Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What is Pond Boss?

By canyoncreek's request, here's my blog post in a thread for response.


After going through some of the responses of several threads, I think it wise to clarify just what Pond Boss is...
First, Pond Boss, Inc. is a for-profit business owned by Mike Otto & Bob Lusk. Mike is a premier pond and lake builder, with an earthmoving company. Bob (me) is a long-time private sector fisheries biologist, traveling the nation helping individuals design, build, and manage private fishing lakes. I also own Bob Lusk Outdoors, a small lake and pond management company that does the grass-roots pond management work, from stocking fish to water quality management, lake mapping, electrofishing surveys... to all things about managing healthy ponds and lakes.

That's how we make our livings.

But, What is Pond Boss?

5-10 years ago, my answer would have been, "Pond Boss is a bi-monthly magazine that helps people become better stewards of their land and water".

Now, my answer is different. Pond Boss is a big family of people striving to become better stewards of their land and water. Pond Boss is small groups of people meeting at properties across the nation to exchange information and build relationships and long time friendships. Pond Boss is a member-driven forum of healthy discussion about all things pond, lakes, and land management. Pond Boss is a conference every year and a half to three years. Pond Boss is a long-lasting entity of idea-sharing and friendships that are standing the test of time. Many people don't truly know the effects of relationships started through some part of Pond Boss. Some of those are jaw-dropping amazing. Pond Boss is a series of social media, not only the website forum, but also FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter. Pond Boss is a website, chock full of articles, videos, and information for people to glean and learn. Pond Boss is a group of faithful vendors and advertisers, quick to help people. And, yes, Pond Boss IS a magazine that comes out every other month.

While I've read a few opinions about the status of Pond Boss, the truth is Pond Boss is a healthy, thriving business that employs people, helps all our vendors and readers...for a fee. The social media stuff is free to consumers to build the community. The conferences have been offered for much better learning opportunities, to spend time as a Pond Boss family, and to increase people's level's of knowledge, services, and products for better stewardship.

So, to further the understanding of "What is Pond Boss", now you hopefully have a much better understanding of what we are. None of these diverse segments of Pond Boss stand on their own merits without considering the whole. What started as a newsletter/magazine 26 years ago has expanded into what we are today.

To further squelch any wayward opinions, we don't intend to "require" anyone to "pay to play" in the forum or any social media we use. We don't expect anyone to pay for "free" articles and videos at www.pondboss.com. We do expect everyone on the forum to have a better understanding of all things Pond Boss. And, we want everyone to understand that the economy of Pond Boss is fueled by paying subscribers and advertisers in the magazine. Banner ads you see on the forum are typically part of a bundling program to entice advertisers in the magazine and to give them something value-added.

So, when we ask people to buy a subscription the magazine, don't be offended by that. It isn't a requirement for any of this resource called the forum. If we don't ask you to subscribe, or members of the forum don't ask you to subscribe, we are doing a disservice both to you and to ourselves.

Once you've spent time on the forum, read the volumes of outstanding information and waded through some of the personalities and the rules, we expect you'll be excited to support all things Pond Boss with a subscription to the magazine. If not, you can contribute to the costs of the forum via the "donate" button in the top right corner of the screen. Any donation puts you into the Pond Boss Hall of Fame.

This should clear any muddy waters of thought about what Pond Boss truly is...we are a diverse group of people, afforded diverse selections of vehicles to get to our stewardship destinations.

Bob,

As a suggestion, I would like to see more articles on PBF member's projects in PBM. Projects like "8 acre pond at 10,000." Anything unique is interesting to me. Even a story on a tiny backyard mini that is done exceptionally well will, IMO, appeal to lots of folks and be within their budget. It doesn't need to be big project, although I like reading about those as well! Can always dream!

IMO The series of articles Mike started in the current issue of PBM on how to fix a leaking pipe is something that comes up on the forum all the time and is a great example of info a whole bunch of folks can use and want. Not my business at all but, you have the forum at you fingertips providing a wealth of feedback on what folks are interested in and what they want to know. I'm sure, they would love to see an article in PBM that covers those oft brought up topics.

Just my 1 cent...

Bill D.

P.S. I still think you should change the button at the top of the page from "Donate" to "Invest." The info I've received from the forum has saved me a bundle!

Bill, do it! I agree 100%. Threads like wbuffetjr's are very interesting to me. Not so much for any benefit I may get out of them, but seeing pond owners adapt to unique situations, or turning an old neglected pond into something very special does interest me.

Bob obviously can't visit all the different ponds, so it's up to the pond owner to submit an article to him with pics. Several of us have submitted articles in the past, and maybe Bob will see this, and let us know what he would need for an article. Word count, pic resolution and number, etc. I forgot.

Bob's a magician with a keyboard, so he can take the information and help make it something special. The first step is a submission.

I agree. I would write an article about my pond experience, but it may be a good story to put someone to sleep.

Northern medium small-property stewardship on a shoe-string budge could be interesting. I still need to re-subscribe to read these articles, I miss them. Budget has been really tight the past couple of years with medical and car expenses so something had to give.

I ask for stories from readers every issue. And, each issue, we typically do have at least one reader story.
Here’s what to do....
Send me an email with the story idea.
I’ll respond.
Especially looking for stories about northern waters.
Don’t be afraid to write...I don’t care if you can spell, if can write or not. That doesn’t matter. If you have a story, just tell the story. I’ll fix grammar, spelling, etc
Editorial guidelines are:
Microsoft Word document;
Single spaced, Times-New Roman 12pt font. One space at the end of a sentence. 750-1500 words. 5-7 photos, jpegs.
If that doesn’t make sense, email me and I’ll help.
Each story needs to fit the season or time frame of that issue.
Getting ready to start the march-April issue. Deadline for that is January 10.
Bring it on!

Thanks Bob.

Sounds like that would be a lot of fun!....Now all I need is an interesting pond to write about!

Hopefully, some of the other folks here on the forum will take advantage of this opportunity to share some of the cool things they are doing.