John's Journal...
Entry 164,
Day 5
GIANT BLUEGILLS
Facts About Coppernose Bluegills
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Barry Smith of Montgomery, Alabama, a longtime fisheries biologist,
co-owns American Sport Fish in Pike Road, Alabama, one of the largest
private hatcheries in the Southeast, with his partner Don Keller. Smith
and Keller have developed several breeds of fish that landowners enjoy
stocking in their ponds. This week we'll talk with Smith about the giant
bluegills American Sport Fish stocks.
Question: What are the biggest coppernose bluegills that
y'all have ever raised?
Answer: I've seen a stringer of big coppernose bluegills where a guy had
a 10-fish string, and the smallest fish on that string weighed 32 ounces.
That was pretty impressive. A lot of people try to judge fish weight by
size, but when you actually weigh a bluegill and it weighs 2 pounds --
well, that's pretty incredible. Question: How long does a coppernose have
to grow for you to harvest one that weighs 1-1/2 or 2 pounds? Answer:
Probably under proper management, you'll need five to six years.
Question:
What about growing bluegills up North? How long will a bluegill need to
reach the 1, 1-1/2-pound stage above the Mason Dixon Line?
Answer: Most of the data that I've seen indicates that these bluegills
live a long time but grow very slowly. Most of our fish down here in the
South grow twice as fast as those in the North. A bluegill growing to
1/2-pound in the North in a year would be almost unheard of, but we can
accomplish that fairly easily in the South or even achieve 3/4-pound within
two years. A bluegill up North may need five or six years to achieve that
size.
Question: Now the coppernose, if it goes North, even
though it is a southern fish, will it still exhibit a superior growth
rate to the common bluegill?
Answer:
That's a good question. Coppernoses aren't sensitive to low temperatures.
So, based on the data that's available, I would say that there's no difference
in the temperature factor in coppernose and common bluegills. But I don't
recommend stocking coppernoses to anyone north of the Mason Dixon Line.
I think that it is too far from its native range to do well.
Question: What bluegill do you recommend for northern
fishermen to stock?
Answer: I think the common bluegill probably will be more suitable. These
fish are different throughout the United States. For example, common bluegills
are different in Illinois than they are in Alabama. Those fish have adapted
to that area, and the fish that have adapted to that area will do better
than fish will brought in from a different area.
Question: Are you seeing a growth of interest in people
wanting trophy bluegills in their ponds?
Answer: We're seeing a lot of interest, and I don't know exactly when
this started. People have learned that they can take a small lake -- 5
acres or less -- and put in trophy bluegills and manage for them successfully.
Question:
Is there any advantage to taking bluegills for a year or two and having
them in one pond, and then starting a new pond and transferring them there?
Will the bluegills grow faster in the new pond?
Answer: In theory this probably sounds good, actually doing that is not
as easy as it sounds. These bigger fish are hard to catch and then to
transfer. You get a lot of delayed mortality from handling them. I don't
think moving bluegills from one pond to a new pond is very practical.
I think if you want to grow fish, then the best way to do that is to take
your pond and manage for trophy bluegills from the start. I think you'll
be very pleased with your results. From what we've seen, you can manage
those trophy bluegills for a long time.
To learn more about American Sport Fish, write P.O. Box
20050, Montgomery, AL 36120, or call (334) 281-7703.
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