I remember when I lived in CT, I would fish a nearby NY stream for trout with a JB pattern, that I developed.

Walking around the pond today I came across an abundance of JBs.
I harvested the a handful and thruogh them into the pond. The PS ate them and one of my trout sunk in to grab one. I don't feed my fish except for an occassional worm or hopper.

It was nice to see they like bettles.

Your PS must be less picky than Adirondack Pond's... His spit the Japanese Beetles out! I've caught quite a few trout on Japanese beetle patterns along with many sunfish and rock bass.

Ad ponds feeds his fish, I don't, except for an occasional worm or insect I throw in the pond. I did notice a few didn't come back for more after tasting them.

My beetle pattern worked great on the NY trout stream as long as it floated in the surface flim. Caught and released a bunch of bows and browns when the mayflies weren't active.

If you want to feed JBs big time check this out:

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...ite_id=1#import


Redfishman
Lunker


Registered: August 06, 2003
Posts: 25 Time to deploy my floating Japanese Beetle traps. They worked really well last year. Thousands of beetles came and were gobbled up by schools of bluegills and LMB's. At times there were carpets of beetles with 50+ fish feeding. I don't know if they effectively put weight on the fish (I think they do) but it is fun to watch the fish feed. build one yourself and see:

Cut the bottom from a plastic water jug from the office or Home Depot. file and tape the sharp edge I used automotive weather stripping.

Get an inner tube from truckers Supply size 400/480-8 Part # LTT-400

order beetle trap (top only)
http://www.snow-pond.com/TrapLure/traplure.html
roughen up surface of jug and glue on with goop

Anchor where you can watch Finished product:

Nice idea.

I would get way to many beetles for my small pond for the fish to keep up with. I'm kind of training them by hand feeding, so they get used to seeing me and expecting a treat.

We normally catch lots of Japanese beetles to our fish, but there were very few beetles this year.

Okay, I have heard that the Japanese beetles have a smell to them when they are smashed. Has anybody noticed a difference in taste between panfish that have been around the beetle traps and fish that have not (as in bitter to regular taste)?

Personally I don't smash the beetles. I throw them in the water with some force so they are stunded and have a hard time flying off. Some do get airbourn before they hit the water. I haven't noticed any smell.

You are what you eat, so I'd expect a heavy diet of beetles may make them taste difffernt. I know I wouldn't eat a sea duck if you gave it to me.

Sea duck jerky... Or dog food!

scruffy_fish, I'm talking about a time period of eating them steadily. Now I have not tried talipia yet,I've seen enough Discovery Channel shows to see what a lot of what these fish are raised on. Sea duck might look like a better alternative.

Apparently talipia are able to keep the taste out of their meat being mass farm raised. I'm just curious about other fish such as BG,BC and YP.

Well I got creative myself. I found a JB trap that I stored in the shed and decided to make a feeder. To my astonishment, the PS started feeding right away. They would follow the anchorhed trap as it swong around the pond.

We had a huge rain rainfall this evening, and after it was over, the trap was empty of beetles, but it worked. Thanks for the Idea.

Scruffy, thats great your beetle feeder gives them free protein, and your PS's aren't picky.
Mine still won't touch them, but they sure love the crickets and grasshoppers I collect, my wife helps me and we can collect about 50 in 15min. next to the garage.

This is a great idea which which could be expanded to say, fly traps? Reminds me of an idea my friend had but never implemented. He thought to hang a wire basket of some kind within which one would place "road kill". Obviously the flies would swarm this and then the larvae would fall through the wire into the water. Is this totally crazy or genius? Anybody want to give it a try?

The old "Maggot Box" idea. It's been done, by a few PMs who have either a pond far downwind of their domecile or no sense of smell

Matt, did you see this info?
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=87501#Post87501

Just got back to the forum, thanks for the "maggot box" link! My pond is 300 feet away from the house with 60-70 feet elevation differential (pond below) so the smell shouldn't be a problem. MAGGOTS, YUMMY!

Matt, I first saw that idea many years ago in Mother Earth News. It should give the fish some nutrition and the smell shouldn't be a problem as long as you never want to go around the pond. It also ought to keep poachers away.

If I used the road kill option, I'd have every coyote in the area at the pond. We have had a lot of coyotes around and have recently lost two cats to them. I'd rader stick to the JBs, Thanks.

After collecting about 600 crickets & grasshoppers the past few weeks, it's getting harder to find them (insect genocide) for the PS's in the mini pond, so I tried feeding them JB's, which they wouldn't touch 2 weeks ago, and they devoured them today, go figure, atleast I'll have plenty of them for awhile.

PS. I wonder if the JB's are softer now cause when I got them 3 weeks ago they wouldn't fly, they just plopped into the cup, now they try to fly when I collect them, any resident Entomologist have an explination?

Interesting observation AP... Not sure on the explanation though. If anything I would think they would get harder as they aged, not softer.

Your fish are hungrier now.

Sincerely,

M.S. Entomologist

I love those scientific explanations.

DUH!

Well, my PS still eat as many as I can find to toss into the pond. Tossed one at a trout this evening and it turned up it's nose at it.

