Releasing Mature Male Bluegills

Hi all,

I am trying to save the big bluegill. I need your help!

My reasoning for that is because for a sunfish to get 8 inches long it takes 7-9 years. People around here go bonkers for decent sunfish and will go back over and over taking every one home. They will not let any of the big ones go back. Once a lake is hammered, it takes another 7-9 years before another year class gets that big.

My advice to this, is to go ahead and fish them, but don’t keep all the big ones. If you are going to keep a limit, maybe keep a 1/3 of the bigger ones and the rest of your keepers be smaller. If you do release the bigger ones, try to release the males. They will pass on their genetics and will protect the nests from smaller males.

It is a vicious cycle. It has become a rare thing to catch nice gills and that is why people go crazy when a lake does finally give some up.

Not sure how many of you get In-Fisherman magazine, but they have a good article on how to produce Big Bluegills in the new issue.

It talks about how to produce big bluegills in ponds and goes over in detail why it is so important to release the Big males. They say all male sunfish over 8 inches should be released to give your pond the best chance at producing consistent year classes of huge bluegills.

Now I know our local lakes are not managed ponds, but I just want to educate people and hopefully those people will educate another sportsman and eventually it will become more common like people releasing walleyes over 20 inches.

I am hoping to educate and hope that IDO will do a show on this.

Adam

One of the ice fishing shows James did last winter was targeting Bluegills, and they put them all back.

I agree 100%, the same thing should apply to the 12 – 15″ crappies. The downside to ice fishing for them is if they are in the basin feeding on bugs coming out of the mud the depth factor takes over. You can catch them from 30′ plus of water, release them and watch them swim away, but many float back up and die under the ice. If fishing this situation a person is forced to keep what they catch, so limit the amount of fish you keep. If you release nice fish to get your limit of bigger, you will be hurting the resource even more.

Now for the dumb question, how do I tell the difference between a male and female gill? No, I don’t need the birds and the bees discussion, just not familiar on fish.

Really looking forward to fall crappie and walleye bite, and then on to hard water!

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Now for the dumb question, how do I tell the difference between a male and female gill? No, I don’t need the birds and the bees discussion, just not familiar on fish.

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Well I am just as dumb and curious to the answer.

Color, from my experience males are darker and have a pretty colorful orange area under mouth????

Adam
I agree with you.
I was on a lake a couple of years ago that put out very good BG;s, many over 8″. I returned to the same lake a few weeks ago, and remember the same dock I had great success on last time. I was bass fishng most of the day, but did hit this dock early afternoon. It was fish on Every cast around and near this dock. Very few small gills and half I caught were over 8″. They are all still there as I did not keep even 1. I’m just NOT that hungry to kill nice gills for a meal. If you want to catch some 9’s and 10’s, you need to put back many 8″s.
Jack

Your concerns are noble, but probably your suggestions won’t work without special regulations regarding length/possession numbers being applied to the waters where you want to see the big-fish harvest stop and as mentioned, the winter fishing would probably have to cease on those waters as well.

I think the lion’s share of the active membership here at IDO respect our resources and are careful what they harvest. There’s still a whole world of people out there that could care less about the resource.

Honestly, if I were you I’d go to the nearest DNR regional office and ask to speak with the fisheries biologists there that manage your area. It been my experience that they will always listen to concerns, but be prepared to hear that there is little that can be done.

I certainly respect you for bringing your concerns to light here…..I wish good luck on your endeavors.

I read the in-fisherman article as well, interesting read and very informative. On the topic of determining the sex of the gills I’ve always been told the darker ones tend to be the males especially around spawning time due to a hormonal change during that period much like that of the male crappies getting blacker. Problem with that is most of the summer or winter for that matter gills as far as color goes are indistinguishable.

I always try to keep the smaller sized gills not the behemoths but it is kind of a pain having to clean 5 to 7 inch fish when I could have cleaned 7-9 inch fish, they are much easier to deal with in that respect. I completely agree with Tom on this one as well unless something is changed by the DNR most of the general public although statistically they catch significantly less fish than avid seasoned fisherman will continue to harvest the biggest and baddest of every species. It’s hard to persuade people who fish one or twice a year to keep the smaller fish. Just my thoughts.

