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Joined: Apr 2002
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Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
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OP
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99 |
From December 5 until about January 5, I stayed exceptionally close to home, helping take care of Debbie and grandkids. But, things started to pick up and I've been involved in some pretty cool stuff. I did get to meet up with a new Pond Boss forum member and help him do some due diligence by analyzing a lake on property under contract. That's a big responsibility and it's fun to be able to study a lake and then teach people about it. January 6, I headed to Eagle's Nest Ranch to meet up with Pond Medic's Trent Lewis, his helper Clayton and Cabela's Steve Bartosh. The mission was to map the big lake on the ranch. We spent the evening together and mapping started the next morning. Chad Fikes, with my company, came over to learn about the mapping project and the methods used. The ranch owner was there and we made a day taking care of many projects. The mapping team collected more than 40,000 datapoints. Now, they go back and put the maps together. Here's some photos. Chad and Clayton taking waypoints in the lake at Eagle's Nest Ranch on Day 1 Day 2, Trent and Clayton in their small rig, gathering more data. Here's part of the equipment. Cabela's Steve Bartosh, seated, with Trent (l) and Clayton, downloading and looking at the data collected after Day 1. Sorry...gotta run right now. I'll be back later today and finish this post. Got lots more to share. Check back after noon.
Teach a man to grow fish... He can teach to catch fish...
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
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OP
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99 |
Last Monday, I loaded up Debbie and the two smallest grandpeeps and headed to Durant, Oklahoma to meet with a local landscape contractor to give him some ideas about a small pond for one of his clients. When we arrived, I was fascinated about all the bad things he said about the clients, how they complained about most of what he had done, about how they cut corners when they built their home, about all the things they had done wrong. This is the home of a physician...a virtual McMansion slightly out in the country with a square pond in the back, about 30 yards behind the back yard (which has a pool). The pond has no topsoil in the levee, and the levee makes up three sides. The levee is heavily eroded, with hundreds of little "valleys" on the water side of the pond. All that missing dirt has flowed into the pond, silting the edges. There is one place for water to come in...and it is the same place where excess water can escape. In a nutshell, I told him they needed to stop the erosion, pull the silty dirt from the pond, put it back on the levee where it belongs, bring in some topsoil and get some greenery on top of disturbed dirt. He said, "They won't want to hear that." My response was, "They didn't do it right in the first place." And, then I offered the best advice I could think of. "Not all business is good business." He told me they had paid him a deposit. My pond advice for this one was this. "Give them their money back, smile really big, thank them for the opportunity and tell them it isn't a good fit for your business." And, then walk away. Then, Debbie and I took the little kidlets home, collect our stuff and headed toward Big Cedar Lodge. During the trip to Durant, Sharon had called me, asking if we wanted to make a spontaneous trip to Missouri. I winked at Debbie, she said, "Yes" and we confirmed. So, we headed back to Gordonville, packed our bags and made our way to McAlester, Oklahoma by 9 pm. We slept, woke up when we were ready...I worked on Pond Boss some, and then we left. Arrived Big Cedar, checked in, met with Carla Springer with the sales department and headed to our cabin. Debbie looks over the cabin. Very nice and tastefully rustic. That night, we attended a reception. Professional photographers took our photo, we had a glass of wine with hor d'ourves and met some other event planners and people planning to bring groups to Big Cedar. The dinner was fabulous and we learned plenty about Big Cedar. The next day we toured the property and then met with our meeting planners to hammer out some of the details of next September's conference. When the registration forms come out, you need to register and book your room. This will be a huge event. I've posted some of these photos in the conference thread, but here's what we saw. Grandview Conference Center Lobby of Grandview. Huge foyer for small groups at Grandview. Here's the dominant view. Stunning. One of the main lodges, where we have blocked rooms. We headed back to Texas, after a quick drive through Branson. Left at 3 pm, got home about 9:30. Thursday, we loaded up Debbie