"This year my old Rattle Traps have been catching again in the 3",1/2 oz, and 3,5",3/4oz…"
Do you love big bluegill?
Bill Cody and Theo Gallus have a forum discussion in regards to controlling bluegill numbers.
Comment by Theo Gallus
You know, I'd like to run another BG pond someday without LMB, but with darn near every other kind of predator that will live in my climate - SMB, walleyes, HSB, and maybe YP as an in-between-predator-and-forage-base fish. I guess since I likely won't be able to swing it until I'm older, with no kids at home and retirement looming, I could figure on being able to apply lots of angling pressure to help control the BG.
Bruce, can you think of any way to selectively breed BG so as to lower fecundity?
Comment by Bruce Condello
That's never crossed my mind. How would you do it? Even if females could be bred to have half as many eggs, it would still be way more than enough to have abundant year classes every year. I suspect it would have to be accomplised on a molecular level with the DNA. Probably through pressurizing the eggs as is done with grass carp? Hmmm.
Comment by Bill Cody
Let's discuss this. Why go to all the effort to genetically develop a low fecundity BG when we have the option of using male BG for stocking into ponds where low numbers of pure strain BG are wanted. If that pond needed appropriate sized forage fish to feed some sort of 'special' predator then why not stock a species that would meet those needs. What is needed in a scenarios such as this is a good knowledge or homework of biology of species. 1./ What am I missing in this need for low fecundity BG? 2. Don't we already have the low fecundity feature in RES and HBG? 3. Are those individuals so bad compared to pure stain BG? 4. What are their negatives compared to BG in our scenario?
Comment by Bruce Condello
The point is well taken. I'd first want to list all of the ways that we can control reproduction.
1. All male bluegill ponds
2. High density predators, such as low Wr, mid-sized largemouth bass
3. Triploidy (not currently available in bluegill)
4. Angler harvest (not practical in a lot of situations)
5. Trapping
6. Seining
7. Use of a similar species, with lower reproductive potential such as redear sunfish. The foremost disadvantage to this species is the fact that it is less likely to feed train. They also don't thrive as well in cooler waters.
Any others we can think of? These would seem to be all we've got to keep bluegill numbers down so we can grow big bluegill.
Comment by Bill Cody
Additional ways to reduce or control reproduction.
8. Building the pond with very steep sides to reduce spawning sites. Limited size of spawning area for BG results in fewer nests. Fewer nests = fewer fry produced per yr. Isolated nests or low numbers of nests comprising a nesting colony results in more natural predation of eggs and fry thus reducing numbers recruited. BG nesting behavior has evolved to favor recruitment of fry that are produced from the center of the colony. It has been proven that isolated BG nests and those at the periphery of the colony are much more vulneable to nest predation. Important predators of BG eggs are other BG, crayfish, snails, and for fry YOY bass and other common small fish, predacious insect larvae, and Hydra.
9. Periodic manual destruction of nests by dragging a rake or homemade drag through the nesting area. this should be done every week esp during the height of the spawning season.
Comment by Bill Cody
One topic that hasen't been discussed or utilized much is alternative forms of BG hybrids (HBG). Typically the standard HBG is the BG green sunfish cross (BGxGSF). Since the GSF has the largest mouth of all the Lepomis species the resulting F1 HBG posess aggressiveness, a relatively large mouth and relatively rapid growth. This can be detrimental or a positive for some fish management philosophies. Other features of the standard HBG also make this fish sometimes undesirable.
Not a whole lot has been done with alternative parental crosses of the sunfishes for specialized applications. In specialized types of fisheries where a low fecundity HBG with a smaller mouth or other beneficial traits would desired then other genetic crosses of sunfish would maybe in order. An example would be a BG redear sunfish cross - BGxRES which failed to produce abundant F2 generations. Another good potential cross would be BG pumpkinseed cross which usually produces an abundance of F1 young. These fish are intermediat between a PS and BG, have a small mouth, are predominately male and colorful good growers. A reported disadvantage was its ability to reproduce in later post F1 generations. Specialized demand for "odd" hybrid BG is low thus they are primarily for the popnd boss experimenter.
To produce your own hybrid sunfish it can be done in a very small pond less than 0.1 ac.
