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Dwight Offline OP
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It has taken 10 years to complete our southern Minnesota pond.

The land area is around 13 acres including our home and business buildings. The banks around the pond have been built at a 6:1 ratio and are planted in Alfalfa which is cut twice each year for livestock feed. No farm chemicals are applied anywhere near the pond.

The pond area is 5 acres with an average depth of 8 feet or so. The deepest area is 12 feet. Most of the main pond area is 9-10 feet deep. There are 2 shallow areas in the 3 to 6 foot range that are on both the north end and south ends of the pond. The largest shallow area is on the north end, which I figure will warm up first in the spring for spawning fish.

Since this pond was excavated with a crane there are many humps and valleys on the bottom. The pond was excavated to mine the gravel and the water surface is at ground water table level. The bottom is all sand, gravel and small rock.

The pond was connected to an adjacent river during the spring and summer most years (for drainage purposes) so there are plenty of indigenous fish that need to be removed before stocking and pond management begins. I have personally caught or seen caught Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Bullheads, Perch, Crappie, Bluegill, and large Northern Pike up to 18lb. There are also the usual rough fish like Carp and “who knows what”.

I want to aerate in the northeast area for oxygenation, fish feeding in the winter, and to keep an area open for a nice floating dock. Ice up here can go to 18” during a cold winter with minimal snow cover. Normal ice depth is 12” during a typical winter.

I have both 220 and 110 GFCI power available within 100’ of the water’s edge. Since the banks around the pond are being farmed for alfalfa, I plan to bury a conduit that could contain aeration tubes, electrical wires, water lines for lawn irrigation and etc. I am thinking a three inch conduit could contain anything that I can dream up.

I have been saving up a lot of diverse structural material over the years. I plan to haul these out on the pond when the ice is thick and let them sink during ice out.

I will need to remove the current fish population and stock the desired fish. I would like to have Large Mouth Bass, Bluegill, Black Crappie, and perhaps a Channel Cat or two. What about a few Walleye?

I am a very happy Pond Boss subscriber and believe that you, your readers, and advertisers can help me make my pond happen the way it should happen!

Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Thank you,

Dwight


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Dwight, I know almost nothing about ponds in your part of the world but a couple of things come to mind.

First, to kill all of the existing fish, you will either need to rotenone or siphon all of the water out. With the surface of the water even with the water table, it should be a simple matter to refill it. Rotenone is expensive. I'd go with the siphon. It could always be used again.

Before placing the structure, I would graph the pond. This will show the depths and any fish highways like channels. Place the structure at strategic places close enough to shore to be fished. The graph will be a great future reference.

With the sand, rock, and gravel bottom, I'm surprised that it holds water. You must have some clay underneath the aggregate. Or maybe, the ground water keeps it full. That's a foreign concept in North Texas's arid climate. If you get too much water, send some South.

Sounds like a neat deal and worth 10 years to complete. I assume someone was paying you for the gravel. Sounds like the best of all possible worlds.

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dbremer,

One word of caution about your stocking plans...black crappie. Much discussion regarding them on this Forum pros and cons. I've seen them ruin neighbor's small ponds that were not managed for them specifically. Several have reported success, however, with them if properly managed. It is very difficult to have a diverse small pond that is everything to everybody which includes crappie. My belief, from doing a lot of reading, and thinking on the subject is that crappie are fine in a pond which is specifically managed for them and with dedicated predators and forage targeted to the crappie. I'm hopeful of having a crappie pond one day, but it will be in a very controlled setting.

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Dave,

Thanks for the reply

Since the ground water table is the same as the pond surface level, I don’t see how it would be possible to siphon water out of the pond.

During one season an asphalt company pumped water from the pond for dust control purposes on area gravel roads. The pump they used had a 5” intake and a 4 cylinder diesel engine for power. At full capacity they could only draw down the pond 1” or 2”. We are talking serious water here!

I think Rotenone is probably where I am headed. At and estimated 2.5 million gallons of water, what type of costs are we looking at for Rotenone?