and Nolan, headed toward Weatherford, Texas and met up with four long time Pond Boss subscribers, one of which has been a client for a long time. We met him and his son-in-law, who just bought a nice ranch with several ponds and a site for a pretty big lake. They are doing their due diligence to figure out whether or not to build the lake. They have already used Freese and Nichols engineers in Fort Worth to look at the permitting process. We'll see. Then, Saturday, I met up with Mike Otto and Ethan Lovelace (Lovelace Lake on the Forum) at 5:45 a.m. and we headed toward Paris, Texas. The first mission was to shoot some elevation for the young man with the ranch under contract. We investigated whether or not he could raise the water level and what it would take to increase the depths of the existing lake. Look for this story in a future issue of Pond Boss. It was pretty interesting to see what Mother Nature might let us do. Mike Otto (l) and Ethan Lovelace look at GPS coordinates and plug into some mapping software that Otto has for his laptop so he can get some accurate measurements of lake size and then project how much the lake might expand if the elevation were raised by two feet. Then, we shot elevations to measure the height of the existing dam, compared that to the existing freeboard and played "what if" we raised the water level a foot or two. Interesting stuff. Then, at 9:30, we headed to long time client, Stan Graff's, ranch. I just wanted to do a drive through and look at his ponds to see what we needed to think about for our 2009 management strategy. This ranch sits in Red River County, near the little burg of Kanawha. We left there at 11:35 and headed for the Steelman Ranch, which was only about 8 miles as the crow flies. There, we enjoyed the rest of the day at a "Pond Boss Regional Meeting." It was definitely a highlight. We toured the Steelman Preserve, met Chris' mom and listened as his dad told the story how they built the pond and how they are recovering and managing the land they bought. It was clear cut of timber several years ago and they bought it as recreational property. Several big name Pond Boss Forum members were in attendance. First, The Patriarch, George Glazener. Moderator Chris Steelman, a.k.a "Young Blood." (By the way, I want everyone to encourage young Chris through this semester at college...so he can stay on course and graduate on time. Send him some emails, nudge him.)Chris' mom and dad were there and then his grandfather popped in for a while. Jeffreythree was there, as was FRPeeps. Bob and Donna McFarland were there, too. And, the Guvnor, Dave Davidson, made his way to the party. He was on track to be there on time, but his little gps tracking system took him "almost" there. After it was all said and done, Dave was about an hour late and thought he went an extra 80 miles or so out of the way. We toured the Steelman property and then headed to FRPeeps, Frank Peeples', place, about a mile down the road. Frank lurked on the website for two years, doing his homework as he prepared to build his 5.5 acre lake. The homework paid off. He has a state-of-the-art, custom designed and built lake. All he needs is water and then to properly stock it. Mrs. Steelman prepared lunch, we had sandwiches and as Lumpy, from Leave it to Beaver would have said, "a great hunk of cake." We walked all around the bottom of Frank's lake, looking at all the bells and whistles and rides and humps and bumps and manmade structure a lake would want. Frank did a good job. It will pay off for him in the long run. Here's some photos. Here's our main group of the day. From left to right, Chris Steelman, Dave Davidson, Frank Peeples, Donna and Bob McFarland, Jeffreythree (Jeff Clark), George1 (George Glazener), Ethan Lovelace (Lovelace Lake) and Randall Steelman. George and Randall in the bottom of Frank's lake, talking about the lake bottom and the features which make it such a nice lake. Part of the lake bottom. Pretty cool stuff. Standing on the dam, looking over the lake bottom. Afterward, we all gathered, sat around in a circle and exchanged thoughts and ideas. It was an energized event. Lots of passion and everyone brought some great ideas to the meeting. It was huge fun. Afterward, about 6ish, we all headed back into Paris and had supper together at The Fish Fry, owned by Don Ensey, a charter subscriber of Pond Boss. Let's do it again! Next, I'm feverishly working to finish my part of the Mar-April issue of Pond Boss. Then, Sunday afternoon, we jet off to Nashville to prepare for Monday Night Live on RFD-TV. Be sure to tune in. From Nashville, I'll head to North Carolina for my regular gig with the King Fisher Society. Two other cool notes. Be sure to watch Bill Dance. He's using some of my quotes and crediting Pond Boss. Also, I've done some stuff for Bass Edge TV and that will show soon. And, Animal Makeover TV on RFD-TV has a number of our vignettes, too. It's a good life. Make the best of it. Fish on!
Teach a man to grow fish... He can teach to catch fish...
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
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OP
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99 |
Well, the March-April Pond Boss has been put to bed. It's gonna be a good one. There are more stories in this next issue than ever before. We have a new column, written by Eric West. Be sure to watch for that. If you have followed the RFD-TV threads on the forum, you've seen photos and read about the live show last Monday night. It was a blast. Here's a few photos to share... We each had our own dressing room. Pretty cool. On the set. Max Fisher (white shirt) is our "go to" guy. He is the glue that pulls things together. Heather is the RFD-TV producer/director who works with Max. Five minutes until show time. The show seemed great. The hour flew by and we got in about 10 phone calls. Ray Scott called in early and wished us well, since he couldn't be there. After the show, we celebrated at the Stock Yards Restaurant, drank some great wine and ate a piece of red meat. After that, we headed back to the hotel and started paying attention to the weather. At 4:30 a.m. the phone rang. Debbie's flight to DFW was cancelled and she had been re-booked. Long story, short...she got to Dallas yesterday, but we had her hunker down near the airport at a hotel rather than drive home in icy conditions. I flew on to North Carolina yesterday and met up with Dave Buhler. This morning, we did some "scientific sampling" and caught about 25 fish in an 2.5 hours. Not a bad catch rate for January. All the fish were hosses...the biggest was 6 pounds 3 ounces, 20.75 inches long. Here's some photos.... Jim Morgan with the biggest bass of the day. Two of the sample...the one on the right is "average" for the morning. Right at 6 pounds. Caught a few pickerel, too. I had to get in the act, too. The weather is 65 degrees, heavy winds from the south, rain in the forecast and front is about to pass. Okay, all you basketball fans...Jim, Dave and I are about to leave for Winston-Salem, NC to watch a fun college basketball game tonight. Number 1 Duke faces the home court advantage of Number 4 Wake Forest tonight...and I'll be there! Jim has several season tickets and Dave and I are invited. Cool beans! Fish on!
Teach a man to grow fish... He can teach to catch fish...
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
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OP
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99 |
I love college sports! Number 4 Wake Forest (which was #1 a few short days ago) outplayed and defeated #1 Duke. And, I was there. Then, WF falls to 0-4 Georgia Tech yesterday? That's one of the things about college sports that amazes me. A well paid coach, with his job on the line (most of the time), must take post adolescent young men and women in full grown adult bodies and have them perform at peak physical, mental and emotional capacity for 40-60 minutes at a time, several times a year in order to "win." Fascinating.... Well, the week here at King Fisher Society has been productive and fun, too. I'm missing being at church right now, but the relaxing aspect and a prayer will have to work. I've spent lots of time on the lake, in meetings with Dave Buhler and Jim Morgan. King Fisher is exploring the possibility of adding upland bird hunting to their menu. And, they certainly have the property and facilities to do it. It just may make sense. They are looking at quail and waterfowl, possibly specialty hunts with released birds such as chukar, shooting clays, maybe an occasional turkey hunt. Building a business plan to project the effort it will take and study the feasibility. Tonight, I've been invited to Jim Morgan's Super Bowl party. Just finished making fresh salsa and setting the stage for Rotel dip...Velveeta, pork sausage and Rotel tomatoes. Healthy. Tomorrow, I catch a plane at RDU and head to Phoenix. Several missions there. First, Purina Mills' Dr. Mark Griffin has asked me to make personal appearances at the dealer expo. Dealers from around the nation gather to see all the newest and best products on the market. Mark wants me to make a presentation about fish feeding to the dealers to build interest in feeding fish. Second, my son, Ty, lives in Phoenix. I'll get to spend some valuable time with Ty...never enough time with that