stunted and overharvest bluegill

[Dwayne Denison]

There has been some discussion lately on stunted bluegill and the overharvest of bluegill. I found this article, on how in Illinois they are looking into this problem. If anyone has anyother articles about this problem, and other bluegill problems, please post link.........Thanks Dwayne

http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/releases/Diana_Wahl_OutdoorIL_0907.pdf

[Walt Foreman]

Actually, they have 50 feeders on Richmond Mill, feeding twice a day - and the fishing is strictly catch-and-release only. 

 

And, to echo what Tony said in referencing studies that have shown that size and creel limits can help, I have firsthand experience that corroborates the fact that their absence can destroy a great fishery.  TWRA seems to have no interest in maximizing the waters they manage (any public water in TN) for big bluegill, even though there are many BOWs that have great potential to be trophy bluegill lakes; in a couple of their managed pay lakes you can keep 20 per day, no minimum size limit, and in the rest of the pay lakes and all other waters statewide there is no creel limit and no size limit.  One of the pay lakes, a 53-acre lake about ten miles from my hometown, was beginning to have the makings of a trophy bluegill fishery three years ago - but word got out, the army of meathogs descended, and within a month the big 'gills were fished out.  I've seen the same thing happen before on other lakes.  I don't think it will change until enough bluegill fishermen let regressive state agencies such as mine know that there are plenty of us out there who don't just fish for the stringer and expect management that's aware of the last fifty years of fisheries science research.

[Lord of the Fly , Rods]

So wouldn't it be true if the smaller mature males would cause other males to grow larger to compete with them , and then you have Bigger fish competing with smaller fish to breed and the smaller fish would start cross dressing again?  Critters need 3 things 1. genetics , and they have that,  2 . nutrition, without a good food supply , things dont grow. look at Richmond Mills , they feed those fish like hogs and have 11 feeders on a 110 acre lake, I wonder how may tons of food they supplement per year to get those big fish?  3. fish need to have some age to them , and an uncontrollable harvest reduces the amount of predator fish to eat the young of the year and thus promotes stunting. Richmond Mill controls harvest by charging $600  a day to fish, got to pay for that fish food some how, and I dont even know if they let you keep your catch. We will have to ask Bruce how those fish taste  to know if he has eaten any or if he had to throw everything back.

I believe State management takes the position that if everone that goes fishing get to catch a fish they have done their job , and they are not concerned with size, because it would cost too much money to feed, and control  the harvest.  So if you think you want to catch big bluegill on a regular basis you need to build your own pond, feed them like hogs, control the harvest and dont forget to throw everything back, or cough up $600 bucks and take a trip to Richmond Mill.  I  dont see anything getting any better in the public waters anytime soon that will please all the people all the time.    LOFR

[Tony Livingston]

Actually, studies have shown that male Bluegills can delay maturity until they grow large enough to have a shot with the ladies, hence the wisdom behind releasing the biggest males in a BOW. Mother Nature tends to favor the biggest of the species when it comes to procreation, so instead of becoming sexually mature and trying to compete against the bigger Gills', the smaller fish can delay maturity until they themselves grow large enough to have a chance.

Remove those big male BG, and all at once there's no need for the smaller males to grow any bigger, as they are now the largest size class in the water. Once a BG becomes sexually mature, their growth slows dramatically, as energy is expended toward gonad development, nest building, defense of the nest and protection of fry, etc.

I have seen a couple of studies where daily limits, along with a protected slot size have been implemented and are showing positive results.

It's not about fooling Mother Nature, it's about working in tandem with her to better our fisheries.

[Lord of the Fly , Rods]

This artical suggest that a small cross dressing male is the problem to stunting, and that delaying their sexual maturity could improve the genetic makeup  and thus the size of the bluegill.  About the only way you could delay sexual maturity would be to put up scarecrows all over the lake of naked grandmothers but this could stop the breeding of the fish altogether and may drive fisherman to other waters.

   Its hard to try to focus on raising several different species in the same waters and have success at either,especially when you have uncontrolled harvest, its the old have your cake and eat it too syndrome. The people that fish for food vs the people that fish for sport, bluegill fisherman blame it on the bass fisherman, bass fisherman  look down their noses at bluegill fisherman, and in the meantime the one that suffers is the waters that produce the fish and bam! all of a sudden you have stunted fish. I dont think the solution has been found yet or we still wouldn't have places with stunted fish and remember " It's not nice to fool  Mother Nature".       LOFR

[Leo Nguyen]

This is the many reason why we don't have too many large to huge sunfish within our high fishable water bodies. Anglers from different cultures harvested all the fish, regardless of their sizes. Bass chasers respected the catch, take picture, and release (CPR) all bass, which maintain the explosive population of smaller prey fish in the waters. However, lack of education on release the sunfish under or over a certain size resulted have resulted in, currently resulting in, or will resulted in stunted condition.

Jenks and Prado Dam Lakes are a prime example of removal of all larger sunfish, leaving large population of smaller sunfish to compete for limited amount of food resources. Most sunfish caught were no more than 8" in size. Rarely did anyone catch something larger than 8".

However, Lake Gregory and Lake Skinner target fish species are trout, bass, and catfish. We caught large panfish out of Gregory and Skinner like you wouldn't believe.

[jim cosgrove]

hey dwayne-can;t send any links but what i have noticed over the years is pretty much what the article you posted says.too many large males harvested and lakes with big gills seem to produce large gills.just got back from lake sara and caught lots of big gills seeds and a few redears along with 100s of crappies of all sizes.a lot of chicago people meat hunting down there yet the lake is always full of good sized fat panfish.also got alot of big white bass,the people i met down there said they catch gills by the 100s in may.our trip has always been in april.must be the lake itself,right combination of food water quality depth ph level etc.maybe a limit of no fish over a certain size?i hate to see so many fish taken in some waters but it seems to have little effect on some lakes