Comment by Theo Gallus
I like this thread - just toss out an idea and watch two Lepomis geniuses (or is that genuses?) go crazy brainstorming.
To make some comments on specific entries:
1. All male bluegill ponds
-Labor AND knowledge intensive to DIY. Question: How feasible/expensive/realiable would commercial sexing of BG for male-only sales be? Need it be as expensive as triploidy testing to be 100% accurate? Overton sells sexed LMB, IIRC.
2. High density predators, such as low Wr, mid-sized largemouth bass
-Ahh, the classic approach and one that's dear to my heart. But how feasible is it and how reproducible are the results if LMB are NOT used? Recall HSB are considered a poor substitute if much structure/plant life is in pond. Will be interesting to see Bruce's Dad's results.
3. Triploidy (not currently available in bluegill)
-Is it not possible or not economically feasible?
4. Angler harvest (not practical in a lot of situations)
-especially in ponds of larger size.
5. Trapping
6. Seining
-too labor intensive in larger ponds, probably.
7. Use of a similar species, with lower reproductive potential such as redear sunfish. The foremost disadvantage to this species is the fact that it is less likely to feed train. They also don't thrive as well in cooler waters.
-Are there any Lepomis options besides RES? In addition to the drawbacks Bruce listed, many anglers have a tougher time catching RES in numbers like BG can be caught.
8. HBG, especially not GSFxBG
-Bill, I wish BGxRES were commercially available. I wonder if (and assume that) this cross would be less cold temperature sensitive than straight RES are.
9. BG Nest Disturbance:
An option that I may have seen mentioned 1-2 times before - not discussed often enough IMHO. IIRC BG will spawn in darn near any substrate material - is there any substance that could be put on potential BG nesting areas to deny them from nesting use? (doubtful).
Where possible, I prefer self-contained, true breeding populations. With the current state of the art, I believe this necessititates BG/LMB with bass stunting (preferrably with upper size bass removal to max out on small and middlin' LMB).
I cannot even foresee a way to slectively breed BG for lower fecundity, but then, that's why I asked Dr. Perca and Dr. Condello.
Comment by Bill Cody
1. "All male bluegill ponds -Labor AND knowledge intensive to DIY. Question: How feasible/expensive/realiable would commercial sexing of BG for male-only sales be? Need it be as expensive as triploidy testing to be 100% accurate? Overton sells sexed LMB, IIRC."
How many BG are you talking about Theo? Several hundred. Yes, then that could be labor intensive. But if one wants this many BG then what you need is mixed sex BG. Single sex stocking of BG is primarily for limited numbers of male BG in smaller ponds (0.25-1ac) that have an emphasis on other species. OR for use in very small ponds (0.05-0.1 ac) where one wants BG, but no spawning. If one wants numerous BG (hundreds) for a significant annual harvest then is it not practical to stock just males. The method is not for that purpose. The best practice in this situation is to stock the mixed sex BG and manage and feed them on a production crop basis. If one is harvesting 10-30% of the population each year then one needs the good annual recruitment from normal reproducing BG. Low fecundity BG in a setting like this will not meet or keep up to the demand of those harvest goals.
Too "Labor AND knowledge intensive to DIY." I'm not sure where the rationale of this statement comes into play with this topic. Since when is fishing laborious? At least not for me under normal conditions. Occassionally I considered fishing work, but that was when I was not catching anything out in a boat for hrs in the hot sun. I have never encountered fishing for BG work, at least not where I fish for BG. Now I typically only fish in high protential waters. I don't consider hauling a few male BG home in a transport tank much work because I have to return home anyway. Dipping out the fish and placing them in my pond is not a lot of extra work unless it is raining and I am tromping through mud carrying fish in buckets - rare but been there done that. So going out and catching several (5-10) male BG on each of several trips a year, I don't define as work.
"..knowledge intensive " granted it takes a little homework to master the art of acurately sexing BG, but so does mastering algerbra or passing a drivers test. I think probably where most beginners have difficulty in sexing BG is they try to sex too small of BG and they do it when BG are out of spawning season. For beginners the easiest way go gather some male BG is to get them off the nest when spawning.
" How feasible/expensive/realiable would commercial sexing of BG for male-only sales be? Need it be as expensive as triploidy testing to be 100% accurate? Overton sells sexed LMB, IIRC."
