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Comment by Jeff Soto on February 5, 2013 at 1:19pm

It's like the old Bradbury science fiction story, where wealthy hunters pay an enormous amount of money to go back in time to hunt and kill the largest game of all, a dinosaur.  Ha!

Comment by David, aka, "McScruff" on February 5, 2013 at 12:08pm

Im with you, Lee. This is why Im always interested in hearing about places like RM. Will I ever go there? Probably not. But the 'why's' and 'how to's' of the such places fascinate me.

I personally feel that each place one fishes probably holds more quality fish than you know. It takes familiarity as much as skill to ferret ehm out. I suspect we would all do better if we got to know our local waters as we might if we owned RM.

Comment by Lee on February 5, 2013 at 10:38am

 Great looking Bluegill and a very interesting conversation going on here. Over the past several years I have done alot of volunteer work for the FWC on several fish management areas and remote forest lakes. The most interesting thing I've found is that a managed lake that has a high amount of fishing pressure is an extremely hard lake to catch fish on but the ones you do catch are well worth it. The unmanaged remote lakes with little pressure are much easier to catch fish on but the quality of fish is much lower overall.

 So in my opinion anyone who catch's a really nice fish no matter where it's caught has done something special.

Comment by Tony Livingston on February 5, 2013 at 10:26am

I think it must be similar to having mountain climbing as one's hobby. No matter how serious you take it, or even if it's just a casual undertaking, you've always got Everest somewhere in the back of your mind, beckoning "come hither"......

I look at RM the same way. It's one of those things I would like to do, just to say I did it once. If you're into tennis, it's Wimbledon, or a handful of other high end venues....if you're a BG angler, it's Richmond Mill, or lake Barrett, or Havasu....

To be sure it is a lot of money.To my family at least. And because of that I don't know if I will ever make it there. But I'm always going to hope that I do.....because I am a BG fisherman, and a devotee of really large specimens.

And I hear the call.........."come hither"..............

Comment by DAVID L EITUTIS on February 5, 2013 at 10:21am

JEFFREY AND WALT, GREAT COMMENTS and eloquent to be sure.......I may just be changing my perspective on the Mill. 120 acres is alot bigger than any barrel I ever saw!!  I"m pretty sure that any gill that achieves 2 lb. status is not stupid, there has to be predators there just as on any body of water. My own personal goal is not to catch a 2 lb. gill or red ear. NOPE !!!!!!! It's very simple : to fish with the absolute best fisherman I can find and see how they do things different than me. SImple goal really . FOr me it's about the learning experience , WE CAN ALL LEARN , when ya think you are the best at anything , Usually a kid will come up to ya with little or no experience and show ya a whopper of a gill and say , WHAT YA THINK MR.?!!!! Had that happen to me a few times and it is humbling and rewarding at the same time. 
  Case in point: JACOB HILL, THIS YOUNG MAN ASTOUNDS ME WITH his logic and wisdom for his age. I personally believe he is a gifted angler and only lives 60 miles or so from me. It would truely be a honor to me and pick this kids brain and see what goes on there..........

Comment by dick tabbert on February 5, 2013 at 10:20am

Thanks Walt all good stuff and hoping I can use some of your info in my pond management.

Comment by DAVID L EITUTIS on February 5, 2013 at 10:01am

Wow haven't seen a discussion on here like this one in a long time, GGGGGGGGGGREAT! I just gotta add a few things. No matter were the fish came from it's still a huge gill in aaaaaaaanyones book and a great example of the species !!!! I guess we some of us are all selfish or guilty of using were a gill or red ear was caught as an excuse , not to go there. I WOULD WITH OUT A DOUBT LOVE TO FISH RICHMOND MILLS , but just to danged expensive for me. Could I afford it , yup . That's not the point. For my money I'll pick my battles , so to speak , with the gills and red ears . I guess what would really make me happiest is the look of a child when he has his first 8-9" gill on the line and just happens to be using a bait or rod I made. Most times the child just says THANKS MISTER, and of course has a grin from ear to ear. THAT TO ME IS WORTH MORE THAN ANY JOY A 2 LB. OR BETTER CAN GIVE ME. 

   YUP I"m a selfish as the next guy when it comes to catching a personal best, but it's not the only thing or goal in life for me. TO BE SURE a day of catching a bunch of RRRRRRRRREALLY BIG UNS AT THE MILL would be worthy of note. Guided or unguided makes no difference. Ya know when you want advice on a medical problem you go see a Doctor, Mechanic for your car, Rod builder for a custom rod you can't make yourself. Guides serve a function of years of experience on a particular body of water, INVALUABLE !!!!!!!!

  ANY WAY YA SLICE THE PIE FOLKS THIS IS A GILL TO BE PROUD OF AND ROBBIE, GREAT SHOT AND DISCUSSION ..........

Comment by Walt Foreman on February 5, 2013 at 10:01am

I thought of a more succinct analogy. I'm not a wine aficionado, but I know that people who are, treasure certain vintages because they have a rare flavor and quality; those vintages were all created through significant human manipulation, yet no one thinks about the fertilizer when they're drinking the wine, because it's the rareness of the quality of the wine that makes it special. When I was a kid, I grew an unusually large vegetable - I don't even remember what kind - that won a ribbon at the county fair. To me, a giant bluegill grown on pellets is like that vegetable; it's something you would not normally see, and it doesn't lose anything - maybe even gains something - by virtue of having been achieved in part by human intervention.

Even more succinct: watching a two-pound bluegill slurp a pellet off the surface of a pond, does not make one think of barrels.

Comment by Jeffrey D. Abney on February 5, 2013 at 9:55am

I have hundreds of acres of productive water within 50 miles of my residence and there is a land owner just six miles from me that has yet to allow me to fish his private lakes for crappie and gills......He is very aware that I would greatly appreciate the opportunity but he is upholding a comittment he made to his family. He is a man armed with the knowledge that "every" bluegill fisherman keeps "every" fish they catch, thus he is out to protect his years of work bringing these particular lakes to what they are today. We often believe that every person is motivated by money, but not so in this case, or at least I haven't found his price yet! I would just love the opportunity to challenge myself in a new body of water equipped with the knowledge that big bluegill are present. I'm aware of records but that's not the sole motivation for me, it's the enjoyment of fishing and catching bluegill, and that can be a 2 pound wild caught gill or a pond/lake managed gill and I would be just as happy.....It's great that places like this exist and it's good to see the Bluegill get some needed publicity for all it offers a potential angler....It also motivates me in the fact that I reside in a state where this is possible....and that's a good thing!

Comment by Walt Foreman on February 5, 2013 at 9:35am

(cont.) The only way to catch a bluegill that has never benefited in any way from human intervention in its growth process, would be to fish a natural lake that had never been stocked or regulated or impacted by run-off from land manipulated by humans, and even then, unless you discount the greenhouse effect, that lake has also been altered by humans by way of climate change.  

Most of us consume food we buy at a supermarket; if you eat meat, and you ever buy it at a grocery, you're eating meat that was fed artificially; the vast majority of all fruits and vegetables sold in this country are grown in soil that is fertilized to increase its productivity.  Most people in this country get most of their food artificially, i.e. they don't gather vegetables and fruit they've never tended or planted directly from wild fields or forests, and they don't hunt and kill wild animals that weren't in any way fed by them.  I don't see why it's okay for humans to feed themselves, and cows and chickens and birds and deer etc., but not fish?

If you've never held a thirty-one-ounce bluegill (my biggest thus far), I can promise you, you don't think about the pellets it ate while you're holding it, just as you don't think about pellets while you're fighting it and you think you have a four-pound largemouth or big catfish on the line.

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