Outside of breeding season I always thought you could sex them by the size of the ear flap?

I like all the ideas given. I am also grateful that the DNR has put special regulations on some good lakes to attempt to keep the ecology intact.

The problem is that gills are relatively small in comparison to other gamefish, so many people want to keep the biggest because they’ll get more meat. Ok, that’s obvious.

The other problem I feel is that they get no respect. There are a lot of people who just don’t care and they are also relatively easy to catch.

It would be awesome if ordinary weekend fishermen practiced panfish conservation. Bass and muskies have catch and release and a reputation for not being as tasty as gills, crappie or walleye. Walleye have “eater” sizes that people like to keep because they are the perfect size to fry up.

It would be nice if someone start a “movement” like eater size walleye where people keep up to say 8.25″ bluegills and throw the ones over that back. That’s a pipe dream.

As for catching crappie in 20’+ of water, just start with a number you want to keep and just keep the first ones you catch, regardless of size. If you throw one back, take 1 off the number you wanted to keep. At least then you are being indiscriminate.

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It would be nice if someone start a “movement” like eater size walleye where people keep up to say 8.25″ bluegills and throw the ones over that back. That’s a pipe dream.

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I used to fish with a bunch of guys near Orr, and we had the big Bluegills dialed in pretty good. Years ago we noticed that the really big Gills didn’t produce that much more meat. The big ones have really big heavy bones. We started keeping 8 inchers and letting all the bigger ones go. I still think that’s a good idea.

Rootski

That’s a good point.

Good morning,

I have attached photos of bluegills to help everybody know the difference and which ones to keep and let go.

A mature male is the easiest to figure out. That is picture number 1. This fish has a large ear flap or ear tab, black in color and extended posteriorly (tailward). Vivid coloration and burgundy colors on breast. Lots of black tips on scales. Males have the black tips on scales. Very important to let these go!!

Picture 2: Here’s a mature female bluegill. It’s a large mature fish. Much shorter ear tab, yellowy colored breast. No black spots on side scales. Also important to let go!!

Picture 3: Now here’s where it gets a little tricky. This is a smaller fish but is still a mature female with eggs. Still has a short ear tab and yellow coloration on breast. This is one to keep.

Picture 4: But this is a mature, smaller male bluegill that may be acting as a “sneaker” or “cuckholder”. The coloration is much more drab, the ear tab isn’t as big, but he can’t quite hide the slightly longer ear tab.

He is using the muted color and smaller stature to be able to hang around Mr. Big Boy’s nest without being attacked. When the female moves in to lay the eggs he sneaks out of the weeds and “provides a little genetic information”. These are the ones we need to be keeping!! They are the fish that spread their smaller genetics.

I will keep gills as small as 6.75 inches up to 8 inches, but will release those mature fish.

My goal of this topic is to educate fellow fisherman. Even the most avid fisherman, don’t know this info. I am hoping that we can spread the word and educate others.

No show I have watched goes into this kind of detail and I think they need too.

The big Gill gets very little respect in the fishing world, but we all long for those days when we used to catch dinner plate gills years ago.

Spread the word guys and lets make it an unwritten rule to do this, just like with other species. Lots of guys release walleyes over 18 inches and keep smaller ones to eat. Same principal here.

Adam

Nice read. I applaud your efforts to educate.

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Nice read. I applaud your efforts to educate.

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X2

Good info, but the average joe up here is NOT going to clean a bunch of sub 7 inch fish…… A 10 inch gill will be a couple of fillets for most people.

We have some lakes up here with 5 fish gill limits. Most people(me included) that hit those lakes try to get their 5 that are 9″+. But with a 5 fish I find it hard to argue that view.

It is a shame, because, IMHO, a true 1lb gill is more rare than a 10lb walleye.

T

That is the problem with special regs. People know that they have them on the lake for a reason.

Man is the only animal that discriminates fish size when keeping them for a meal, unfortunately, and with enough pressure, that screws up ecosystems over time.