guy. Third, I'll get to meet AaronM...Aaron Matos. Aaron has built a pond in his backyard in the desert and didn't know that he couldn't raise smallmouth bass in the heat. Apparently, the smallmouth didn't know, either, because they are thriving. His story needs to be told and I am just the guy to tell it. Look for that story in May-June Pond Boss. So, enjoy the Super Bowl, say your prayers and keep living life to its fullest. I got an email the other day and would like to share it with you. Bob, You signed off your blog "Its a good life. Make the best of it." Thanks for the reminder. Its too easy to get caught up in the day to day BS and forget about all the wonderful things to do and to see. I know you've communicated this philosophy before, but until it is internalized, the reminder is appreciated. My pond is still years away from being built. We own the land, but are still collecting the funds to trap the water. In the meantime I'll continue to subscribe and to lurk & learn. Keep up the great work! Ed Vander Hoeven Springfield, VAThanks, Ed! What a great reminder to all of us. Do our lives get a bit tedious? Sure. Do we often wonder how we got into the predicament we're in? Absolutely. Our lives are but a flicker. Let's make a pledge this week. Let's promise each other that we'll touch another person with a positive act. Let's focus on the blessings and let's seize the moment. I promise you I will. Fish on!
Teach a man to grow fish... He can teach to catch fish...
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
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OP
Editor, Pond Boss Magazine Lunker
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 3,347 Likes: 99 |
Well, well...it's actually half way through February? Geez, how time roars by! Made it to Phoenix. What a ball! Got to spend time with son, Ty and his fam. Actually, he came to the Purina Dealer Expo at the convention center downtown for a few hours. But, we also got to dine out and I stayed at his home in Gilbert each night. This is the Purina booth. The mission of the booth was to visit with Purina dealers from all over the West to teach them the merits of feeding fish. That's Jim Hennessey and daughter Jill with Dr. Mark Griffin on the right. Jim has an ad agency and works with Purina. Dr Griffin brought a dvd of all the vignettes we have from all the different venues...my home, North Carolina, Ray's lake in Alabama and some we recently shot in Texas and Oklahoma. It feels kinda funny standing there talking to people, hearing your own voice on the TV behind you. We also had an hour seminar to teach Purina dealers from all over the West about pond management. I hit most of the highlights and covered all the topics I could in an hour, but we did focus on feeding fish. I headed home on Friday, Feb. 6. Spent the weekend at Debbie's beck and call (she called that beck and call thing, by the way). So, late Friday, all day Saturday and after church on Sunday, we did girl things. On Monday and Tuesday, it was "catch up" time. Somewhere in there I proofread Pond Boss, made the changes and sent it on to press. It's now in the mail. The girls in the office put together a great flier about the conference. Gayle did a great job building it and Sharon is doing yeoman's work organizing the conference from the inside. It will be a whale of a deal. Look at the home page and click on the banner ad to see the details. Register now...it will definitely sell out. Then, last Wednesday, I spent the day with a couple of Whitesboro High School juniors, doing the "job shadow" day. They tagged along with me all day. We started off coming out to LL,2, where Shelton Bray and Ethan Shadden climbed in the electrofishing boat and saw how it worked. Next, I piled them into the manly Dodge pickup and hauled them to Sulphur Fish Hatchery and let them meet the proprietor, Wes Harden and see how a fish hatchery works. They got to watch some big catfish be harvested and loaded onto a truck. Then, they loaded some large bluegill into a tank in my truck and haul them to stock a lake in Texas. After that, I took them to the office and let them see a smidgen about creating a magazine. It was pretty darn fun for all of us. That's Shelton on the left and Ethan on the right. Wes caught a big goldfish in his seine and the boys thought it was pretty cool. Wes was after several hundred pounds of large channel catfish to fill and