"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!