Stunting fish

[Anthony Nolet]

I know that sunfish will stunt their growth when there's a lot of competition and what not. I'm pretty sure the fish in the river here are stunted since I'm finding 4-5 inch pumpkinseeds on spawning bed (not sure what size/age they typically do that) but I also have never seen a pumpkinseed bigger than 5 inches probably. The hybrid pumpkinseed x green sunfish don't seem to be stunted since they are 6"+. Now to the question lol, recently I have been finding green sunfish in the river again and I have a few in a grow out and was wondering if the pumpkinseeds are actually stunted is it likely the greens are too? Also is it genetics from breeding small genes or do the fish just stop growing?

 

[alecrromine]

When fishing for any type of panfish I only find the bigger fish by using bigger bait. If I'm only catching 4-6" I'll use a bigger lure or hook. If I'm baiting hooks the little fish will steal the bait more often, but I only catch the bigger fish on bigger lures. I think the smaller ones outnumber the larger fish and readily take any lure so they seem much more common. Also, not knowing where you are, if there is gar in the water I wont catch anything over 6" and I start looking for the gar. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence with a lot of my "duh" statements, I'm sure you already knew most of what I said, I just know what works for me in my experiences. I was totally convinced there was nothing more than 8" in my river (west fork red river in tn) but when I went to larger bait I found the larger fish. Hope this helps a little. As far add the science of stunting growth I can't give any type of information.

 

[Anthony Nolet]

When fishing for any type of panfish I only find the bigger fish by using bigger bait. If I'm only catching 4-6" I'll use a bigger lure or hook. If I'm baiting hooks the little fish will steal the bait more often, but I only catch the bigger fish on bigger lures. I think the smaller ones outnumber the larger fish and readily take any lure so they seem much more common. Also, not knowing where you are, if there is gar in the water I wont catch anything over 6" and I start looking for the gar. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence with a lot of my "duh" statements, I'm sure you already knew most of what I said, I just know what works for me in my experiences. I was totally convinced there was nothing more than 8" in my river (west fork red river in tn) but when I went to larger bait I found the larger fish. Hope this helps a little. As far add the science of stunting growth I can't give any type of information.

The fish all hang out in the shallows with the weeds so when I wade through the weeds all the fish will come up like 6-8 feet away and just watch me and I never see bigger ones, never really have either. I don't normally see the fish away from the weeds but I'll look more in the next few days

 

[Anthony Nolet]

When fishing for any type of panfish I only find the bigger fish by using bigger bait. If I'm only catching 4-6" I'll use a bigger lure or hook. If I'm baiting hooks the little fish will steal the bait more often, but I only catch the bigger fish on bigger lures. I think the smaller ones outnumber the larger fish and readily take any lure so they seem much more common. Also, not knowing where you are, if there is gar in the water I wont catch anything over 6" and I start looking for the gar. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence with a lot of my "duh" statements, I'm sure you already knew most of what I said, I just know what works for me in my experiences. I was totally convinced there was nothing more than 8" in my river (west fork red river in tn) but when I went to larger bait I found the larger fish. Hope this helps a little. As far add the science of stunting growth I can't give any type of information.

I like to sight fish so I know what I'm catching lol but there are bass too so I don't want to just cast out where I can't see and just catch 6" bass after 6" bass you know what I mean haha it gets annoying losing all your worms to bass.

 

[divemaster99]

This is just my personal experience but in my local lake we have Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, Greens, and hybrids of all three. All of them appear to be stunted and they all average 3-5" but the hybrids tend to average slightly larger (5-8") most likely because of hybrid vigor. In a creek around 30 minutes from me where I collected last year I collected Bluegills and Greens. The populations of them in this creek were not stunted and we were finding full sized specimens of each, 6-10" Bluegills and 4-8" Greens. I can go very much in depth about why the populations are like this and have even debated writing a small scientific paper about local Centrarchid populations but to explain it in short it has to do with multiple factors including density and size of predators, abundance and species of prey, water temperature and quality, fishing/harvesting pressure, amount of substrate suitable for spawning, etc. But, to answer your question, if the Pumpkinseeds are stunted then the Greens probably are as well because Greens are even more prolific and susceptible to stunting than other Lepomis.

 

[Anthony Nolet]

This is just my personal experience but in my local lake we have Bluegills, Pumpkinseeds, Greens, and hybrids of all three. All of them appear to be stunted and they all average 3-5" but the hybrids tend to average slightly larger (5-8") most likely because of hybrid vigor. In a creek around 30 minutes from me where I collected last year I collected Bluegills and Greens. The populations of them in this creek were not stunted and we were finding full sized specimens of each, 6-10" Bluegills and 4-8" Greens. I can go very much in depth about why the populations are like this and have even debated writing a small scientific paper about local Centrarchid populations but to explain it in short it has to do with multiple factors including density and size of predators, abundance and species of prey, water temperature and quality, fishing/harvesting pressure, amount of substrate suitable for spawning, etc. But, to answer your question, if the Pumpkinseeds are stunted then the Greens probably are as well because Greens are even more prolific and susceptible to stunting than other Lepomis.

Yeah that's what I was worried about. Even if you catch them small they won't grow to normal size? They're predestined to stay small? Crap lol that sucks since the hybrids are so aggressive I was hoping the greens would grow to at least be close

 

[divemaster99]

Yeah that's what I was worried about. Even if you catch them small they won't grow to normal size? They're predestined to stay small? Crap lol that sucks since the hybrids are so aggressive I was hoping the greens would grow to at least be close

There's a chance they could grow to full size in captivity if given a large enough tank, protection, and ample food but you can't always count on them growing to full size. Greens are very hardy and may bounce back to full size.

 

[Anthony Nolet]

There's a chance they could grow to full size in captivity if given a large enough tank, protection, and ample food but you can't always count on them growing to full size. Greens are very hardy and may bounce back to full size.

That'd be perfect but we'll see lol

 

[divemaster99]

That'd be perfect but we'll see lol

Keep us updated, I'm interested in seeing if your fish will achieve full size. I've had my female green from a healthy population for about 13 months and she's grown from 2" to 5.25" in that time. Very spunky fish that wails on 6-7" chubs like they're bugs when she's being moody. Males tend to be more aggressive yet so my point, keep with tank mates with caution. Definitely don't keep them with anything fragile lol.

 

[Anthony Nolet]

I have a few together in a grow out until they're big enough for the big guy tank or the 75 if they outgrow their current tank but aren't ready for the big tank. They're all under 3" probably and the biggest one I've seen this year was like 3.5" lol they're all calm so far but who knows how long that'll last