Yesterday I decided to spring for a underwater viewing system so that I could learn more about what's going on in my ponds.
Currently I have two recreational ponds.
One of them is known as "Big Oliver". It is 1.25 acres and holds 11 acre-feet of water. It is being aerated by a 3/4 h.p. Kasco circulator.
The water clarity is 36 inches and it is set up for no reproduction. The fishing is generally poor to fair if you like numbers, but pretty darn good if you like trophies.
The other pond is known as "Hoover Pond". It is .15 acre and holds .75 acre-feet of water. It is being circulated with 54 degree well water that is directed horizontally along one shoreline with 15 gpm at 60 lbs of pressure. It has a 3/4 h.p. surface agitator that runs from midnight to 5:30 a.m.
Hoover pond is where the story begins.
Last year starting July 1, the fish virtually quit all pelleted feed activity. They also became impossible to catch. Any nightcrawler or leech would be ignored. Bobber fishing was useless. Fly fishing with pellet imitators--zilch. I spent two weeks deciding how to break it to the Pond Boss crew that I had killed another batch of fish. I never did see a fish dead.
About middle of August the bluegill started biting and they looked beautiful. About October I saw some huge yellow perch popping up for a few pellets.
In March I found several massive redears dead.
From April through early May the fishing was fantastic. Pellet feedings were frantic, and the fish looked to be in great condition. Yellow perch that I had raised indoors two winters previous were pushing a pound.
Then on about June 28, 2007 the fish did just what they did a year before. Complete cessation of pellet feeding and three hundred fish wouldn't touch a nightcrawler or jig or anything. Fishing stunk!
So back to the underwater camera. I purchased it at Cabelas using a discount coupon, a gift certificate and some credit card points. Pretty exciting. I rigged it up at the side of Hoover pond, hoisted it on to my float tube and started kicking around the pond. Clarity stood at about 25 inches.
I was disappointed at first because I was obviously spooking the fish with my tube because I couldn't see anything.
Then it dawned on me! "Oh, cr**!, they're dead!" I thought, "Man they must have sunk to the bottom. I started looking around on the bottom but nothing.
So then I floated over to the new island and took a peek with the camera.......and there was the biggest bluegill I've ever seen. He looked like a watermelon. Then he scattered. I looked at the other side of the island and there were three more hogs. I was excited beyong belief.
After this I created a way to suspend the camera over the center of the pond near the island and I left the camera for two hours while I went to do other chores. When I came back I decided to pull up a chair and do some serious viewing.
Here's where I made the amazing discovery.
I saw what I thought were tens of thousands of bubbles drifting by. They were too small for the camera to discern, so I just waited for the big fish to swim by. The "bubbles" kept up their continuous parade. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands....... You get the picture.
Then I looked a little closer and realized that the bubbles didn't generally go in a straight line. NOW I figured it out.
They were big zooplankton. Every one of them living, swimming creatures. Multitudes of them adrift in the lazy Hoover River. The current of the water keeping them ever afloat--ever vulnerable.
I slowly lowered the camera to the bottom.
When it hit bottom a big plume of "stuff" came off of the couple of centimeters of detritus on the floor of the pond.
Then the plume literally came to life. Thousands more big invertebrates, including quite a few with visible legs.
Holy smokeroonies! The pond is filthy with live, drifting bugs, just waiting to be gulped.
No wonder we can't catch anything. Fishing couldn't be any worse.
No wonder they went off the pellets.
No wonder they're getting huge.
Can't catch 'em though.
What should I do? Should I stock more fish? I've got plenty more really high quality smaller male bluegills. My Dad doesn't seem to frustrated with the poor catch rates, but I'd like him to have better action. After all, it's his pond.
I really honestly think I'm on to something here.
By the way. I videotaped the zooplankton on my wife's Sony digicam, but I have no idea how to get the video from the cam to Photobucket. Maybe if I go back and get a couple of fish on the tape too I can be famous like Dwight.
