Tennessee Lake Management and Tennessee Pond Management: An Average Day for Trophy Bluegill

When landowners ask me what to expect in terms of the quality of fishing that can be developed in a pond managed for trophy bluegill, I tell them that it’s possible to have a pond where the bluegill average three-quarters of a pound or better, and you catch bluegill over a pound every time you fish. I can’t say that I have ever had a landowner express open doubt when I said this, but I can definitely tell sometimes when I make this statement that my audience is skeptical. I then go on to tell them that two-pound bluegill should be relatively common in a pond that’s properly managed for trophy bluegill. I’ve made a couple other posts on here about a 1.1-acre pond we manage that cranks out a lot of big bass, and which also produced two bluegill over two pounds last year. I fished the pond for a couple hours last week, and while we didn’t catch any two-pounders, I did have one fish break my four-pound-test and another pull the hook; and we weighed seven bluegill that were over a pound apiece, with one weighing 1.25 lbs. and another going 1.3 lbs., and an eighth fish that weighed .95 lb. We also had two other bluegill that would’ve gone over a pound each but were not weighed. Here are some photos: