anybody have any luck raising big bluegill in their pond?

Contact Devon Weatherford at Bluegill Lakes for hints.

Devon is the master at raising huge hybrid bluegills in his ponds. A one pound fish is just average for him.

Guess it depends on your definition of "luck" and "big".


Here's a coppernose in full spawning regalia looking for some action



Here's a coppernose just looking for a meal:



And last but not least, you mentioned hybrid bluegills and just happen to have a few of those:

Meadowlark,

Great looking Male Coopernose. I rarely see them over 10 inches. Great to see such a beautiful fish.

I know all the hard work you have done to raise such beautiful fish. However, when you love it, it does not seem like work.

Ive fished there before. Those Gills are huge. They were a hoot on a fly rod.

Saw my first Coppernose over 30 hyears ago on a truck that had just come from Florida. I was getting minnows or something, worked then at D&B in Crockett (place long gone now, even the ponds were filled in to make more grass for cows....future of aquaculture in Texas) I got on top the big truck and looked in one of the vats. Biggest bluegills I'd ever seen, and of course HAD to have some of them. Guy on the truck said, "I dunno, they are kinda expensive..." How much I ask, he tells me $5 each. Said I'd take 100 of 'em, he sold me two dozen.

Anyhow, I like that fish, but....I've found the coppernose to be somehwt less fecund than the native bluegills. An intergrade between the two through crossbreeding and back breeding gives a bluegill with the appearance of both, the fecundity of the native and the larger size of the coppernose. Remembering a cross between a native bluegill and a coppernose bluegill is not a hybrid, they are the same species.

Most of the hybrids nowadays use a coppernose male and a "golden green" (strain from E. Texas) albino green sunfish female.

I've got my own "strain" of 'gills. I'd call it a hybrid because it comes from a double back cross, i.e. a green x red ear x back crossed to native blue gill) x back crossed to a coppernose bluegill.

I had them in one small pond and lost most to the drought...but am hoping I still have a few survivors. One super aggressive, fast growing, and somewhat odd looking fish.

How is a golden Green different than a green sunfish?

Do you like the nowdays hybrid sunfish for forage in lakes designed to grow big bass?

Thanks for all the great information you post. You have a wealth of knowledge?

The "golden green" sunfish is just an albino form of the green sunfish. They are popular to use in making hybrids because it is really easy to spot them and remove them for use in another pond. None of the "golden" characteristic is passed on to the hybrid offspring.

I don't care for hybrid sunfish as a general rule for bass forage. They usually have an inhibited reproductive capability, especially if F1 hybrids. In some ways they can compete with bass in a pond for some of the same food items.

Now if an addition to a bass bluegill pond that includes regular feeding of fish food pellets, they can make a nice fun fish to catch and do not compete much with the bass in the pond.

Caught a two pound bluegill on a seven inch powerworm in a lake I manage for trophy bass be amazed what they can get in there little mouths. It obviously didn't have whole worm in it mouth just struck the head of its prey just hapned to be hook. Caught a big copper nose at ivie on a weightless fluke fishing for bass. They are deffinatly preditors.