Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Hallo from Idaho

I am looking at floating gardens on my ponds this year and thought I might join a forum to refine my plans and get some exposure to potentially new and different ideas.

I have 4 manmade ponds here on the farm all with catfish and one with large mouth bass. My largest pond is about 80 feet wide by 300 feet long and 14 feet deep with a small island in the middle of it. The next largest is just behind the house and it is about 70 feet by 90 feet circular shaped also about 14 feet deep. I have a triangular shaped pond in the upper hay field that is about 70 feet on each side and again about 14 feet deep. Then I have a small pond about 30 feet in diameter and maybe 10 feet deep between the largest pond and the upper hay field pond.

Looking to build floating raft systems and grow a garden on one or two of the ponds this year.

Welcome to Pond Boss!!

We don't have many members from Idaho, and it's nice to hear about your ponds. I'm pasting in your other post, just so others can hear about it.

Which pond is the LMB pond?

"We catch mostly 10 to 11 inch bass in our pond as well, though sometimes you catch a little 10 incher and one of the giants comes up and eats it while you are getting them to shore.. They take the fish , the lure the line and even your pole if you are aren't careful. lol.. Those giant females 26 to 28 inches are no joke.

We have so many bass in that pond that you can literally catch a fish about every 2 to 3 minutes, though most are small in the 6 to 12 inch range. You spend your entire day retrieving hooks and throwing fish back in. But generally with a few hours of fishing I can get at least one decent sized fish in the 18 to 20 inch range. None of has ever managed to get one of the giant ones in yet, you can see them and when they take your fish and rip your line off it is a bit of a thrill. One thing to keep in mind is that the large females are busy laying eggs in the spring and they won't even pay attention to lures until about late June or so. At least that is the way it is here with ours anyways. So you generally catch the smaller males and younger females while the giants hang low lurking. We see tens of thousands of young fry each spring/summer at the edges of the pond here."

Great pictures!!

What kind of catfish is that? At first glance I wondered if it was a bullhead.

Here are some pictures... I think I have this figured anyways... We shall see..

An attempt at making a floating dock after I got my sawmill setup. I can't find any of the finished photos yet, wayy too many pictures over the years..








The dock worked great for the first 4 years, but soon lost much of it's flotation, I did not realize that milk jugs would break down so quickly. It is still out there floating on the pond now 12 years after building it but it submerges a bit now if a person gets onto it. It was fun and we learned from it though..

That one log appears to have an amazing burl on it.

Welcome to PB. I’ve built several rafts. None were very good but I found that plastic barrels worked better than just wood. Short rafts are a PITA.