Bluegill

Bluegill is some of the best freshwater eatin around. You can go out and catch a mess of em and literally feed your family. They reproduce like mad so pulling a mess of them out of a pond is actually a good thing.

Typically, if you have Bluegill in a tank, or any controlled species, it counts against your limits. For instance, if your state has a 20 Bluegill limit and you have 4 in a tank, legally, you can only have 16 in your basket.

If Bluegill got the size of Bass, I'd give up Bass fishing for life. For their size, they can put up one hell of a fight. I usually fly fish for Bluegill.

I'm going to update my thread on keeping Bluegill in a minute here.........
 
I agree, Bluegill is a fine grilling fish. When the bass catch is low, my fishing buddies and I always supplement the night's feast with some bluegill.. Easy fish to catch too, get a tiny hook, a float and a Salmon egg.. Drop it in, pull it out, you've got a fish. I went yesterday and between myself on one other guy, we caught (and released) 24 Bluegill. fun fun =)

As for keeping them in a tank, I disagree on the chiller. The pond we were at was about 82 degrees, and there are THOUSANDS of bluegill in there, thriving and reproducing.
 
One bluegill would be happy in a 29. More than that, and you start needing a much larger tank, simply because bluegill are aggressice, territorial fish, and will beat the crap out of each other in a small setup, epsecially kept at room temp (more active). A buddy keeps 4 BG in a 29 during the winter, unheated in the basement, with no problems--but the fish are pretty well dormant. I'd plan on at least a 55 for a pair.

And, as always, verify local regulations prior to getting the fish, and have a long term plan--they should NOT be released back into the wild for any reason. And, no, long term aquarium fish should not be consumed.
 
blue gill dont get huge the biggest i have ever seen is 1.75 lbs and its all the wall in my parents cabin it came out a world class fishing lake that regulars 38'' northern pike so yea you dont get much bigger than that for bluegill and its only 10.5 inches long so i agree that 55 gal would be a good size tank. as for a chiller the water temp in the wild can get fairly high into the 80s so i doubt you would need it. they hit the top of the water fairly hard sometimes so glass top aquariums could be broken. they eat anything small enough to fit in there mouths and they poop alot i would compare them to an oscar that way.
 
I do know that many people eat bluegill...but I wouldn't suggest eating an aquarium raised one. If the tank has defining structure, the bluegill are about even in size, and there are places to hide like PVC tubing or rock caves, you should be able to handle 2, maybe even 3 bluegill in a 30 gallon. They will reach from 8 to 10 inches. However, this is highly variable, depending largely upon how much you feed them, but also on water temperature and conditions. I know that in lakes where the bluegill populations are high, many of them will be as small as 4 inches at maturity due to the competition for food. One thing that always interested me is what determines their willingness to eat processed fish food. I had 2 bluegill about the same size, from the same lake, but one would eat fish food while the other would only eat worms, daphnia, ground shrimp, etc.
 
I eat them all the time. They've got a cleaner (Less Fishy) taste to them than channel cat but aren't quite as light and fluffy as bass. Eating channel cat is like eating rubberbands but in a good, satisfying sort of way; it's chewy with just a little bit of fish twang to it (I'm talking about farm pond fish over 10lbs, not restaraunt quality fillets). Eating bluegill is like having a juicy piece of chicken; it doesn't fill you up right away so you eat more of it. Alot of it depends on how it is prepared. Eating bass is like eating Grouper. It's a very light, fluffy meat that sort of melts in your mouth. Yes people do eat them, it's actually a pretty common practice where I'm from. There's nothing my Grandpa likes more than a mess of fried bluegill. But they are so popular at our fish frys that we have to hide them until he goes through line so that he gets some before it's all gone.

As for the tank question, I also would suggest a very large tank for multiple fish. They do get big (6-12 inches) and they are aggressive. I also wanted to keep bluegill in an aquarium but decided that my 16G tank would be too small for more than one fish and that even with one I'd probably have to change water too often. They produce a lot of waste. And please, check to make sure it's legal in your area, I talked myself out of bluegill before I got that far.
 
Turns out, this is what the pond is stocked with... Interesting....

hybrid%20bluegill%202_jpg.jpg


It's a hybrid between a Bluegill and a Green Sunfish.. I've always wondered when the Bluegill at the pond have bright yellow fins. Now I know.
 
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