order for a good customer. He did it in short order. This catfish weighs about 5 pounds. He also caught a few grass carp (legal in Oklahoma). After they filled the basket, his hydraulic loader lifted the fish and they loaded the fish onto a hauling truck, for transport to Wes' vats, where he stages fish for sale. The fish were brought to concrete holding tanks (vats) and dumped in to be held for sale. Then, the boys and I loaded larger bluegill to haul to a small lake in Texas for stocking. Here's an example of what we took. This was our target size, adults (not full grown) to be stocked into a lake for quick reproduction. As a tribute to our good friends JHAP and all the green sunfish lovers, we took a minute to cull the greens from the bluegill (green sunfish are native to streams and creeks in Wes' area) and take a few photos for posterity. Then, we threw the green sunfish on the ground. Then, I had the boys back at the high school by 3 pm and I headed off to LL,2 to grab Debbie and we headed to east Texas for a few days at Eagle's Nest Ranch. We met up with ranch manager Jarrod Baum Thursday morning and accepted a load of bluegill for a newly renovated lake. [img] http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd12/pondboss-boblusk/017-1.jpg[/img] Debbie was almost ready to go when I got home at 3:30 last Wednesday. [img] http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd12/pondboss-boblusk/214-1.jpg[/img] Here's a sample of the fish we stocked into a newly renovated 20 acre lake. After the fish were delivered, Debbie and I whisked off to meet up with Bob and Donna McFarland for an evening seminar on Pond Management and Wood Ducks. I covered the pond stuff and Bob spoke on Wood Ducks. [img] http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd12/pondboss-boblusk/bobm.jpg[/img] Bob McFarland mesmerized the crowd with his tales of wood ducks. He and his bride Donna have figured out the combination to attract wood ducks on their six acre east Texas lake. [img] http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd12/pondboss-boblusk/006-1.jpg[/img] After we finished the seminar, we spent the night with Bob and Donna and Friday morning headed back to the Eagle's Nest. I shot this photo of a "willet" on one of the small ponds on the ranch. Cool looking little bird. Came down with some sort of stomach virus and spent most of the day getting to know the bathroom...sorry, I know that was in poor taste. Don't tell Debbie I shared this, she will whip me. The rest of the weekend was spent at Eagle's Nest, meeting with the owner and ranch manager and working on the game plan for the ranch for 2009. But, Debbie and I did get to spend a special evening on Valentine's Day. Very quiet, very romantic, very Debbie. Headed home Sunday afternoon. As I was catching up on the website and my emails, I saw movement to my left. Another dang scorpion. Seems we have more than our fair share. Got on my belly and shot some floor level photos of the creature. Being a biologist kind of person, I'm fascinated by creatures that most people would kindly crush beneath their feet. (I did crush it, after I shot about 40 photos.) [img] http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd12/pondboss-boblusk/010-2.jpg[/img] Monday, I headed down to Meridian, Texas, to meet up with long time mentor and good friend, Ray Murski. Ray needs help with his lakes and I told him I wanted to help. Yesterday, I spent the day writing and catching up on emails and reports. Today, we prepared the Pond Boss booth for the BassMaster's Classic in Shreveport, Louisiana. Headed that way tomorrow. I'll start a new thread for that endeavor. Oh yes, I went down to the feed trained bass pond, tossed out a few nuggets just before dark and here's what I saw. These bass attacked the pellets as though they were little fish. I caught this on with the camera just as it attacked. Cool scene. I probably saw 60 bass feed tonight. Fun. [img] http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd12/pondboss-boblusk/012-2.jpg[/img] Bass preparing to attack an AquaMax Largemouth pellet. This fish weighs about three pounds. I watched bass which weighed from 3 to 6 pounds eat like they'd never been fed. Back in touch from the Classic! Fish on!
Last edited by gayle00; 11/11/10 12:19 PM.
Teach a man to grow fish... He can teach to catch fish...
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