What are avearge growth rates for gills. Should we be keeping all the tiny ones now?

[Jeremy R. Mayo]

Bedding season has started. Ive been fishing some backwaters and tearin the gills up. They are tiny tiny fish so I decided to keep all of them and use them for bait for catfish later on in the year. I throw back all the bigger ones. What im asking is shouldnt these fish be bigger than 4"s being that here in my local waters fish tend to come off the spawn in late july when the water temps surge to the upper 80s and the fish move from the shallows back to the deeper waters. I want to improve my fisheries at the same time I dont wanna take away potential large gills either. What are the growth rates normally for gills.

[Jeremy R. Mayo]

This is along the lines of what im talking about. These fish should be reaching the verge of maturity. Im takin out all the lil guys I can and throwin back the lil better than average and better rite now. Ive chose to fish a creek that so many people say there aint no fish in. I can run almost a month on a tank of gas fishing 2 to 3 days a week so its not only cheap but its a perfect opp. to snicker when they say it cause Im catching fish. I will admit im not pulling 100 count stringers like im used to but at the same time this really is an extremely hard creek to fish. I consider a good day with 2 people at 30 plus gills of any size a good day. Ive been fishing it hard for close to 6 months now and Ive bout got it figured out. I will admit I am using the best resources around. I sit at the dock and drink coffee every morning with the old guys listening to there lies and making the best outa what could be a true story. They say 40 I think 15. I must be doin something rite cause everybody at the dock says that boy can fish. Everyone gathers round the boat like ima supper star when I pull into the launch to see the catch for the day. If they only knew the about the biggins I threw back. Ive learned to keep my mouth shut about exact details on where I catch em cause Ive had a few people just go and pile up in my holes 2 3 days strait allday and it takes weeks to get em back rite. I just give people a general vacinity now and let them learn on there on. I did this experiment in a few holes last year and though it took months It did work. I was way back in the back waters where you could sit all day and never see a soul. Now Im gonna have to be a lil tricky about when and where I catch. There is only a few boats out durring the week so I will do my weekday fishing here and my weekend fishing out in my backwaters.

Take a kid fishing

MAYO

[chris garton]

next time take a camera!!!!!

[Jeremy R. Mayo]

MINES BROKE! We were catching some awsome gills and crappie sunday and I told my ole lady Take a picture! Wheres the camera. She replied with a lil attitude. Its in my purse. I say well wheres your purse? And she says with a lil hiss behind it..... In the truck remember.. You said you was tired of haulin around junk in the boat that we didnt need! What you gonna do with a purse on a boat out in the middle of the creek derrrrrr! This has happened more than once.

They have a new waterproof phone out and I think that it will be my next investment when our contract is up for renew. Buddy of mine has dropped his outta his shirt pocket 2wice already in the water and noooo damage!

[Rock]

Yep I tell people that I was fishing a golf course pond close to where they live, That way they won't be crowding me
Rock

[Eric White]

I figure let the bigger fish go, they might have a better chance to dominate a spawning bed. I did tag a gill in one of the spots i fish regularly and i caught it 3 times in 3 years, it went from 4 inches to 7 3/4 in 3 years. i will have to see if i catch it this year.

[Jeremy R. Mayo]

Where do you get tags to tag the fish. I would love to start tagging some of the fish I catch so I could chart there growth and location changes by seasons if I was lucky enough to catch a fish I tagged again!

[Rock]

Define tiny, we are on a 25' center consol Mako with twin 150's

[Jeremy R. Mayo]

Now thats tiny! Should we be keepin these rite now? If this fish was caught in the past couple of weeks shouldnt he be at least 5" or better? Could his size be because of overpop. or bad genes?

[gillbum]

gillbum here,

I think growth rates normally depend on water quality, availability of forage, ratio of game (predator) fish to forage (bluegills) and fishing pressure. Also what part of the country you are from. There is no set growth rate. I'm not a fisheries biologist, but I've travelled with quite a few and there is probably a couple fisheries guys on this website that might better answer that question. I remember belonging to a fishing club many moons ago. We owned a private lake and seems I heard a biologist say that a good ratio for a warm water lake or pond when stocking bass & bluegills in new waters was about 26 gills per every bass stocked or something like that. I don't know exactlly what a perfect balance is in the predator prey relationship, but in 60-plus years of fishing I do know that the better fishing for both species is when it is in balance. I mean when you have big healthy bass you have big healthy bluegills and vice-versa.

gb

[Nathanael Deloach]

Predator to forage is a big one because over population can stunt bluegills growth. But GB is right there is no set growth rate for bluegills as a whole. One big factor for bluegills as well as most fish, is the amount of time they are in ideal growing conditions. By this I mean what kind of forage is available to them and just as important is how long they are in the ideal water temperature. All this will very from lake to lake and state to state. I know the gills in general take at least 4 years in the Minnesota lakes to reach about the same size as a 2 year old North Carolina Bluegill.
Basically you have to take it lake by lake because each lake are there own eco-system. I would think that keeping small ones would be beneficial if you have an over population problem. Maybe you should find out how important they are as a forage for other fish in the lakes you fish?

[Bruce Condello]

Nice post, Nathanael.