The Marine Corps has a mantra: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome. I got a chance to see this in action recently, but in a very atypical way — some bluegill building their nests.
A landowner called me and wanted to show me something he had never seen. He has a pond on his property that has bluegills. It is spawning time for bluegill and he saw fish building their nests, but they were lining the nest with fresh water mussel shells. He told me he had never seen the bluegills do this before. In fact, he had never seen freshwater mussels in his pond until it was inundated with the floods we had in 2012.
Bluegills may be the most widely spread fish species in Nebraska. They are typically found in shallow water environments where they use vegetation, rocks, fallen tree limbs or any other structure as protection. A bluegill’s diet is made up of insects, zooplankton, worms and smaller fish, like minnows. They are schooling fish so where you find one you normally see others.
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