Here’s an interesting thought that would never be implemented, but would be fun to discuss. How about you have a choice each trip. Release all or keep every fish you catch (no throw backs) up to your limit. Never mind that it would be impossible to enforce, I just think it would be a good idea if you could.

I did a quick search of nearby lakes with 5 fish limits on bluegills hoping to find some ice fishing water. Oddly enough, I found all but 1 lake the bluegills are basically average, but the largemouth fishing looks excellent.

I strongly agree with the fact that big panfish have a bigger bone structure. You will not see a significant increase in the amount of meat you get on 9 inch sunfish to say a 8 inch sunfish. As far as keeping sunfish from a 5 sunfish lake why even keep them at all. There is more than likely a lake down the road where you can go keep 20 eater size sunfish for that matter for a nice meal.

I have fished a few lakes in MN that are 5 sunfish lakes or 10 sunfish lakes for that matter and I do not fish them for the matter of keeping 5 sunfish. I want to fish them for an 11 a true Brute or a 10 plus. Many people will talk of 10 inch sunfish, but until you put a bumpboard to them most are in the 9 inch range.

Unfortunately we live in a society where bigger is better and people still love a good cleaning table pictuer so numbers of big fish will be caught and kept and that is everyones right and not mine to judge them or criticize them for it. I know at the end of the day Im looking for a true monster, so ill be putting big gills back in the lake. – QB

I’d be all for closing those 5 limit lakes to catch and release only. The only issue that I can think of with that is wanton waste. When they are real aggressive, a lot will die by swallowing the hook. However, that would probably still be far less than the meat eaters coming in and taking 5 every time.

Funny thing I found out researching some lakes near me with the experimental 5 fish limit. It didn’t seem to affect the panfish size much. It did slightly increase their numbers. The real beneficiaries seemed to be the largemouth population. The couple I looked at had numbers and above average sizes.

There is a big relationship with lakes with big gills and largemouth bass. Lakes with a healthy population of largemouth bass tend to have large gills because the bass will keep the small sunfish from getting over populated. Which gives the remaining gills less competition for food and therefore have a chance to get large.

I would safely bet that 90% of big Gill lakes have a good population of bass. A largemouth bass will eat sunfish up to 1/3 of their size. So a 15 inch bass will eat a gill up to 5 inches. I release all bass, but if I were to keep one it would be a larger one because I don’t want them to eat bigger sunfish. I wish I had my own pond to manage. I would have monster gills in it.

Adam

That’s what I would expect, but in these lakes it didn’t seem to affect the gills in any way. These particular lakes had a 5 gill limit for at least 5 years, but they weren’t established as big gill lakes when the regulation was implemented.

I guess the most logical explanation is that the gene pool is not healthy and it may take several decades to show improvement on the size. It may also be a lesson for how hard we should protect the rare monster gill fisheries we have.

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Once a lake is hammered, it takes another 7-9 years before another year class gets that big.

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What? That makes absolutely no sense. You do realize bluegills breed EVERY year? Should take… uhmmmm… about 1 year for the class behind the 9″ers to get to 9″. Alright, realistically it takes 2-3 years for a keeper to get to a giant.. but nowhere close to 9.

Yes as you can tell, I keep the big ones because when you remove the big ones there is another slightly smaller gill that will take his place and be a big one next year.

If you have a lake with no giants, its not because people are keeping them. There are far more reason for a fishery to not hold big bluegills than fisherman keeping them. You think every bluegill gets hooked? not by a long shot, there are millions of bluegills in a given lake… Humans can’t catch them all.

If you want to establish a big gill lake, or keep one established, you need to look into the ecological issues. Humans play a small role in the growth of bluegill. Bluegill are the rabbits of the water, the ecosystem has to be just right for there to be a big population AND a big overall size.

I respectfully disagree with your take Kevin.

If you think humans don’t have a huge effect on bluegill size in our local lakes, you are sadly mistaken.

There have been many studies on this subject. Do the research and you will know what the truth is.

I do agree that other factors can play a role with bluegill size. I eluded to it in other posts.

Humans are the biggest problem when it comes to our ecosystem.

