Apparent Response of Bluegills to Intensive Fishing

Abstract

Introduction: It has been a common perception that bluegill fishing is not what it use to be. There are plenty of fish but very few big ones. Evidence accumulated during the last few years suggests intensive fishing and removal of the largest bluegills, particularly during spawning, may be resulting in development of genetic strains which grow much slower. Just as in the breeding of domesticated animals, by removal of the larger individuals and allow only the small ones to reproduce, we have inadvertently developed smaller breeds of panfish.