first guide party today

I guided a husband and wife from Minnesota today for trophy bluegill. We fished one pond in the morning, and a different pond in the afternoon. We only caught six fish, all coppernose, in three hours of fishing from about 5:50 a.m. until 9:00 a.m.

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The action was faster in the afternoon, but the fish averaged smaller, probably only averaged about 8". This was the biggest northern-strain:
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The biggest coppernose from the second pond was a little better:
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Them are some hoses for sure!

nice

Looks like the hard work is paying off! Excellent fish. Need to get some GS hybrids Walt - they are insane....

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Originally Posted by LedHed

Looks like the hard work is paying off! Excellent fish. Need to get some GS hybrids Walt - they are insane....

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I have worked with hybrid bluegill in the past, Sonny, and have done some reading on them as well. Believe it or not, even northern-strain bluegill outgrow them, significantly, after the first couple months of life. There was a study done in Missouri by Hayward and Wang, published in 2003, that found that the bluegill-green sunfish hybrids outgrew the pure northern-strain bluegill for the first thirty days, but after that the northern-strain nearly doubled the growth rate of the hybrids.

And there have been multiple studies that have found coppernose to significantly outgrow northern-strain bluegill in warm climates. That's consistent with my experience also.

The 2.08-pounder from yesterday came from a two-acre pond that only had northern-strain bluegill up until two years ago when I stocked 100 coppernose in the 8-10" range from another pond. The biggest northern-strain that has been caught from that pond probably weighed twenty-four ounces, if that.

I manage a seven-acre pond in west Tennessee that has only been stocked for a little over two years; it only has coppernose, and they were 1" long when I stocked them in March 2016. The owner caught a 10.75" coppernose back in March; that fish still has three and a half or more years to grow. (The average lifespan of a bluegill in the south is six years.)

Wow, thanks for the post and pics.

Those are some good looking gills. I would like to come out and fish for some of those rascals. :fish

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Originally Posted by StantheMan2567

Those are some good looking gills. I would like to come out and fish for some of those rascals. :fish

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Come on anytime, Stan!

very nice fish