So a few people have posted about this place recently and chosen to leave the name out. Out of respect for those fellers, I will do the same.
At any rate, my family and I were kicking around a town, taking care of some business, and my wife had some big sale she wanted to go to. Being the awesome woman she is, she offered to let me hang at this fishing pond while she went to the sale. There were more people than usual here today, but my spot was still open. The folks that were there weren’t having much luck with a worm, but worms never seem to work well there. I pulled out my fly rod with a black woolly bugger and set to work. After remembering how to work the thing, within just a couple minutes I had my first fish on. The place was planted within the last month, so it was one of the expected 8-9" ers.
A kid came up and started visiting with me, and I caught another one or two while he was there and missed a couple others. He talked to me for a minute and decided to go grab his stuff, as he lived close by, and give it a try. It wasn’t a very big spot, and he was maybe 10, so when he returned, I let him have the spot and tried to find another hole in the moss. I walked around the pond, tried a couple places but was just pulling up moss. I looked back to where I had started and the kid had moved elsewhere, so I went back.
I pulled in another planter trout, then about 5 minutes later came the surprise. I threw my bugger out, and had a follower shortly after. I looked closely, and noticed that it seemed to be narrower than the trout. I looked a little closer and it was a bluegill! Someone must have illegally planted it, because I checked the last couple years stocking reports when I got home and saw nothing about BG’s. At any rate, I ended up hooking him up, and got him in. It was either the biggest or second biggest BG I have ever caught. I didn’t keep any of the fish, so I don’t know how big he was but as you can see in the pic, he was bigger than my hand. It was quite the surprise. My wife called about 2 minutes later, so I had to leave shortly after.
Never, I mean never answer on the first call, if it’s an emergency, she’ll call back[;)]
When you said slab, I was thinnin’ crappie.
I wonder sometimes if the stocking reports don’t reflect ALL the stocking efforts (that happen legally). I know even little 'ol Skylers has had bluegills, though the only ones I met were minnows, and pretty sure they’ve been fished out. Doesn’t seem like they’ve bothered planting channels in there either. Though last time out - I saw a number of carp, and even a goldfish (yeah, bucket biology there - you could be sure!).
Never, I mean never answer on the first call, if it’s an emergency, she’ll call back[;)]
ROTFL LMAO!!! I always say if its important they will leave a message! Yours is better and way too true.
Great, where,were you 5 hours ago 
@Coyote : I couldn’t remember if crappie or bluegill were "slabs ". Guess I picked wrong:-). I think this guy was probably a product of bucket biology. No way a bluegill would get that size in that little pond. Could be wrong though I suppose.
Sunfish not a bluegill maybe not
Didn’t even think about a sunfish. To be honest, I really struggle identifying those 3 fish. They all look the same!
definatly a gill. sunfish have bigger mouths and a turqouise pattern on there gill plate. nice fish though for a community pond
Green sunfish have a large black dot at the tail end of their dorsal and anal fins…if I remember correctly. I caught HUNDREDS of them back in Kansas. The creek that ran through our farm had them but absolutely no bluegill.
Nice fish, too.
yep i forgot the black dot gives them away, and they are fiesty little buggers.
It can be difficult to tell the diffeence but I think this one is a gill
According to the Utah wildlife Community Fisheries Booklet, all of the community fisheries in Salt Lake County have bluegill: http://wildlife.utah.gov/cf/cf_book_12.pdf
Don’t know which county you were in but Utah County and Davis County also have bluegill in community ponds. Kinda fun to have such a variety [:)]
Either way it was really cool of you to give the li’l man a spot to fish, high fives to you!
Most of the Community Ponds are stocked with bluegill and LMB when the ponds are first opened.
Some of the ponds have the proper structure for the fish and they can do well.
Other ponds loose the fish after a few years.
Looks like your pond has enough structure for the Gills to survive and grow to a good size.
Very interesting. I didn’t think they planted them there. That’s good to know. It really is a pretty good idea to have a variety. That kid is the type of kid they plant those ponds for. He seemed pretty excited about fishing, and sounds like he has caught some there in the past. Hope he does well.
@DKStroutfitter: The pond is a moss infested mess, I guess the gills must like that 
I bet if they planted some little bass there they would thrive.
Got home on my lap top ya a gill on the phone looked more sunfish like but nice gill any way
+1 on helping out the little guy. Always kinda cracks me up to run into some youngsters and get asked something like, “do you have a hook? I lost my only one”
Grab the Willow switch and go!
Some lakes, waters will have both Sunfish and Bluegill (Mantua/ Bear river for example), and I’m pretty sure you can get hybrids - kinda like LM and SM bass doing a little cross-dressing, um, er, breeding.
Bluegill tend to be more short and tall, while Sunfish have a longer-leaner look usually. Sorry the focus is off. They seem to have more horizontal spot lines too, while the gills have pretty pronounced vertical lines.
[inline BRb6.GreenSunfish.jpg]
Heck jdawg - you can call 'em slabs if you want. I think the term slab is generally used for the BIG crappie.
not one like THIS:
[inline BR08.CrappieFound.jpg]