hand-painted brood stock

Comment

Comment by Walt Foreman on November 8, 2015 at 7:43am

You're right, Jeff, they're really something special during the spawn!  I need to get some photos of them next May for sure.  I didn't want to bother them this year because I wanted to make sure they had a good spawn and they did.

Comment by Jeff Soto on November 7, 2015 at 11:49pm

Love the look of the males when they get their red spawning colors!  Red Bluegill with black splotches.. cool!

Comment by Walt Foreman on November 7, 2015 at 9:46am

Torey, they should retain their coloring just as coppernose, as long as they're pure-strain, retain theirs.  I'll also be selecting for the fish that have the most vivid coloration along with the fastest growth. 

Tony, that's an interesting characteristic of these fish: even though the females, like other bluegill strains, are not as colorful as the males, they do still sometimes have the black spotches on them when they're mature.  The first time I went down to the panhandle to get some, I caught a female that had the more olive-yellow overall coloration, but still had the splotches - pretty neat.

I don't have any photos of females at the moment.  I won't be dealing with the brood stock anymore until next spring but when I do I'll try to get a photo of one.

Comment by Tony Livingston on November 7, 2015 at 8:50am

Walt, do you have any photos of a confirmed female hand painted that you could post? Was curious about the coloration of the girls.

Comment by Snakebite on November 7, 2015 at 8:19am

Looks like great brood stock Walt, will be interesting seeing of the young retain the hand painting traits. Keep me updated.

Comment by Walt Foreman on November 6, 2015 at 9:37pm

Thanks, Tony, much appreciated!

Carl, there is basically no literature available on these fish.  When I decided to raise them, the only info I had was a brief mention made of them in old article from twenty years or so ago by one of the former owners of American Sportfish, who stated that they had briefly raised them years ago and found that they had a very good growth rate comparable to coppernose, but that they had just decided to focus on coppernose.  Subsequent to that, I spoke with a biologist with the Florida Wildlife Commission who works in the panhandle where the Apalachicola River is located, and she said that they have sampled some 12" hand-painteds when they electrofished the Apalachicola.  I have seen a handful in the two-pound range mounted in bait shops and country stores in the panhandle when I was down there on trips to get brood stock.  But that's about the extent of data I had on them until my hatchery pond had its first spawn this past spring. 

I haven't gotten any data of any use from the cow-pasture pond I mentioned in a post below because I didn't know they had survived in there until a year or so after I had planted them, and I never seined it until they had been in there two years, and they're overpopulated in that pond and haven't been fed much so they only average 5-6".  But in the hatchery pond they're growing at a rate I've never seen, even with coppernose.  I fed them in that pond six days a week from when I first saw fry back the end of May, up through a couple weeks ago when we seined it, first with a crumble, then with 1.5mm pellets, then with 2.5mm. 

So the short answer to your question of how big they will grow is, I don't know yet...I have seen photos of three-pound coppernose, and since some of these hand-painteds are growing faster than any coppernose I have seen or heard of, I expect them to meet or exceed that.  If they do grow that fast, they should be mature by age one.  I sell fingerlings for $.50 each.

Feel free to have your friend with the pond contact me if he wants - I'd be more than happy to stock the pond for him, and I can also design a management plan at the same time.

Comment by Tony Livingston on November 6, 2015 at 9:03pm

Very cool. Nice going Walt.

Comment by carl hendrix on November 6, 2015 at 7:20pm

they look great Walt;; ok;; question-- how big do they grow ?  how long till full maturity ?  how expensive are they ??   I have a buddy in mid Alabama; who has just started building a pond; wanting to grow blue gill;; and wants huge gills !  what advise can you give ?

Comment by Walt Foreman on November 6, 2015 at 7:05pm

That's a very pertinent question, Jeff.  Thankfully, they do great with our winters; I've already had them survive two Tennessee winters.  About half of the brood stock in this pond was planted in it October of 2014, so they have made it through one of the harshest winters we have had in many years.  There's a 1/4-acre pond in a cow pasture that a buddy of mine owns that I put three hand-painteds into in June 2013, and that pond is now filled with them (it had nothing but fathead minnows before the hand-painteds).  So they have survived two harsh winters in that pond, and it's only a few feet deep at its deepest point.  The pond that the fish above came from has an eight-foot-deep area near the dam of probably 1/4 acre, and the rest of the pond is from one to four feet deep.

Comment by Jeffrey D. Abney on November 6, 2015 at 6:19pm

Very nice Walt......based on where these fish are native to......Do you have any concerns about the winter/mortality? Continued success at the hatchery!