Comment - It is feasable to commercially do this but there is essentially no demand thus far for this thus no one does it. Heck very, very few hatcheries even sell BG large enough to be sex using dimorphic characters. I challenge you to go out and buy some 8" BG. I know of only one place in all of OH to even do that let alone get them sexed. The hatchery has offered me the opportunity to come pick out my own. IMO - Can't beat that. IMO Requesting only fish of one sex should double the price -due to what it take to satisfy the special request. Many people want fish for low cost because they do not realize what it takes to grow a fish.
Tomorrow -#2. Classic high density predators.
Comment by Theo Gallus
By "labor-intensive" Bill, I meant it takes time. That doesn't mean it's objectionable.
Maybe we should call it "labor of love-intensive"?
Male-only BG are indeed currently only feasible in small numbers, as you noted. But if a "Big Bluegill" enthusiast ("BBE"s) wanted them in large numbers, like for stocking 500 initially with annual replenishment for losses, removals, and morts, he'd be SOL. Now, could a bunch of BBEs create a demand that could be commercially satsfied - that's the question (OK, only one of many questions) I'm trying to answer.
I see no reason why most or all of the people who buy HBG for situations where they want low fecundity wouldn't be better served with an equal quantity of male-only BG instead, if the latter were available at a comparable cost (higher cost would be OK, but no more difference than we see between, say, the cost of LMB and SMB fingerlings).
What would a fair price be, covering production costs and time, to commercially raise BG to a size where they could be sexed with 100% certainty (assuming there was enough demand to justify)? And what if there was a way (IS there a way?) to accurately, non-destructively sex them at a smaller size - would that lower the cost per fish in volume?
One last off the wall thought - what would fish guys do with a bunch of left over females BG?
Looking forward to your discussin on #2.
-Theo
Comment by Bill Cody
Theo, Okay, I'm getting a clearer picture of what you ment to say in #1. Currently teh market for male BG would be at best a niche market. It would take quite a bit of extra "marketing" to make the philosophy known and popular among pond owners to where several hatcheries in the US made male BG available. On this topic my question is, realistically how many big BBE (big BG entheusiasts) do you think are out there that own a pond. My guess is there may be a lot of BBE but most of them do not own a pond they are anglers who do not buy hatchery fish.
Point of using male only BG vs HBG is well taken, but it think additional cost of male only vs HGB would not be very acceptable to most. Currently extra cost comes from having to raise BG to a larger usable or stocking size compared to the fingerling HBG. Some day academia may develop a feasable way to produce single sex BG.
"What would a fair price be,.." It would have to be around what the going rate is for large BG ($2.50-4.00 ea). Innovative fish farms would sell females to the food market. Let's take a moment and look at this price of adult male BG a little closer.
If we had a "fish ranch" and were selling BG, we could probably raise 35,000 fingerlings per acre where ave fingerling was 25mm (1.0") and 10 g (0.022lb). With fertilization / feeding should be able to raise 800 lbs per acre thus 35000. We can sell them retail $0.60 ea x 35000 = $21,000/yr. Now if we raise regular BG (not Condello strain) to the large size of 8" it will probably take 3 yrs. We can MAYBE raise 2000 lbs of these (7.4 oz fish) per ac which is abt 4000 adult BG. Typically half will be male = 2000 males x $4.00 ea retail = $8000. Females will wholesale at maybe $1.00 ea food market. $2,000 females + $8000 males = $10,000.00. Question is who will take $10,000 if $21,000 is also available?
Comment by Bill Cody
I need to edit my post above and cannot figure out how to do it. thus this addition. In my fish cost production example above, I forgot to include the cost factor of having to raise these large BG for 3 yrs instead of the one yr to produce the 1" fish. For exaggeration lets say we produced the 8" BG in 2 yrs. If we then divide our gross $8,000 of raising large BG by 2 yrs then the gross becomes just $4,000 vs a gross of $21,000. WOW. Who will raise large male BG vs 1" fingerlings? The difference in gross income becomes even greater if we were able to raise 1,200 pounds/ac of fingerling 1" BG instead the 800 lbs per ac.
