# bluegill discussions



## Lewzer (Apr 5, 2004)

hsrhstr


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## fishwhacker (Jul 16, 2010)

The question i always have is they make mention of taking bulls off the beds, what about the females? During the spawn i often find if the bulls are shallow on the beds, the big females are deeper off the beds. Example, i will start catching bulls 2ft deep next to the bank and then change depth to 7ft deep and catch females. Does the population suffer if i keep only the females?


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## Flathead76 (May 2, 2010)

fishwhacker said:


> The question i always have is they make mention of taking bulls off the beds, what about the females? During the spawn i often find if the bulls are shallow on the beds, the big females are deeper off the beds. Example, i will start catching bulls 2ft deep next to the bank and then change depth to 7ft deep and catch females. Does the population suffer if i keep only the females?


The wanna be OGF biologists will answer this question for you. I keep mid grade fish.


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## 1more (Jan 10, 2015)

I guess a lot depends on the size of the that your fishing. I have been fishing a private lake for over 15yrs that’s 12 acres. We only fish there in the spring and have caught 100s of 8-10” gills and haven’t noticed a difference in keeping all the big gills.


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## fishwhacker (Jul 16, 2010)

I would like to know about high pressure public lakes, but more overall is it ok to keep all the larger females you catch no matter if it is the spawn or not. I know they say it is a no no to take the giant males eapecially during the spawn but never hear anything on the females.


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## polebender (Oct 29, 2011)

This is just my opinion. Blue gill and all panfish are prolific breeders. If you’re fishing a large public lake it would be very unlikely to harm the population no matter how many you take out, male or female. If you are fishing a small lake that gets a lot of pan fish pressure then maybe it would be possible to hurt the population of larger fish. Still there would be a large population of smaller fish.


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## rutty (Feb 5, 2007)

I don't think anyone can fish a lake or pond out of gills in my opinion. Gills will spawn 4-6 times a year is the weather is warm enough. Usually it is the opposite, people do not take enough gills out of a pond and it gets stunted with littler fish because there isn't the food supply for all of them. Just my opinion though.


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## Skippy (Dec 2, 2009)

Friend of ours has about a 2 acre pond. We can bass fish it but his rules are you must catch and keep at least 25 gills out of it first and no tossing the small ones back.


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## Tbomb55 (Nov 27, 2008)

I always toss back the big bulls,especially if they are extra frisky, in the hope the general stock will be improved. I've also noticed the big males seem to have less meat. The females lay thousands of eggs, so I think keeping them is fine.


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