Bruce, I'm sure you have alot on your plate with raising giant Bluegill, running the website and pulling people's teeth, but have you given any thought to having a Big Bluegill convention?
There sure seems to be plenty of people who love Bluegill fishing and raising them.
I'm in...I think we ought to travel to Musky Mod's haunts, fill a pontoon/barge, pinch the barbs and have him guide us to monster Redears and Pumpkinseeds. If the pontoon/barge is big enough we can set up a little riser - get a hot mic, and conduct seminars with rods in hand. Two birds, one stone.
We could host the first ever Professional Bluegiller Tournament no problem! We have access to over 1000 acres of the very best private water in central Illinois! I already know exactly which lakes will host the innaugural event. They are a series of 4 lakes between 10 and 30 acres each all bordering each other with boat ramps to each. They are looong and skinny with lots of fingers and loaded with redears, hybrids, and regular bluegill.
I use a 10' or 12' rod when fishing slip floats (slider rig). These rods are specially made for float fishing.
This is a great way to fish a lot of waters which are deeper than your rod. The longer rod assists in "punching" that float rig out to you…
Last year (2009)was the first year slip floating for me and found it to be very effective.Would like folks that are into this kind of fishing to post photos of gear and tips on the best rods ,reels ,bait and terminal tackle to use.
Sharon, I've got some other very colorful Bluegill, including another "Purple Coppernose" and a "Blue Coppernose", in my photos...check them out. Good old Southern California Bluegill have some crazy colors!
Afraid Walt is right Nick. I think you can attain balance, but not trophy status. If you want trophies, going to have to pick which one is more important to you.
Walt is describing a pond scenario that I'm contemplating building over the next couple years after I get my main pond up and running and that is a 'kid friendly' pond. Inspired by a recent PondBoss article, I think having an overstocked bass pond w…
Josh is right - catfish won't do a good job of keeping the bluegill thinned out. Additionally, they relish pellet food, and once they get to be four or five pounds they'll literally knock the bluegill out of the way with their tails to keep the blue…
I just noticed you said you want trophy bluegill and bass - it's nearly impossible to achieve both in a pond, as the ideal environment for growing big bass is overpopulated bluegill (lots of bluegill in the ideal forage size range) which invariably…
No, you don't want to keep smaller bass - they're the key to growing trophy-sized bluegill. I never allow any bass at all to be kept from ponds I manage for big bluegill; that way the bass overpopulate, which means they eat most bluegill at the fry…
Could you give me an idea how deep the water needs to be for a bluegill "nursery" ? Some of those nests look like they are out of the water. What is the deepest?