Stocking bass and bluegill

[DJP]

Hi bass people,

There is a nice little dam close to my house that I want to put some fish in. It's an irrigation pump dam but has water throughout the year. They flushed it last year and the fish all went into the much larger dam below (100m away), so currently there aren't any fish in it.

I want to restock it with some bass or bluegill from the bottom dam.

Do I introduce the bluegill first and let them settle / spawn for maybe one season or should I just introduce the bass? There are plenty of frogs and other things for the bass to eat so don't think a couple bass will clean up the food supply. The idea will be to have a lunker pond with just big bass, I will cull the small ones by taking them back to the bottom dam. 

Any other good tips for stocking?

[Jim_From_Zim]

Hi bass people,

There is a nice little dam close to my house that I want to put some fish in. It's an irrigation pump dam but has water throughout the year. They flushed it last year and the fish all went into the much larger dam below (100m away), so currently there aren't any fish in it.

I want to restock it with some bass or bluegill from the bottom dam.

Do I introduce the bluegill first and let them settle / spawn for maybe one season or should I just introduce the bass? There are plenty of frogs and other things for the bass to eat so don't think a couple bass will clean up the food supply. The idea will be to have a lunker pond with just big bass, I will cull the small ones by taking them back to the bottom dam. 

Any other good tips for stocking?

Riprap is probably the best guy to answer questions on this topic.

Rippy...?

[Riprap]

Welcome DJP.

First and foremost, if you goal is lunker bass only then you will not achieve that with frogs, dragonflies and some bass fry. Bear in mind too that all the trophy size bass are all females whilst the smaller males are such from chasing chicks around the nightclub their whole lives and only live to breed.

Both bass and bluegill are from the sunfish family and share many traits wrt to diet and breeding. Bigger bluegill will also eat bass fry given half a chance but a male bass is more attentive and aggressive at guarding his fry until the hunger urge gets to him and he will eat his own offspring and abandon them. I digress however........sorry.

My advice: The bluegill should have their breeding colours on by now. Catch and relocate as many bluegill as you can now! Read up on fertilizing the pond so that you get all the nutrients supporting a load of stuff including Daphnia for the young to feed on. If you catch a real good bass below, feel free to move it up but then stock another 50 bluegill. Perhaps leave the bass below to breed finished and consider this only in the new year, early is ok. The more bluegill you have the smaller and more stunted they will be and a manageable food size for the bass. Regularly put some bigger bluegill in to ensure breeding success unless the pond is full of them and in which case you know they can outbreed the bass. In this case it's clear you need more trophies to feast on them.

Perhaps have a look at this thread I created for my such pond and SADLY, which has been decimated by drought and poaching! Good luck.

http://www.bassfishing.co.za/thread-5091...in+the+air

Many of the pics didn't transfer across from the original forum to the new version.

[DJP]

Thanks for the feedback Riprap. 

We have the same problem with poaching but the small dam is a close to our house so I can keep an eye on it. Luckily this is probably the only catchment in the Western Cape that doesn't have drought problems. 
I think the dam receives enough agricultural fertiliser from the adjacent orchards and there is plenty of reeds and lilies so I think that part won't require much management. 

Yes, the bluegills have been on their nest for a couple weeks now and the bass also seem to be close to finish spawning. We have northern strain largemouths and spotted bass so they don't grow as large or vigorously as the Florida strains but the idea at least is to have a pond without little dinks. 

I have scanned through the other thread, pitty the photos are gone and the poaching/draught issues, some good info there though thanks!

[Riprap]

Cool.
Do yourself a favour if you can and keep some spotties separate as they are now very rare in their pure form in any waters here.

A N. Strain can achieve almost 4 kilos genetically, depending of course. Florida a lot larger. NS are much easier to catch, have a longer growing season in colder climates and are not so temperamental as their FS cousins. The F1 cross of these two is the real champ provided the climate is conducive. In colder climates FS spoils your fishing! It's been proven in the lab with temps.

I'm not sure if I ever posted these articles on the other thread but it makes for sensible and interesting reading.

[DJP]

I'm glad you mention the spots in pure from, so do they gross breed with the NS largies? I have for while been trying to figure out what the storie with these fish are because I'm catching spots (the have the rough tongs) but the markings and fins are cryptic I was convinced they have cross bred.

[Riprap]

That's debatable until the cows come back from the moon, so many theories........

This is definite though:

   

[DJP]

Thanks for the good articles, they certainly gave me some food for thought.

I'll start taking some closed mouth photos of the bass to ID the spots from the largies, the bridge ID doesn't seem to be fool proof and the tongue patch... well I read now that 10-20% of largies have them.