Bluegill to big

[Justin Schreiber]

I fish out of a rock quarry and I’ve noticed all of the bass are super skinny I knew there were bluegill in there so I didn’t know what was up with the unhealthy bass.   So I went fishing for bluegill and they are all the size of my hand and bigger.   So obviously any of the bass can’t eat them and I mean I couldn’t find one regular sized bluegill and I caught about 50.  Anyways the reason I’m telling you this it to get help and tips on what should I do.   Should I just start taking small bluegill from other ponds and putting them in the quarry.  Any tips would be great thanks!!

[NorcalBassin]

Odds are those bluegill are spawning a couple of times per year on their own and adding more small bluegill will likely just lead to more big bluegill. Best bet may be harvesting a legal amount of bluegill each time you go and having some fish fries.

[FishDewd]

1 hour ago, NorcalBassin said:

Odds are those bluegill are spawning a couple of times per year on their own and adding more small bluegill will likely just lead to more big bluegill. Best bet may be harvesting a legal amount of bluegill each time you go and having some fish fries.

I agree- when ponds give you lots of big bluegill, make fish tacos!

[WRB]

It's more then likely the bass are over populated for the quarry prey souce. 

Tom

[BassObsessed]

2 hours ago, WRB said:

It's more then likely the bass are over populated for the quarry prey souce. 

Tom

That's what I'm guessing. I have a local quarry pond on friends property and its loaded with 1-1.5lb bass and bluegill that are over a pound also.

[jr231]

X3 . Too many bass for the amount of forage 

[scaleface]

Invest in a good filet knife .

[sully420]

It's too many small bass.  Eat the bluegill bass fish somewhere else. Id say eat the bass but really with bluegill like that eat those.

[Angry John]

They eat a lot of the same prey items when small but there needs to be a steady stream of moderate size for rage for the bass to get bigger.  Then there i's the total bio capacity of the pond.  I have no idea what the limiting factor is in this case but it's always something.

[NittyGrittyBoy]

Big bluegill make baby bluegill. 

Baby bluegill make hungry bass full

 

Too many fighting for food, take out some dinks and watch your bass grow. 

 

WRB called it

[papajoe222]

Obviously you don't live in southeast Wisconsin.  I'll ask ten guys at the ramp how they did and they're all talking bluegill and half of 'em are fishing outa bass boats! 

Sounds like an awesome spot to introduce some kids to fishing. Keep some and fry 'em up for the little guys and you''ll have them hooked on fishing.

[Gundog]

3 minutes ago, papajoe222 said:

 

Sounds like an awesome spot to introduce some kids to fishing. Keep some and fry 'em up for the little guys and you''ll have them hooked on fishing.

^^^^This. Today I was driving by a local stripping pit and didn't see one bike. Not a kid in sight. When I was a kid we spent most of our spring, summer and fall fishing. We are losing young people in the sport we love. My friend is a waterways conservation officer. I took him some of my older spinning rods and reels and some small trout lures so he could give them to some kids and hopefully get them outside to enjoy fishing like I did when I was a kid. 

[frosty]

33 minutes ago, Gundog said:

^^^^This. Today I was driving by a local stripping pit and didn't see one bike. Not a kid in sight. When I was a kid we spent most of our spring, summer and fall fishing. We are losing young people in the sport we love. My friend is a waterways conservation officer. I took him some of my older spinning rods and reels and some small trout lures so he could give them to some kids and hopefully get them outside to enjoy fishing like I did when I was a kid. 

Ha, all I had was a creek about 5’ wide and maybe 3’ deep, but man I caught a ton of creek chubs, a catfish, and I even caught a smallmouth in there once! 

[Bluebasser86]

I use to fish a pond just like this. Your problem is too many bass, not too many bluegill. The bluegill spawn, the bass eat almost all the fry but the few bluegills that get too big for the bass to eat get huge because once they get too big for the bass, nothing can eat them. There is no other food for the bass to eat, hence the skinny fish. 

 

You need to start keeping bass every trip. Depending on the size of the pond, you may need to remove dozens, to hundreds of fish to have the desired results. 

[Justin Schreiber]

On 5/6/2018 at 1:56 AM, Bluebasser86 said:

I use to fish a pond just like this. Your problem is too many bass, not too many bluegill. The bluegill spawn, the bass eat almost all the fry but the few bluegills that get too big for the bass to eat get huge because once they get too big for the bass, nothing can eat them. There is no other food for the bass to eat, hence the skinny fish. 

 

You need to start keeping bass every trip. Depending on the size of the pond, you may need to remove dozens, to hundreds of fish to have the desired results. 

Yeah well luckily there’s another quarry not 100 feet from the one I using fish at so I could just catch them and chuck them.  The bass in the other quarry are vary fat a ton more bluegill.   

[WRB]

When you look at bass anatomy they have a big mouth, not a wide throat that can swallow a wide flat fish with sharpe dorsal spines like a 1/2 lb + bluegill. The 3 lb bass may try, if the bluegill gets stuck in the throat the bass may die and it happens. The bass eat the smaller young of the year bluegill and if not enough prey the right size the bass over populate the forage base and starve.

Tom

[the reel ess]

You need to persecute those small bass and large bluegills. You probably can't reset the balance on your own. Bring along others to help you out. Pond experts recommend feeding the bluegills because it helps them spawn more, thereby adding smaller bluegill for the bass to eat. They've gotten so big that they are competing with the bass for the same minnows. 

 

I have a friend with a pond that is out of balance like this and I fish there a lot. He's more of a hunter so he doesn't help matters with the pond. 15-20 bass with none or maybe one over 1 lb. is a normal day there. I have caught 50 small bass in a day there before. I went yesterday and caught 10 and missed several, mostly because I decided to only fish topwater because it was overcast and misting rain. I went back today with another friend and we caught about 25 bluegills and a couple bass. We even discussed us rigging up a shocking device to remove a lot of bass.