I made another post about this same situation a couple weeks ago. Part of the reason I’m making this one is simple: because Google rewards content, and the person loudly proclaiming to the world that they’re THE authority on big bluegill posts a lot of content trying to drown out everyone else, as in all of the actual knowledgeable folk on this subject, so I have to also post content to get Google to see that I’m still managing private lakes and ponds for big bluegill.

I like to use analogies because sometimes it can make one come to a realization that a simple statement of fact might not. Here’s an analogy for you: how many people have you ever heard say that Ed Orgeron is the best college football coach in the world? If you’re a football fan, you’ve probably never heard a single human being utter those words about Orgeron. I’m sure he’s a nice enough guy; Tennessee football fans don’t think much of him because he called Tennessee football recruits that he had been paid by the University of Tennessee to recruit to that university, called them when his then-boss Lane Kiffin had just taken a job at USC and told them not to go to class so they could come to USC. But the average non-UT fan probably has no strong feelings about him one way or the other. But you’ll never hear anyone declare that he’s a world-class coach. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who would declare he’s a better coach than any of several of the top coaches working right now in college football; I doubt seriously that the University of Oregon would trade Dan Lanning for Orgeron, just as I doubt Texas A&M would trade Mike Elko for him; I would wager every dime I’ve ever made that the University of Indiana would not trade Curt Cignetti for him.

But Orgeron has something that none of those other men I listed above have: a national championship.

So he must be a better coach, right? If those other men were as good as he was, wouldn’t they have won a championship also?

If you don’t follow football, you’re probably thinking that yes, Orgeron is clearly a better coach - it’s self-evident because he has achieved something those other coaches have not. On the other hand, every football fan reading this is probably smiling to himself because he knows where I’m going with this.

No less than three different coaches have won national championships at LSU, the university Orgeron won his at, just in the last twenty-five years. Exactly one other university has matched that feat: Ohio State. If you combed through the entire hundred-plus-year history of Division I college football, you would find very, very few examples of that many different coaches winning a championship at the same school in that short of a time span.

Why did it happen at LSU and almost nowhere else? Because LSU has a talent advantage that no other school in the country does. It’s the only Power 4 school in the state of Louisiana, and the state is a hotbed for high school talent, one of the small handful of the best in the country. You could blindfold yourself and pick any random high school football coach to coach that program, and one out of every three prep coaches you hired would likely win a national title if you gave him at least three years.

Probably one or two people who read this follow the NFL. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl; Dan Marino never did. No one who has watched more than five minutes of NFL football has ever declared Dilfer a better quarterback than Marino. Marino is widely considered one of the best to ever play the game; he’s in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and was inducted into such his first year of eligibility. He won Rookie of the Year; he won MVP in his second season; he was the first quarterback to throw for 5,000 yards. But Dilfer played on a team that had one of the three or four best defenses in the history of the league. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of quarterbacks that have played in the NFL that could have won the 2000 Super Bowl playing beside that defense.

What does all this have to do with ponds, you might ask? Ed Orgeron never once called himself the greatest coach in the history of college football. Trent Dilfer never once called himself the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. They both achieved at a very high level; but they both have enough sense to know that a lot of their achievement had nothing to do with them, but rather came from the situation they walked into.

The state of Alabama is to the bluegill pond world what LSU is to college football. The person calling themselves THE authority on growing big bluegill, could do exactly what they have done management-wise on that one pond in Alabama, on a pond in Illinois or Iowa or Ohio or Montana or Michigan, and that person would have exactly zero people following them on social media because those states don’t have the climate and fauna that Alabama does.

If you had to grow a world-record largemouth bass, would you want to be working with a lake in California or Florida, or one in Nebraska? Imagine you were tasked with growing that fish, and you had to do so in Georgia; would you choose the northern or the southern portion of that state? The world record came from the southernmost region of Georgia; and no bass within five pounds of that fish has ever been caught in the northern half of the state.

What if you were tasked with growing the world-record largemouth, and you pursued that goal for several years in far southern Georgia, and managed to grow a bass to seventeen pounds, while another person also trying to grow the world-record largemouth grew a bass to sixteen pounds twelve ounces in far northern Georgia? Would you declare yourself the sole expert in growing giant largemouth, knowing someone else had in actuality outdone you, since they grew their fish in a different climate, a climate that has never produced a fish within pounds of the record?

Ed Orgeron doesn’t declare himself the best college football coach because, imperfect person that he is, he has enough sense to know he would look foolish, and moreover, he knows he would be lying. Trent Dilfer doesn’t declare himself the best quarterback for the same reason.

Anyone who cares more about taking your money than they do you actually having the best possible management for your pond, is not your friend. They’re also not honest.

Here’s another clue: if someone who claims to be an expert has to talk in slang and barbecue analogies because they don’t have any actual fisheries science knowledge, they might not be the expert they claim to be.

Beware people whose egos are so unhinged that they care more about social media followers and taking your money than they do the truth.

For those of you who haven’t read the last post I made on this subject, here are all the bluegill that have been caught from ponds I manage that came within a pound or less of the state record for Tennessee - the equivalent in Alabama would be bluegill weighing three pounds twelve ounces and larger:

The Real Bluegill Expert Part II

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The Real Bluegill Expert Part II

Lake Management Knoxville: Should I Stock Florida Bass?

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