Comment by Theo Gallus
"On this topic my question is, realistically how many big BBE (big BG entheusiasts) do you think are out there that own a pond. My guess is there may be a lot of BBE but most of them do not own a pond they are anglers who do not buy hatchery fish."
Point taken, I'm so dam proud of my 1 acre hammer, I forget that every problem isn't a nail.
Comment by Theo Gallus
I think they'd have to be (somehow, as yet undeveloped) sexed at an early age. Then you could market them for a slight premium over HBG or unsexed BG, and you'd only have to cover your sexing costs. Production costs would be the same as selling other fingerlings.
Maybe the big bass boys would get the "female-enhanced" leftovers, sold has "hyper-spawning super forage BG". That sounds like a bad Japanese translation, doesn't it
You know, I'd like to run another BG pond someday without LMB, but with darn near every other kind of predator that will live in my climate - SMB, walleyes, HSB, and maybe YP as an in-between-predator-and-forage-base fish. I guess since I likely won't be able to swing it until I'm older, with no kids at home and retirement looming, I could figure on being able to apply lots of angling pressure to help control the BG.
Bruce, can you think of any way to selectively breed BG so as to lower fecundity?
Comment by Bruce Condello
That's never crossed my mind. How would you do it? Even if females could be bred to have half as many eggs, it would still be way more than enough to have abundant year classes every year. I suspect it would have to be accomplised on a molecular level with the DNA. Probably through pressurizing the eggs as is done with grass carp? Hmmm.
Comment by Bill Cody
Let's discuss this. Why go to all the effort to genetically develop a low fecundity BG when we have the option of using male BG for stocking into ponds where low numbers of pure strain BG are wanted. If that pond needed appropriate sized forage fish to feed some sort of 'special' predator then why not stock a species that would meet those needs. What is needed in a scenarios such as this is a good knowledge or homework of biology of species. 1./ What am I missing in this need for low fecundity BG? 2. Don't we already have the low fecundity feature in RES and HBG? 3. Are those individuals so bad compared to pure stain BG? 4. What are their negatives compared to BG in our scenario?
Comment by Bruce Condello
The point is well taken. I'd first want to list all of the ways that we can control reproduction.
1. All male bluegill ponds
2. High density predators, such as low Wr, mid-sized largemouth bass
3. Triploidy (not currently available in bluegill)
4. Angler harvest (not practical in a lot of situations)
5. Trapping
6. Seining
7. Use of a similar species, with lower reproductive potential such as redear sunfish. The foremost disadvantage to this species is the fact that it is less likely to feed train. They also don't thrive as well in cooler waters.
Any others we can think of? These would seem to be all we've got to keep bluegill numbers down so we can grow big bluegill.
Comment by Bill Cody
Additional ways to reduce or control reproduction.
8. Building the pond with very steep sides to reduce spawning sites. Limited size of spawning area for BG results in fewer nests. Fewer nests = fewer fry produced per yr. Isolated nests or low numbers of nests comprising a nesting colony results in more natural predation of eggs and fry thus reducing numbers recruited. BG nesting behavior has evolved to favor recruitment of fry that are produced from the center of the colony. It has been proven that isolated BG nests and those at the periphery of the colony are much more vulneable to nest predation. Important predators of BG eggs are other BG, crayfish, snails, and for fry YOY bass and other common small fish, predacious insect larvae, and Hydra.
9. Periodic manual destruction of nests by dragging a rake or homemade drag through the nesting area. this should be done every week esp during the height of the spawning season.
Comment by Bill Cody
One topic that hasen't been discussed or utilized much is alternative forms of BG hybrids (HBG). Typically the standard HBG is the BG green sunfish cross (BGxGSF). Since the GSF has the largest mouth of all the Lepomis species the resulting F1 HBG posess aggressiveness, a relatively large mouth and relatively rapid growth. This can be detrimental or a positive for some fish management philosophies. Other features of the standard HBG also make this fish sometimes undesirable.
Not a whole lot has been done with alternative parental crosses of the sunfishes for specialized applications. In specialized types of fisheries where a low fecundity HBG with a smaller mouth or other beneficial traits would desired then other genetic crosses of sunfish would maybe in order. An example would be a BG redear sunfish cross - BGxRES which failed to produce abundant F2 generations. Another good potential cross would be BG pumpkinseed cross which usually produces an abundance of F1 young. These fish are intermediat between a PS and BG, have a small mouth, are predominately male and colorful good growers. A reported disadvantage was its ability to reproduce in later post F1 generations. Specialized demand for "odd" hybrid BG is low thus they are primarily for the popnd boss experimenter.