I have GPS coordinates for the shoreline. I used those coordinates to determine the 5 acre surface area. I plan to use my GPS and sonar to create a lake map as you suggest. I hadn’t considered the importance of where to place the structure, though that is a very good point.

The excavation was indeed paid for by the gravel that was removed. If it weren’t for “trading gravel for water”, I would have gone broke after the first couple of months!

Thanks again,

Dwight


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Meadowlark,

I have heard that Black Crappie are problematic in a pond, but I haven’t read anything comprehensive on the topic. Could you direct me to this information?

Thanks,

Dwight


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Dwight, just a quick question....have you closed off the access between the pond and the creek now?


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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The pond has been completely closed off to the Rock River.

Thanks,

Dwight


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Thanks Dwight.

Are you certain that you need to kill off all of the fish? The reason I ask, is that it sounds like you have an existing population of some of the "desired" fish. Now that your pond is closed, a lot of smaller unwanted fish may get eaten, and you may be able to progressively fish out other larger undesirables, use fish traps, and all while doing additional stockings of your most desireable fish.

My pond was connected to a stream for 50 plus years. There was a wide variety of fish in the pond; some of the LMB were 20-22" and around 5ish pounds which isn't all bad for us northerners.


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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Sunil,

Thanks for the post!

I have considered leaving the current fish and doing as you say.

I am concerned that the Northern Pike will greedily eat any stockings of smaller fish that are introduced into the pond. These guys are voracious feeders!

I will look into fish traps to learn more about them.

Thanks again,

Dwight


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Dwight:

Let's look at managing, as Sunil brought up, rather than renovating.

 Quote:
I have personally caught or seen caught Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Bullheads, Perch, Crappie, Bluegill, and large Northern Pike up to 18lb. There are also the usual rough fish like Carp and “who knows what”.
 Quote:
I would like to have Large Mouth Bass, Bluegill, Black Crappie, and perhaps a Channel Cat or two. What about a few Walleye?
So, these fish you have but don't want: Smallmouths (SMB), Bullheads (BH), Perch (YP), Northerns (NP), Carp, and misc. rough fish.

Of these I suspect the Northerns need to come out the most. Managing to reduce BH and Carp would probably require a heavy bass situation. Most reports/opinions here state that NP tend to prey on bass more than the fish you want the bass to control.

The SMB will probably assist in control undesirable fish in the short term. The will almost certainly be eliminated over the long term (5-10 years) by being outcompeted by the LMB.

There are a number of threads on controlling BH and Carp you can search and review in "Evaluating and adjusting fish populations" (and probably in "Corrective stocking") to weigh the plusses and minuses of managing vs. renovating.

There are several more experienced/more Northern members of the forum (Willis, Cody, et. al.) who can comment and provide advice on how YP will repsond to a bass heavy management approach, as well as when the best time to introduce Walleye might be (before, after, or during the reduction-of-undesirable-fish years).

I must say there are probably others here besides myself who would not find the requirement to catch 18 lbs Northerns to be all bad. \:\)


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Dwight, just so you know, I'm not trying to sway you one way or another.

I would think that the pike would need to go, or at minimum try to boil it down to just one pike for shock value. If you live-line a 8-10" Yellow Perch, you could get catch 'em.

I agree with Theo's comments too.


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Hello dbremer. I have several comments, some of which have already been discussed by the other folks. No particular order.

Yes!!!! Northern pike are BAD in a 5-acre pond. They'll knock down the size structre on any panfish you have. Man, an 18-lb pike is an eating machine -- nothing would be safe. other than large carp!

Why are you thinking of feeding fish in winter? First, they are cold blooded and likely won't eat much. Then, the food will decompose, causing even more risk of winter oxygen depletion in the North Country! :-)

We usually determine rotenone application by acre-feet, rather than gallons. 5 acres times your average depth (plus a little more for safety) would probably work. Use 1 gallon of liquid rotenone (either 5% rotenone, or the 2.5% syngerized version) per acre-ft of water to get a 3 ppm treatment, which should be sufficient for you. We do go higher than 3 ppm when there is abundant organic material decaying, such as aquatic plants. I could work out the number of gallons per acre-ft, but don't know a conversion off the top of my head. Someone else here might know a location for such conversions?

