cow pond bluegills

In June of last year I stocked three bluegill from Florida into a 1/4-acre pond in the middle of a cow pasture that at the time had no fish in it. Looks like they spawned...Attachment 167107Attachment 167108Attachment 167109

Looks like they are hungry lil' buggers too.

Here's a screen capture (from video) of one of the parents of the fish pictured above:

Attachment 167145

Anyone notice that's not a regular bluegill in the screen capture?

I's keep taking the boat out. :biggrin

Nice begining.

Thanks! These are hand-painted bluegill, a rare subspecies found only in the Apalachicola River drainage in the Florida panhandle. At present no hatchery in the country sells them - we'll be the first.

From what I can find on the internet,the hand painted bluegill is a hybrid of a south American fish and a bluegill. If that is a fact it sounds like a possible nightmare in the making. I fish some water that was polluted some time ago with the hybrid sunfish That was proposed at one time to b a great thing

Illinoisgiller, you found some erroneous information. The hand-painted is a subspecies of bluegill just like the coppernose is a subspecies; like the coppernose, it's native to Florida. The big difference is that it's native to a much smaller region, specifically the Apalachicola River and its tributaries. Here's some more info on the fish:

"Hand-Painted Bluegill" - Bluegill - Big Bluegill

Night Hawk Publications - John's Journal

Bluegill Subspecies, let's break 'em down! | Types of fish to choose | Pond Boss Forum

Pied Pride: Northwest Florida’s Own Hand-Painted Bream | Outdoors Down South

JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

Based on your link, I stand corrected. I am a fan of the common Bluegill and wouldn't want to see anymore manufactured versions.

I agree that hybrids can cause a lot of problems. In certain situations, mainly very small ponds where catfish are also desired, they can be a good choice. But most of the time when I encounter a pond that's more than three or four years old and has hybrids, they're well into outbreeding depression, to the point that they average about two inches - not pretty.

The hand-painteds I'll be raising are pure-strain, just as coppernose (which we'll also have) from the best hatcheries are pure-strain. Priority one will be maintaining the genetic integrity of our fish - even the location of the individual ponds is being done with this in mind.