Ask Sarah Parvin why she’s on a mission to grow and then catch the world’s largest bluegill – and she’ll be happy to hear from you. Alabama fisherman and self-dubbed “Slab Queen” Says bass have long been the star of the freshwater fishing scene in the South, and these days, it seems like everyone with a private pond is trying to grow their own double-digit bigmouth. This puts warmwater species like crappie, bream and other panfish in the “child’s play” category – perfect for kids with rods, but trophy fishing for bluegill? Yes, that’s right.
That’s why Parveen says she wants to change the story.
“I really believe that panfishing has been viewed as the red-headed stepchild of freshwater fishing,” she says. “And I want to change that. I want people to be proud of catching big bluegill and crappie, and share those catches with the same pride they do a big bass.”
Re-invention of the “Slab Lab”
Now, to be honest, Parveen will be the first to admit that she’s spent a lot of time chasing black bass all over the South. Born and raised in Montgomery, she now lives up north in Huntsville, where she and her father, Dr. Dennis Olive, have been managing a 5-acre private lake for the past 27 years. was nicknamed “Slab Lab,” It all started with a dream of growing meaty, 10-plus-pound bass. But Parveen says this dream changed a few years ago, when a large number of fish were killed in the pond.
“We had a total loss. Trophy bass, bream, everything,” she says. “But things like this happen even in the best-managed private waters. It happens in nature.”
There are many reasons why fish die off in private lakes, but most result from a process called “Eutrophication.” This happens when a water body becomes excessively rich in nutrients – especially nitrogen and phosphorus – due to an overgrowth of plants, which suck all the oxygen from the water. Stocking a lake with too many fish or pumping fish food (or a combination thereof) into it will have the same effect. That’s why managers of private water bodies are always trying to maintain the right balance: everyone wants a pond full of fish, but if you take it too far, they’ll all be filled with fish.
However, Parveen and her father took this “total loss” seriously and they decided to take Slab Lab in a more experimental direction. For them, it presents a unique opportunity to “start from ground zero, make some improvements” and try to grow a healthy population of whopper bluegill.
both reached American sportfishA fish hatchery and pond management company with locations in Alabama and Texas, and they asked about coppernose bluegill. A subspecies of the common bluegill, the fish is native to Florida and southeast Georgia, and according to American Sportfish, the coppernose “grows faster and eats granular food more readily than the common bluegill.”
Feeling they had chosen the right species, Parveen and Olive ordered 7,000 or more copper-nosed fingerlings and deposited them in the private lake. Then they began a years-long process of selectively killing, feeding, and experimenting to see if they couldn’t evolve bluegills destined for the record books.
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Which leads to an important question that Parveen is often asked these days: If you catch a world-record sized fish that grew up in a private lake, should it count as a world record? To this Parveen replies that International Game Fish Association Creates rules and sets standards for world-record fishing. And until the IGFA stops accepting entries coming from private water bodies (in the same manner). Boon and Crockett Club doesn’t allow high-fenced or pen-raised deer in his record books), he’s not too concerned about other people’s approval.
“I’ll be honest,” says Parveen. “If I never get a world-record certified, I won’t complain. It’s what my dad and I have done with these trophy Coppernose over the last three and a half years that means everything to me.”
Chasing the world record
As a retired doctor, Parveen’s father has a greater scientific background than her. “He fishes and I catch them. And that relationship goes very well,” she jokes. But she also takes her role seriously and says consistently catching big bluegills isn’t as easy as you might believe.
“People love to argue with me that you can throw a bread ball and catch bream,” she says, “There’s some technique to it when you’re trophy hunting for panfish. And lure selection is something I really have to dial in when I’m targeting these 3-plus-pound bluegill.”
She adds that although she often experiments with color, profile and the like, she rarely throws baits smaller than two inches. This helps flush out some of the smaller bluegills, which are abundant, as these fish thrive in the warm southern climate and spawn several times a year.
And there’s no doubt that fish works well here in Hart of Dixie. World-record bluegill is also state recordsAnd it came from a small lake near Birmingham, about 100 miles south of Huntsville. That fish, caught in 1950, weighed 4 pounds, 12 ounces. And unless they kept it a secret, no one in the South has touched this record since.
As far as Parveen and her father are concerned, she says they are getting closer to breaking the record every year. He has caught several fish in the three to three and a quarter pound range in the last 12 months alone, and according to igfa rulesTo make it official he would only have to beat the existing record by two ounces. So, for now, she’ll continue fishing the lake as usual, just waiting for the right bluegill to bite.
“We really believe we have a four-pounder swimming,” Parveen says. “We just have to catch it.”