Pond is dropping since the hot weather hit. Down about 8 inches in as many days. Hopefully only one more day of the record heat, keeping my fingers crossed, I don't lose my three trout this year. I love watching them prowel around the pond looking for food in the evening and early morning.

scruffy, I can't figure out why the PS's all of a sudden will eat the JB's, they are well fed but their turning into little pigs.
We should get the cold front thru here Tuesday eve, and you should get it by Wed. night, hopefully with some rain.

Same experience I had. At first they spit them out, a few days later they can't get enough. If I have some time in the next few weeks to learn how to post pics I will share pic I took of the stomachs of some fish I caught and cleaned. They were so filled with J.beetles that they were regurgitating them in the bucket before I cleaned them. When I gutted them the stomachs were completely packed full with beetles.

Ad-pond,
Once they taste them they won't go back. I noticed when I catch the JBs I hold them in my hand very tightly, this seems to keep them from flying away when tossed into the pond and must exhude some jucies, mmmum tasty! They keep coming back for more.

The beetle trap isn't working so great anymore must have lost it's scent?

Don't you guys get bit when handling JBs? They bite here in MN and it stings pretty good. I put them in same catagory as Deer Flies and those black picnic beetles. Yuk!

Brilliant!
(Really.)

No, never.

No biting here... Must be a MN thing, every insect seems to bite there!

Forget the JB's biting, I was collecting them today at my daughters place and got stung twice by yellow jackets.

Now they hurt! A whole bunch of them got me Saturday when I was bush hogging. I still got marble sized lumps!

My mistake about the JB's, we have Asian Beetles here. The ABs are not native and were dropped here some years ago by the Dept of Agriculture to rid the farmer's soy beans of aphids. The AB bites hard, smells bad, and leaves crap stains on your walls and ceilings when they get in your house. I have never seen a bird or fish eat one.

I have seen a lot of crop dusting going on here lately so I inquired what they were spraying for, and was told aphids in the soy beans. Another plan that failed. Unfortunatley, I think the ABs are here to stay.

I wonder if the AB's you speak of are what we call stink bugs around here... Do you get piles of them in your house right as the first few frosts hit? Man do those things stink! They do feed on aphids, but I haven't had one bite me.

I am guessing that he/she is referring to the asian lady beetle (redish with spots)?

Yeah, we started seeing the Asian lady bugs a few years back. Our hunting cabin gets covered with them on it's southern exposure in the fall and they will find anyway possible to squeeze their way inside.

We get the Lady Bug swarm just before the frost, they live in the house all winter. Haven't know one to bite but some pepole say they do. Don't usually see them in numbers until the late fall.

Didn't realize the JB thread would have such an interest? They seem to be tapering off now that I'm catching them mating, capurteing them in pairs somethings threes ;-}

Hey scruffy_fish, Sorry about my last post...I had my beetles mixed up. Asian lady bugs were what I was talking about..JB's been pretty rare around here this year...although I did see some on the soy-beans when I was cutting grass tonight.

bump:

I set up my japanese beetle trap off the dock again last week. I have a hole in the bottom of the bag which is about 6 inches over the water level. The fish took to it right away and now I even have bass sitting under it waiting for the beetles to hit the water.

The Japanese beetles are here again and the PS's don't seem to be picky about eating them as they were last year, maybe it's an acquired taste.

Yeah I just noticed them about a week ago here. My neighbor used to put out the phermone traps until he finally realized he was just calling them in for a sex orgy and there were more.

The JB's are back and eating everything.

I'm fishing out the PSs from my pond (mud hole) to put them in a temporary shelter, with water coming from my small well. (I'm using a JB pattern and my fly rod, works great.) Most fun I've had with the pond in some time.

I have six PSs in a 30 gallon tub and 5 more to go. I have my only trout in a 48 gallon tub and it is doing fine. The tubs are inter-connected so the water follows from the big tub to the small. Hope to keep them alive until I figure out what I'm going to do about the ledge leak.

My wife thinks I'm nutz!

Scruffy, I remember someone mentioning possibly putting concrete over the ledge in your pond, have you considered securing steel mesh over the ledge and working cement into the mesh, not sure if this would work but they do make boat hulls this way.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1972-07-01/How-To-Build-A-Ferrocement-Boat.aspx

Thanks for all your help and concern AP.

I wish an expert pond builder would chime in with some advice, that has actually repaired a ledge leak.

I priced out more Benonite clay yesterday, since I haven't had any luck finding a blue clay source. Maybe if I pack the open ledge with a ton and a half of Benonite in 6 inch lifts I can stop it? The area is only about 20 feet in diameter where I couldn't compact the soil when I mixed in the Benonite two years ago. This would even allow me to have a deeper pond.

The first time I back filled at least four feet of soil over the area. The next time I mixed in the Benonite and compacted over the whole basin. Which left me with the soft area I couldn't compact.

This post should really go under the soils threads?

I think that a soil expert would be more apt to see it if it was re-posted in the soils or renovating a pond section. Try PM'ing some of the soil experts here.

is there any information that fish who eat jb will have a particular smell to them? i cant hardly stand to be around my trap when they get bunched up in it and was wondering if fish could have that smell if they injest jb. i really want to try the jb feeder explained here. it looks awesom.