If you want to send me your mailng address (you can send me an e-mail or a personal message), I can send you a few things. I've written several articles for the Pond Boss magazine on largemouth bass-smallmouth bass interactions. If you like those, you might want to subscribe. Also, I can mail you a copy of the SD pond management booklet, most of which would apply to you.

Dave


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Dbremer, hi from another Minnesotan, sounds like a great pond. Just wanted to chime in on a couple of points. First, you better recalculate your water volume. I figure a 5 acre pond that averages 6 feet deep is like 11 million gallons. By the way, there is a handy conversion tool you can get off the internet called "Convert" you can get it at http://www.earthsci.org/freewar/freewar.html
It does every general type conversion you could ever want I think.
Second, have you checked into using retonone here in Minnesota. If it's like anything else you'll need a permit and probably have to hire a licensed applicator. I have a friend who's best friend is one of the Minnesota fisheries guys. He's checking on this for me so I can make plans to clean up my pond one day if needed. I can let you know what he says when I find out. Maybe even find a source for retonone if they allow me to DYS. I made the "mistake" of putting crappie in my 1/2 acre pond. As to whether this was a mistake we'll find out as time goes on. I do manage it intensly by removing hundreds of young crappie each year and making sure I have predators. Based upon what I've learned from the experts on this forum I think that a smaller pond like mine is easier to manage for crappie than your 5 acres would be because I at least have a chance of taking a high percentage of my crappie out. You will never catch enough to dent the population. I have so far caught 3 year old crappie that are around 11 inches. By the way, you also need to consider that if you plan to manually manage the crappie by trapping or catching them in mass you should know that this is illegal in Minnesota, even in your own pond. So if your pond is visible from roads or neighbors you may not get away with trapping them too long before a warden notices the traps.
Eventually the subject of how to aerate is going to come up. All I have to say about this is despite much advice to use a bottom diffuser in deep water in the summer and shallow water in the winter I have a bottom diffuser right on the edge of my deepest water at 8 feet. I have never lost a fish to any kind of kill either winter or summer. But I will admit that this may be dumb luck or the fact that I don't run the aerator 24/7. I have found that two 4 hours shifts per day at 5 cfm is enough. If you scan all past posts on aeration I think you'll discover that folks on this forum have concluded that aeration really doesn't add much O2 to the water anyway. It mainly serves to prevent stratification and to keep surface water moving in the summer so natural exygenation can occur and it also keeps the ice open in winter for natural oxygenation and also so that bad gases can escape. I think I've found the balance in my pond that allows me to accomplish these things with a deep aerator without supercooling the water in winter. My 4 cents.


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Theo Gallus,

Thank you very much for your comments!

I am now much more actively considering managing the pond to remove the undesired species.

I would like to have the Small Mouth Bass in the pond, though I don’t know that this is the kind of environment in which they would do very well.

You are correct in that the Northern Pike are the least desirable species to have in the pond. I like catching a big Northern Pike as well as most. I just know that they eat the “good fish” like fish garbage disposals. The juvenile ones will drive you crazy when fishing as they will try to eat most any lure or bait. One of my fishing friends coined the term “slime dart” and that is what we call the under 5 pounders.

As you have suggested, I plan on researching; "Evaluating and adjusting fish populations" and "Corrective stocking".

Thanks again, you have been very helpful!

Dwight


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Dave Willis,

Thanks for your comments!

I really wasn’t planning on feeding fish in the winter. Feeding just ended up as a part of my poorly organized thinking process about aeration.

I am beginning to wonder if feeding the fish with prepared feed is really necessary as long as you keep adequate live forage available. Comments on that would be appreciated.

I missed a decimal on my gallons of water estimate. It would be about 25,000,000, or 50 acre-feet. That sounds like a 55 gallon drum of rotenone. Whew, sounds expensive!

I will send you a personal message with my address for the items you mention. I have been a subscriber to Pond Boss for a couple of years, but I don’t have all the back issues.

