything about em.

Thank you.

Yes, peacocks are now resident in the canals around Miami and Dade county. There are guides who will put you on them. I've wanted to try for them but just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Peacocks are a great fish...and if you are in Miami area, you should give it a try.

"Extremely poor management event" is simply a craven lie and the poster who wrote it knows it. The most widely-spread reason for stocking tilapia today is vegetation control; anyone who knows anything at all about fisheries science, which obviously the person making personal attacks and baseless claims in this thread does not, knows that. And I already posted in the tilapia thread a link to the website of the largest pond management company in the country where it plainly states that they recommend fifty to a hundred pounds per acre just for forage for bass - here's the link again along with the actual quote below it:

http://www.sepond.com/TIL.html

"However, a greater and more consistent impact is achieved with stocking rates from 50 to 100 pounds per acre."

The page also states that they should be stocked in late April or early May, which is exactly when I stocked them.

But most of all, it's pretty patently silly to claim that one knows more about growing big bluegill than I do, with tilapia or any other way, when that person simply doesn't have the evidence to back it up. The bluegill in the ponds I manage for trophy bluegill without tilapia, will make any bluegill pulled out of that person's ponds with tilapia look sick.

I have refuted every single baseless claim this person made with actual sources; I even refuted a couple spurious claims he made with data from his own website. And yet he pretends as though no one can read, or that hurling insults somehow trumps facts.

I'm posting below just a handful of the bigger bluegill that have come from ponds I manage just in the past fourteen months. If I'm such a poor pond manager and the dishonest person in this thread can do better, post a photo of a bluegill bigger than any one of these fish, or even as big as one of them, that has been caught from any of your ponds in the past five years.

And by the way, most of these are plain old northern-strain bluegill which the dishonest person stated on his website he had not seen reach ten inches. I have been guiding for two years now on these ponds, and have yet to take a party fishing for even a half-day when they didn't catch at least one northern-strain bluegill ten inches or better.

[img:left]bluegill-may-1-2013 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]bluegill-10-may-1-2013 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]bluegill may 13 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

coppernose-5-june-3-2013 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr

[img:left]northern-strain-june-17 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]coppernose-May-17-2014 by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

[img:left]bluegill-June-16-2014-(2) by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

Those are some healthy looking Gills "TN Pond Manager". Also thanks "Meadowlark" on the Peacock Bass information. The Peacock Bass and one of those big fat TN. pond gills is on my wish list for sure. Again thanks guys for the input.

Thanks, Banker. Five of those 'gills came from the same one-acre pond. The first two were caught the same morning within about an hour and a half of each other.

After reading some articles about the "GG" on the net and reading these post seems that it all boils down to good water body management. Fish need several main factors to grow and stay healthy. It is how we are going to take care of our water bodies that will determine how the fishing industry will be for future generations to come. Well managed water bodies will produce much better fish.

Good management isn't going to stop outbreeding depression. If you never keep a largemouth at all from the pond such that the bass become overpopulated and stunt, at which point they would eat most of the GG offspring, you still will have some GG offspring survive, and at some point the genetics will get bad enough that poisoning the pond will be required. And most pond owners make their largemouth size a priority over their bluegill size, and in a pond properly managed for trophy bass, the GGs are going to overpopulate and be well into outbreeding within a year from stocking.

Whereas if you put pure-strain coppernose into the only conditions that will slow down but not hold off outbreeding among the GGs, i.e. extremely high density of predators, and you feed them a high-protein, fishmeal-based food which is the only way to get the maximum potential out of GGs, you can grow the coppernose to three pounds or more. A regular old northern-strain bluegill that weighed three pounds was caught from a quarter-acre pond in Arizona in 2012, along with a couple others that went close to three:

http://bigbluegill.com/profiles/blogs/giant-bluegill-using-the-modica-spooning-method

http://bigbluegill.com/photo/front-view-...?context=latest

http://www.thebassbite.com/2012/06/08/3lb-bluegills/

Here is a coppernose over three pounds that came from a lake in North Carolina:

http://bigbluegill.com/photo/bruce-condello-and-3pound?xg_source=activity

Lastly, here's a thread on a pond management forum in which the guy who caught the two fish above, and is as knowledgeable about big bluegill as anyone on the planet, details his very bad experience with GGs. One of the multiple other posters in the thread who had bad experiences with these fish is the owner of the largest pond management company in Georgia - he sold the fish to some of his customers and almost lost customers because of it. There's also a link to a thread on another website in which a pond owner states that he ordered GGs and they never got as big as his regular bluegill:

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=112051&page=1

Here's a photo from the thread above of an example of outbreeding - and this is not from a mismanaged pond, but rather was one of the first generation of offspring, ten months after the initial GGs were stocked:

[img:left]outbreeding by tnpondmanager, on Flickr[/img]

These are kind of similiar,caught em out the Cibolo. [img:center][/img] [img:center][/img]

Beautiful fish.

Yep, those are hybrid bluegill, Mike.

