Last March Bob Lusk invited me to tag along with him to visit a customer and at that time the new lake he was building. That lake is filling and the time came to stock the forage fish was at hand and Bob invited me to come up last week and watch the process of stocking over a hundred thousand forage fish.

The customers name is Greg Graves (a quick Google search will bring up Greg's legacy for the Kansas City area) and the lake he and his wife have built and is now filling would be about the dream of anyone ever wanting to scratch a pond into the earth. The project is enormous for an individual to take on and would be more like something the size of a state project.

My first visit I was a little shy of taking pictures of someones personal project but already having met Greg last March this time I ask if it was ok to take some pictures and he graciously said "sure, take all you want" and even ok'd me posting them.

So the pictures are of fish stocking what surely will be a family legacy lake that likely will still be an impressive lake a hundred years from now. I can't recall for sure but I think it is around 20 acres. Maybe if Lusk sees this he will give some specific details of the lakes specs.

I wish I had taken some close up pictures of the boat house but I did get some of "the barn" and the boat house is every bit impressive as the barn.

The lake pictures in this post and the actual stocking of fish in the next post under this one.

As I recall the lake currently has 25' depth at its deepest point and is about half full depth wise. I think Bob said the top 4 feet of water will be the same volume as the rest of the lake. It is big and deep.

The picture with the boat house in it the water will be up and into that building.

Here are some pictures of the actual fish stocking process. There was some speculation from Bob if we were going to be able to get the fish truck (and his trailer also with fish on it) close enough to be able to "pipe" the fish to the water. Bob was afraid if he could not get close enough it was going to be a lot of bucketing carrying fish to the water (an ulterior motive for inviting me to participate???......hmmmm) Fortunately both the truck and gooseneck trailer were able to traverse what would become the lake bottom and deliver the fish to within piping distance.

To get some size perspective, where the fish truck is pictured, if the lake was full the truck would be just about if not fully submerged.

It is a pretty long process by the time lake water is pumped into each holding tank and enough time has elapsed so the fish get acclimated to their new water before being shot down the tube into their new home.

Within just a half hour of the fish introduction to the lake I could spot them positioning around the tree structure that had been placed in the bottom of the lake for them.

Was a neat experience and I thank Bob and Greg for giving me the chance to tag along.

Edit: Although the fish were contained on the truck pictured and Bob's goosneck fish hauling trailer, I think Bob said the fish were sourced from 4 different fish farms to get both the sizes and genetic diversity wanted. Both northern BG and CNBG along with RES were stocked. FHM will follow this week.

Thanks for your posts snrub. Interesting tale; good pics.

This photos should be kept as reference. Cheers!