Thanks again,

Dwight


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My initial thoughts are that the smallmouth would do very well in your pond if it has the sand & rock bottoms.

Have crayfish moved in yet?


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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bz,

Thank you for your 4 cents!

My 2.5 million is off by a decimal point (dam computers!), 25 million gallons.

I will check out that conversion URL. I use http://www.onlineconversion.com/ which sounds similar.

It is good to hear from a Minnesota pond-manager, since we seem to be a rather rare bird. I live in the only county in Minnesota without a natural lake, this pond has been more then a dream, it seems to be a necessity!

I have printed your post and will thoroughly research your comments and suggestions on aeration and managing Crappie in a pond. It also sounds like I better check out the Minnesota laws on a variety of issues.

Thanks again,

Dwight


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Assuming no inflow, how long would it take for a ten inch siphon to empty Dwights pond? How about a 12 inch? 25,000,000 gallons.

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Sunil,

Doesn’t the smallmouth prefer current somewhere in their environment? I don’t know much about them since they are fairly rare in this area.

I haven’t looked for crayfish and since I have never cleaned a fish that I caught out of the pond, I haven’t examined any stomach contents.

I know that crayfish hang out under rocks etc, but all the rock is very small. I suppose I could put out a trap and see what shows up.

Water temps are pretty cold here already. Do crayfish hibernate in the winter?

Thanks,

Dwight


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Good morning, Dwight. A few more thoughts, in no particular order.

Rotenone can indeed get expensive. If you have 5 acres, and your average depth (not maximum) is 6 feet, then you would need 30 gallons of rotenone. Last time I bought some, somebody must have cornered the market, as it was expensive. I haven't bought any for a few years, and am not sure of current prices. However, it was up to ~$70 per gallon. So, it's a big investment, and it's important to do it right and not leave any carp (for example) behind. I was glad to see that bz provided some excellent information on locals rules and regs.

Feeding -- we usually don't do much feeding in north country ponds, just because we're so scared that the extra organic material can lead to increased likelihood of winterkill. Having said that in general, there are people that successfully do use supplemental feed. Bruce Condello is a little further south in Nebraska, but he's good at what he does. Closer to you, Norm Kopecky in Sioux Falls, SD, does use supplemental feed as well. Like you, he has an excavated (gravel pit) type of pond. With the flow of shallow ground water through that type of pond, they can handle a little more organic load.

Smallmouth bass obviously like current and can live in rivers. However, they do just fine in ponds and lakes with no current.


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EDIT: I was typing in a reply while Dave's post came up, so please take these as just additional comments.

Dwight, Happy Thanksgiving. My comments on Smallmouth are from a layman's perspective. They are, however, my favorite fish.

As far as currents, yes the smallmouth may be more of a river fish than a pond/lake fish, however, we all know that certain lakes have killer populations of smallmouth.

As far as pond stocking of smallmouth, I've heard that if you catch a smallie in a river and put him in your pond, he won't do so great; he may live, but he will most likely never spawn. However, if you catch them from a lake and put them in your pond, they may be better off.

When you get smallies from a hatchery, they are "usually" pond raisied, and can then do very well in your pond.

Dr. Dave Willis (fish squeezer) wrote a nice Pond Boss article talking about overall survival of smallmouth when co-existing with largemouth bass. Over time, due to mortality and less productive spawning, the smallies will disappear; to alleviate this, you would need to do progressive stockings. As far as living together at any one point in time, I believe you can have both in your pond, but none may get to "lunker" status.

You mentioned smallies being rare in your area. I would have thought that they were common in your area.

As far as spotting crayfish in your pond, here's a few suggestions to try (I don't know if they hibernate in the winter):

1) For every bass (SMB or LMB)that you catch, make sure to look closely into the gullet. Many times you will see a set of pincher claws sticking out meaning he was just eating a crawdad.

2) Take a ladys stocking or panty hose, throw some type of meat or a few hotdogs in along with small rock, and tie a knot to keep the meat at the end; cut-off the slack. Tie a string to it, and let it sink to the bottom around some rocks. Do it in a place where you can slowly lift the sack up out of the water without dragging it on the bottom. If you have crayfish, you should find a few clinging to the panty hose, after 10 or 15 minutes in the water.