Been getting lots of those Mike over the last couple of years. I had spoken with a Marine Biologist reference to hybrids and she stated that the Sunfish family has mixed produced a lot over the years. She stated in her opinion that the better fish would be the pure strain and not a mixed strain. Based on what I have read and researched I would have to agree with her that pure species do better when they breed between themselves. Just my two cents.


Side Note: Putting a healthy,well adjusted fish in a public water body is most important not only for the water body but for the fish as well. Again just my two cents.

Great topic. Really learning a lot about fish and water bodies in general.

WOW! Great post with some very good and interesting information. When it comes to fish stockings or raising fish I don't have much knowledge. The only stocking and research programs that I was ever aware of involved the Large Mouth Bass. I can remember when the Florida LMB was stocked in the Texas waters and it turned out to be a pretty good success. Most recently there is a stocking program in it's experimental stage that is dealing with a "Triploid Bass". This is a LMB that can not reproduced. For what I have read and heard from anglers in the know, these fish are stocked in public waters and since they will not go through the spawning process they should grow bigger. Also since they are not using any energy due to spawning they should grow faster. I have not seen any results of the studies that are taking place. I also read an article that Bass would love to see more larger fish being stocked in public waters. They want to see LMB in the 3 to 5 pound range stocked. According to the article fish in that range have a very good survival rate. The problem is that those Bass are very expensive and also take up hatchery space. Given the money that the Bass fishing business produces I have a good feeling that more big bass will be stocked.

Again good post with a lot of good information. Thanks for sharing. Oh yea. Nice fish.

I have been raising copper nose blue gill for 5 years in my two acre pond and feed them 32% protein catfish food. I have caught several over a pound and a half. They are great to eat. We have caught about 350 out this year and stocked two of my buddy's ponds. I have some bass over 11 lbs in my lake. I stock fat head minnows in the spring. I have a great population of fat heads which feed the blue gills and small bass.This year I have tons of fat head minnows all around the pond in the weed cover. We have been blessed with good rain this year. I live in southeastern Oklahoma and my pond is full. Last year at this time it was 5 feet low. Copper nose get bigger then the hybrid and grow much quicker. They are 80 percent female and spawn about 3 to 4 times a year here. You need to harvest the yearly. Late in the evening you can catch on almost ever cast. I like them better than crappie.

What does Nature do on it's own? Lets say you stocked a sizable lake with pure sunfish of many types, redears, bluegill, longears, green, etc.. Do these fish naturally cross? And what is likely to happen over a long period of time. Does the size of the lake factor in more than other conditions. For discussion purposes lets assume we can control the lake level so that drought cycles do not adversely affect our test lake but no other human intervention occurs. What would you expect to catch after 1 yr, 2 yr, 4, 8, 16 and 32 years..

If in nature where "only the strong survive" what expectations would you have if humans did nothing to this lake.

Point well made. For what I have been learning the six basic sunfish do inner breed. I have caught Redear/Bluegill mix,Longear/Redbreast mix, and Bluegill/Redbreast mix. All of these hybrids were caught in public waters such as rivers and lakes. I think these fish naturally cross breed. As for the experimental lake and water bodies in general.If not enough fish are taken out of the lake then the lake would become over crowded and the size of your sunfish would be getting small. In my opinion a well balanced water body would have a bunch of predator fish such as gar,flat heads,bass,etc. Sunfish really multiply and sometimes spawn 3 to 4 times a year depending on conditions. Nature for the most part has been doing the balancing act on it's water bodies. I guess it all boils down to not having any one type of fish over populating a water body. Again just my two cents.

This thread has me really thinking. There is always going to be pros and cons about trying to create that so called perfect fighting fish.Some of the most important things any water body has to have in order to be a good fishery are the following. (My two cents only) #1. Good quality water supply.#2.A habitat suitable for fish,such as grass beds,water depth,lots of cover,etc. #3.Good food supply.#4. A well balanced fish supply(including predator fish) that is controlled by nature and assisted by well trained wildlife biologist.#5. A balanced stocking program. The most important factor is people in general. Abuse of natural resources (water bodies included) should not be tolerated.



Side Note: Any type of stocking programs that take place in our water bodies need to be "WELL MANAGED" and our water bodies also need to be taken care of by all of us!

The state of Texas is more of an anomaly when it comes to managing the lakes because nearly all of them are man-made. Of the big Texas lakes only Caddo lake is partially natural because it existed before they built a dam to control flooding.. Nearly all the game fish in Texas reservoirs (bass & catfish primarily) were stocked initially and have established naturally reproducing populations. Much of the management effort now is in maintaining and improving the fishery by introducing different genetics into the gene pool. All the big rivers in Texas had a huge variety of species before they were dammed up to create the many lakes we enjoy today. Short-sighted programs cause great problems down the road when an introduced species takes over and crowds out natives.

You need to be very careful on what you put in a water body. Would hate to see the native fish being reduced in size or destroyed. It is good that fisheries are trying to improve the public fishing and to come up with a good all around fish. Seems to me for what I have been reading both on this forum and other sources more research is needed on the Georgia Giant. Just my opinion.





Super thread!