Update - the drawdown and seine portion is complete! Finally managed to get enough water out to seine it without drowning. Went swimming in chest waders twice over the weekend, which was zero fun. That was some coooold water.
Didn't get a ton of pics of the actual fish removal, given that when we finally got it done there wasn't anyone else there and I was a bit busy.
A few surprises:
1 - my pond is deeper than I thought. I've thought for 10 years after an initial depth check that it was in the 15-16 foot range. This is not correct. There was a deep pool on the north side that was closer to 18-19 feet. That's where the fish all ended up.
2 - there weren't as many catfish as I expected. We got 6 big CC's out, weighing between 14 and 18 lbs. Big fat ole cats. My buddy took all of them and released them in a pond he has a BG issue with, to see if they will help out. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a couple more down in the mud that'll pop up when I kill the rest off tonight.
3 - My HSB stocking wasn't a total loss! I stocked 60 3-4 inch HSB's in there 3 years ago. Out of 60 I seined out a grand total of 1 HSB - around 14 inches long. A healthy looking HSB...he must've been the fastest one of the batch.
4 - I'd forgotten how hard it is to seine a pond. I felt like I'd run a marathon with lead weights tied around my ankles when we finished last night.
Probably took out something around 300 fish all told, LMB, BG, GSF, CC, BCP and one lonely HSB. Along with a good crop of bullfrogs and crawdads as well.
Some pics of the pond...
Ended up with a East/West shallow (relatively speaking - it would be at about 12 feet at full pool) ridge running the entire length of the pond. Handy for walking on. The south pool was smaller and shallower, the north pool larger and much deeper.
My boy with one of the 15 or so big BCP we removed. All are scheduled to be released to the grease in the next week or so.
Quite a bit of bottom 'structure' (read 'Garbage') - we spent a good bit of time filling trash bags. I guess given that the bottom hasn't seen the light of day in 22 years or so it wasn't all that bad. Unusual findings included a mailbox with some paper still in it (unrecognizable but guessing it was mail) an old starter off a tractor, and a knick-knack shelf.
The best part of the process was getting the kids involved in 'rescuing' fish...we set out 5 fish traps and probably pulled out 300 or better 2014 year class BG and GSF - maybe 20 or so 2013 year class. The kids had a ball.
The silt isn't as bad as I'd expected....2/3 of the pond has little to none. The bottom of the deep pool and several areas on the East end have some deeper spots. Going to try to get a track-hoe in there in the next couple of days just to get some of it out.
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