To produce your own hybrid sunfish it can be done in a very small pond less than 0.1 ac.
Comment by Theo Gallus
I like this thread - just toss out an idea and watch two Lepomis geniuses (or is that genuses?) go crazy brainstorming.
To make some comments on specific entries:
1. All male bluegill ponds
-Labor AND knowledge intensive to DIY. Question: How feasible/expensive/realiable would commercial sexing of BG for male-only sales be? Need it be as expensive as triploidy testing to be 100% accurate? Overton sells sexed LMB, IIRC.
2. High density predators, such as low Wr, mid-sized largemouth bass
-Ahh, the classic approach and one that's dear to my heart. But how feasible is it and how reproducible are the results if LMB are NOT used? Recall HSB are considered a poor substitute if much structure/plant life is in pond. Will be interesting to see Bruce's Dad's results.
3. Triploidy (not currently available in bluegill)
-Is it not possible or not economically feasible?
4. Angler harvest (not practical in a lot of situations)
-especially in ponds of larger size.
5. Trapping
6. Seining
-too labor intensive in larger ponds, probably.
7. Use of a similar species, with lower reproductive potential such as redear sunfish. The foremost disadvantage to this species is the fact that it is less likely to feed train. They also don't thrive as well in cooler waters.
-Are there any Lepomis options besides RES? In addition to the drawbacks Bruce listed, many anglers have a tougher time catching RES in numbers like BG can be caught.
8. HBG, especially not GSFxBG
-Bill, I wish BGxRES were commercially available. I wonder if (and assume that) this cross would be less cold temperature sensitive than straight RES are.
9. BG Nest Disturbance:
An option that I may have seen mentioned 1-2 times before - not discussed often enough IMHO. IIRC BG will spawn in darn near any substrate material - is there any substance that could be put on potential BG nesting areas to deny them from nesting use? (doubtful).
Where possible, I prefer self-contained, true breeding populations. With the current state of the art, I believe this necessititates BG/LMB with bass stunting (preferrably with upper size bass removal to max out on small and middlin' LMB).
I cannot even foresee a way to slectively breed BG for lower fecundity, but then, that's why I asked Dr. Perca and Dr. Condello.
Comment by Bill Cody
1. "All male bluegill ponds -Labor AND knowledge intensive to DIY. Question: How feasible/expensive/realiable would commercial sexing of BG for male-only sales be? Need it be as expensive as triploidy testing to be 100% accurate? Overton sells sexed LMB, IIRC."
How many BG are you talking about Theo? Several hundred. Yes, then that could be labor intensive. But if one wants this many BG then what you need is mixed sex BG. Single sex stocking of BG is primarily for limited numbers of male BG in smaller ponds (0.25-1ac) that have an emphasis on other species. OR for use in very small ponds (0.05-0.1 ac) where one wants BG, but no spawning. If one wants numerous BG (hundreds) for a significant annual harvest then is it not practical to stock just males. The method is not for that purpose. The best practice in this situation is to stock the mixed sex BG and manage and feed them on a production crop basis. If one is harvesting 10-30% of the population each year then one needs the good annual recruitment from normal reproducing BG. Low fecundity BG in a setting like this will not meet or keep up to the demand of those harvest goals.
Too "Labor AND knowledge intensive to DIY." I'm not sure where the rationale of this statement comes into play with this topic. Since when is fishing laborious? At least not for me under normal conditions. Occassionally I considered fishing work, but that was when I was not catching anything out in a boat for hrs in the hot sun. I have never encountered fishing for BG work, at least not where I fish for BG. Now I typically only fish in high protential waters. I don't consider hauling a few male BG home in a transport tank much work because I have to return home anyway. Dipping out the fish and placing them in my pond is not a lot of extra work unless it is raining and I am tromping through mud carrying fish in buckets - rare but been there done that. So going out and catching several (5-10) male BG on each of several trips a year, I don't define as work.
