Same fish - everyone calls them bream down here. I built a small pond last year, someone gave me a pool liner for a 10000 gallon pool. I don't have aeration, I plan to put a small windmill up to pump water in to top it up and switch to recirculate once the pond is near full. (we had about a foot evaporate out since the second half of spring was bone dry.) I stocked it (since it's such a small pond) with about 9 bream, I figured for the size it will support only about 25-30 bluegill, I'm fine with that, since a half-acre pond would have been really difficult to build. I got the stock from a local lake with a bait trap and none of the fish were bigger than about 2-1/2" long, I also caught about 20 minnows which have done really really well - we're up to a couple hundred minnows now, and the pond has attracted frogs and there's some green stuff growing in there. (I figured on a small starting population and it would grow into its own ecology without my 'nurturing')
Here's my stupid question: The fish (the bream) from last year have grown considerably, but I've lost track of how many there are. I see a few bluegills that are at about 2-1/2" now, is it possible that they are the smallest ones from last year and their growth was stunted? - Or am I better off assuming they had some offspring and only a few survived to this size? I know that to someone who knows fish pretty well this might sound just dumb, but I've truthfully never watched a 'wild' pond this closely, so I couldnt be sure what to expect. (I DID expect them to breed eventually, but I dont know what level of maturity they need to reach.)
My google searches were obliterated with anything but a good life-cycle timeline.