3) Place a flat rock (anywhere from 6 to 12" in diameter) in about a foot of water and wait for a day or so. Then come back and gentley lift the rock from one side so as not to create a cloud, and see if there's a crayfish under there.

4) You could try a minnow trap with some hotdogs in it. I've never tried that.

Maybe others will give more input for you.


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I'm really glad that people like Sunil will make observations and post about fish like smallmouth bass. It's a fish that many of us are interested in, but there is a relative void in practical observations available to those of us who are considering this fish as a bonus species.

If anybody wants me to I'll make another post of Sunil checking on his smallmouth that was in a thread a couple of days ago. ;\)


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My lack of knowledge about crawdads exceeds what I do know. However, that has never stopped me, so:

I have seen them in lakes high in the Rocky Mountains and in down South swamps, creeks and everywhere in between.

Walk the edges of your pond. Everyone that I have seen digs burrows except for those in the high rocky areas. Not sure what they do. Look for holes from the waters edge to 10 ft. from the edge. They burrow down to the water level. If the burrow gets too tight or gets dirt in it, they will push the offending dirt to the top and leave hills around the hole.

Lots of species. I have trapped them in a minnow trap as Sunil recommends trying. Any thing is good bait. They taste great and fish love them. For that reason, they are tough to keep going in a mature pond.

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Dr. Willis mentioned supplemental feeding in the North. This is another area that I didn't know much about when I stocked my pond so I went ahead and fed as much as my fish would eat. Worked out OK so far. I feed twice a day in summer starting within a week of ice out and taper off in the fall as the fish slow down. I feed all the way up to a week before freeze over if the fish will take any. Of course in the spring and fall it's all hand feeding so that I can monitor what they take and not over feed. From June until September I have a demand feeder that hangs off the dock. Some of the fish have learned to use this while at other times a windy day will trickle food into the pond all day. As long as it is mid summer this all gets eaten. My original stocking was 1000 hybrid BG. They are between 1/2 to 3/4 pound right now but I only feed about 150 lbs of feed over the whole summer. So this is truly just supplemental feeding since this is way to little feed to get the growth I've seen. But it works for me. I can catch 10 ounce fish all day and they are fat, healthy, and good fighters. I also supplement with several lighted bug wackers from June thru August at night. My fish were eating pellet food pretty aggressively for short periods at dusk up until about 2 weeks ago.


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Good post and good info, bz. I can't recall -- do you have a dammed pond (I can just hear the jokes starting on that one) or do you have an excavated gravel pit type of pond? Just curious for long-term information in the back of my mind. I'll admit that I am overly cautious in my management strategies, be they control of panfish by predators, or avoiding winterkill at all costs. :-)


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Can anyone ID these minnows?
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Dewatering bags seeded to form berms?
by RogersTailgate - 03/29/24 05:45 AM
New pond middle TN: establishing food chain?
by Bill Cody - 03/28/24 07:57 PM
Happy Birthday Bob Lusk!!
by FireIsHot - 03/28/24 07:33 PM
Working on a .5acre disaster, I mean pond.
by PRCS - 03/28/24 06:39 PM
Fungus infection on fish
by nvcdl - 03/28/24 06:07 PM
1 year after stocking question
by esshup - 03/28/24 04:48 PM
Yellow Perch Spawn 2024
by H20fwler - 03/28/24 04:29 PM
New 2 acre pond stocking plan
by LANGSTER - 03/28/24 03:49 PM
Newly Uploaded Images
Eagles Over The Pond Yesterday
Eagles Over The Pond Yesterday
by Tbar, December 10
Deer at Theo's 2023
Deer at Theo's 2023
by Theo Gallus, November 13
Minnow identification
Minnow identification
by Mike Troyer, October 6
Sharing the Food
Sharing the Food
by FishinRod, September 9
Nice BGxRES
Nice BGxRES
by Theo Gallus, July 28
Snake Identification
Snake Identification
by Rangersedge, July 12

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