"..knowledge intensive " granted it takes a little homework to master the art of acurately sexing BG, but so does mastering algerbra or passing a drivers test. I think probably where most beginners have difficulty in sexing BG is they try to sex too small of BG and they do it when BG are out of spawning season. For beginners the easiest way go gather some male BG is to get them off the nest when spawning.
" How feasible/expensive/realiable would commercial sexing of BG for male-only sales be? Need it be as expensive as triploidy testing to be 100% accurate? Overton sells sexed LMB, IIRC."
Comment - It is feasable to commercially do this but there is essentially no demand thus far for this thus no one does it. Heck very, very few hatcheries even sell BG large enough to be sex using dimorphic characters. I challenge you to go out and buy some 8" BG. I know of only one place in all of OH to even do that let alone get them sexed. The hatchery has offered me the opportunity to come pick out my own. IMO - Can't beat that. IMO Requesting only fish of one sex should double the price -due to what it take to satisfy the special request. Many people want fish for low cost because they do not realize what it takes to grow a fish.
Tomorrow -#2. Classic high density predators.
Comment by Theo Gallus
By "labor-intensive" Bill, I meant it takes time. That doesn't mean it's objectionable.
Maybe we should call it "labor of love-intensive"?
Male-only BG are indeed currently only feasible in small numbers, as you noted. But if a "Big Bluegill" enthusiast ("BBE"s) wanted them in large numbers, like for stocking 500 initially with annual replenishment for losses, removals, and morts, he'd be SOL. Now, could a bunch of BBEs create a demand that could be commercially satsfied - that's the question (OK, only one of many questions) I'm trying to answer.
I see no reason why most or all of the people who buy HBG for situations where they want low fecundity wouldn't be better served with an equal quantity of male-only BG instead, if the latter were available at a comparable cost (higher cost would be OK, but no more difference than we see between, say, the cost of LMB and SMB fingerlings).
What would a fair price be, covering production costs and time, to commercially raise BG to a size where they could be sexed with 100% certainty (assuming there was enough demand to justify)? And what if there was a way (IS there a way?) to accurately, non-destructively sex them at a smaller size - would that lower the cost per fish in volume?
One last off the wall thought - what would fish guys do with a bunch of left over females BG?
Looking forward to your discussin on #2.
-Theo
Comment by Bill Cody
Theo, Okay, I'm getting a clearer picture of what you ment to say in #1. Currently teh market for male BG would be at best a niche market. It would take quite a bit of extra "marketing" to make the philosophy known and popular among pond owners to where several hatcheries in the US made male BG available. On this topic my question is, realistically how many big BBE (big BG entheusiasts) do you think are out there that own a pond. My guess is there may be a lot of BBE but most of them do not own a pond they are anglers who do not buy hatchery fish.
Point of using male only BG vs HBG is well taken, but it think additional cost of male only vs HGB would not be very acceptable to most. Currently extra cost comes from having to raise BG to a larger usable or stocking size compared to the fingerling HBG. Some day academia may develop a feasable way to produce single sex BG.
"What would a fair price be,.." It would have to be around what the going rate is for large BG ($2.50-4.00 ea). Innovative fish farms would sell females to the food market. Let's take a moment and look at this price of adult male BG a little closer.
If we had a "fish ranch" and were selling BG, we could probably raise 35,000 fingerlings per acre where ave fingerling was 25mm (1.0") and 10 g (0.022lb). With fertilization / feeding should be able to raise 800 lbs per acre thus 35000. We can sell them retail $0.60 ea x 35000 = $21,000/yr. Now if we raise regular BG (not Condello strain) to the large size of 8" it will probably take 3 yrs. We can MAYBE raise 2000 lbs of these (7.4 oz fish) per ac which is abt 4000 adult BG. Typically half will be male = 2000 males x $4.00 ea retail = $8000. Females will wholesale at maybe $1.00 ea food market. $2,000 females + $8000 males = $10,000.00. Question is who will take $10,000 if $21,000 is also available?
Comment by Bill Cody
I need to edit my post above and cannot figure out how to do it. thus this addition. In my fish cost production example above, I forgot to include the cost factor of having to raise these large BG for 3 yrs instead of the one yr to produce the 1" fish. For exaggeration lets say we produced the 8" BG in 2 yrs. If we then divide our gross $8,000 of raising large BG by 2 yrs then the gross becomes just $4,000 vs a gross of $21,000. WOW. Who will raise large male BG vs 1" fingerlings? The difference in gross income becomes even greater if we were able to raise 1,200 pounds/ac of fingerling 1" BG instead the 800 lbs per ac.