You don’t think 200 fish houses on a lake in the winter has an effect on a lakes ecosystem. Especially on a lake less then 1000 acres.

If you want true trophy bluegills over 10 inches, you can’t keep every 8 and 9 incher you catch. Yeah, some will slip through, but if word gets out that there is a bite of 8 inch sunfish around the cities, the lake gets pounded. If more guys do selective harvest and release some of the mature fish, the lake has a chance to grow bigger gills and have a well balanced population structure.

Again, do the research.

Adam

A good case study is the bigger metro lakes here like Calhoun and Harriet. The gene pool is so screwed up that I bet you there is nothing that can be done to make them get to even an average size. It will always be overpopulated with stunted fish.

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I respectfully disagree with your take Kevin.

If you think humans don’t have a huge effect on bluegill size in our local lakes, you are sadly mistaken.

There have been many studies on this subject. Do the research and you will know what the truth is.

I do agree that other factors can play a role with bluegill size. I eluded to it in other posts.

Humans are the biggest problem when it comes to our ecosystem.

Again, do the research.

Adam

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Fixing the ecosystem to bring back big bluegills or keep big bluegills does not mean to release all the big ones. It means to keep the predators, forage, habitat, and water quality in check.

I happen to know of a set of lakes here that gets hammered day and night for big bluegill (9″+). They take them out by the bucket full. There is a huge population of 9″+ and very few under that. Very few. Why? Because of the predators. Control the predators and you will have big bluegill, even if people are taking the big ones out.

MN lakes are often “messed with” by stocking musky, tigers, walleye, and various other predators in the spirit of gamefish. All of those will eat bluegill. But if you find one where the ecosystem is in check, you will find huge bluegills… even with people taking them out by limits.

There are still too many meat haulers out there. Legal yes, but with the number of fisherman not practical. Ice fishing especially. It’s going to be tough to reel this problem in. Personally when I am targeting gills I generally keep whatever is keepable up to enough for a meal for my wife and I which is not very often and rarely from the same lake. But only when we are ready to eat them. I quit freezing gills many years ago. I keep nothing on my cabin lake and my dock is hot for big ones. Luckily there is enough cover to keep most boats away. I released a 9.5 two weeks ago and several not much smaller. I have seen lakes fished out and cycle back years later. I have seen lakes with smaller limits weather the storm much better than those without but in the end ice fishing is the doom of the nice gill. That and camping on the beds.

I have only ate gills once this summer and that was from the Croix last week. Gills are practically a new invasive species on the Croix so that’s not even a bluegill destination for people.

Tell that to the passenger pigeon…

There is no such thing as unlimited resources… never was. Not unlimited oil, natural gas, water, trees, land, fish… anything.

I’m so sick of the “I’m gonna get mine, and to heck with the consequences” attitude…

The comment I hear the most from people is “If I don’t keep them someone else will.”

I could puke if I hear that one again.

I just want people to treat the bluegill like any other fish and release these mature fish and give the lake the best chance possible at growing more quality gills. To me a quality gill is 8 inches or better. The keepers for me are 6.75 inches to just under 8 inches.

Adam

I will say sometimes I determine what I will keep by what I am catching. There is a lake I know that has no public access that I fish a couple times a year. You catch a lot in the 8-8.75″ range. If the bite is good, I will throw back the biggest, but keep those 8″ if that is the most common size coming up through the hole.

I apply this all the time on most the lakes I fish. I base what I am keeping by what I am catching. I try to keep the average size fish. If that size is too small, there is a good chance I am not going to keep any thing.

That being said, I might keep a grand total of a dozen to two dozen panfish all ice fishing season. Heck, probably all year.

What I am doing isn’t going to affect anything when the prevailing attitude is to keep the biggest and as many panfish as you can in one trip.

Nothing would be happier than to one day see the majority of people who fish adopt an attitude like they do with the rest of the gamefish. That would include conservation measures like catch and release and throwing back certain sizes.

Well said!!!!

That is exactly what I am striving for. I just want to people to conserve the resource instead of pillaging it. We all can keep some Gills, but be smart about it.

Adam