Comment by Theo Gallus
"On this topic my question is, realistically how many big BBE (big BG entheusiasts) do you think are out there that own a pond. My guess is there may be a lot of BBE but most of them do not own a pond they are anglers who do not buy hatchery fish."
Point taken, I'm so dam proud of my 1 acre hammer, I forget that every problem isn't a nail.
Comment by Theo Gallus
I think they'd have to be (somehow, as yet undeveloped) sexed at an early age. Then you could market them for a slight premium over HBG or unsexed BG, and you'd only have to cover your sexing costs. Production costs would be the same as selling other fingerlings.
Maybe the big bass boys would get the "female-enhanced" leftovers, sold has "hyper-spawning super forage BG". That sounds like a bad Japanese translation, doesn't it
Views: 205
Comment
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Comment by Theo Gallus on March 27, 2008 at 8:35am
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Mike:
How long has the WE-CC-BG-Crappie project been going on?
Bruce:
I am looking forward to your next BLOG post :"Mike Penrose comments on Bill Cody and Theo Gallus having a forum discussion in regards to controlling bluegill numbers."
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Comment by Mike Penrose on March 27, 2008 at 7:57am
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I have been using Walleye as well as Channel Catfish to control BG numbers in my pond and to keep the Crappie in check. So far, I believe it has been very successful because there are very low numbers of smaller or stunted BG and some of the Walleye are approaching the 5-pound mark.
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So see, Bruce - a BG with lower fecundity could be useful for management by non-LMB predation.
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Comment by Bill Cody on March 25, 2008 at 7:52pm
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Darn I cannot edit my posts. To clarify the sentence above - "In these cases I think a couple other indirect factors other than predation of BG contributed to population control." It should have read: In these cases I think a couple other indirect factors IN ADDITION to predation of BG contributed to population control.
Tomorrow. Nos 3 & 4.
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No. 2. High density predators, such as low Wr, mid-sized largemouth bass
-Ahh, the classic approach and one that's dear to my heart. But how feasible is it and how reproducible are the results if LMB are NOT used? Recall HSB are considered a poor substitute if much structure/plant life is in pond. Will be interesting to see Bruce's Dad's results.
Theo asks: “But how feasible is it and how reproducible are the results if LMB are NOT used?”
Comment.
The LMB is nature’s best evolutionary freshwater design for control of the BG and fish of similar body shap. IMO and in general, the further one deviates from the "ideal" design the more numbers of predators it takes to get the job done. For example if you decide to use SMB to control BG then the numbers of SMB to get the job done will have to be greater than if one used LMB. If you decided to use hybrid striped bass (HSB) to control BG (I think they are less able to control the BG than SMB) then you would need more of the HSB than SMB to control the BG.
I have experienced several ponds where catfish were able to keep BG densities in check. In these cases I think a couple other indirect factors other than predation of BG contributed to population control. One factor was increased amounts of suspended silt from catfish bottom activity caused lower hatch rates of BG eggs. Reseach has proven that BG hatching success is always lower in turbid ponds.
At the extreme end of the spectrum of controlling BG, is the situation where BG in very high numbers will control or limit themselves. Once BG densities reach a certain point, then stunting, nest robbing, and several other features occur to cause self-regulation of the population.
Now, how feasible, reproducible or dependable are these other predatory methods to control BG are not well worked out or researched because the LMB has typically been used to do the job because it is the best “man for the job”. So when using these other predators to control BG one is basically experimenting with new methods that have not been popularized and well studied.
I am not sure why one would not prefer the LMB for BG control. It is the well designed and evolved expert. As in my case and probably Dr. Bruces case after catching loads of LMB, it becomes commonplace or humdrum. Then we seek diversity in the fish we raise. Thus Bruce's desire to experiment with the SMB for BG cocntrol. But IMO, one must not ever forget it is the best "machine for the job". I have more info and opinions coming regarding SMB and BG control which I will post in the appropriate topic. Stay tuned.
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