Misson Accomplished: Blocking Net in with Pics! - 04/09/08 01:56 AM
For those of you didn't follow in another thread I have a situation in my trout pond where the browns trout are outgrowing the brooks and mostly likely stressing them due to their larger size and the fact that they are a more agressive species anyway. I actually had them chase a couple of brooks up on the bank last fall.
It was another thing for me to learn as I assumed since I planted them all same size at the same time, all would be fine. Wrong! Apparently the water temp in summer is more optimum for the browns by a few degrees (warmer) and they are now up to 3 inches longer and up to a pound and half heavier. I've had brooks and browns in a pond before, but never this many brooks in with browns.
I caught and released three trout a week ago to see what sizes they are and there were 2 brooks; 13 and 15 inches both under 2 lbs. and one brown that was 17 inches and about 3 lbs.
It would seem the simple answer is to put them in two separate ponds, but I don't believe my well pump could keep two ponds cool enough. And I want to use one of the ponds to produce my own perch. So to remedy the siuation I have drained another pond that had only a cage and fathead minnows it it. Ordered a 12 feet by 200 feet poly bird netting with a one inch mesh (would have prefered 2 inch mesh but it would have make a perfect gill net unfortunately!) for avaries and cages from Memphis Net and Twine. Cost with shipping was just under $100.00. The plan was to put a blocking net down the center and move the brooks and browns into this pond with the two species seperated by the blocking net. I could have ordered more expensive netting but the catalog says this stuff is used on fish farms and will last a long time in the water. I also though the stretchiness of the netting would make for a nicer blocking net and this netting is very light which puts less stress on the top net rope.
Here are a few pics of the process which I have never done btw.
One thing that scared me right of the bat was the netting, when unrolled, was only about 3 to 4 feet wide! I thought there had to be a mistake as I was expecting a net that was 12 feet wide! Turns out this stuff is really really stretchy (and quite strong btw) so it worked out and it did stretch to about 12 feet.
Here I have driven two posts on each side of the pond approximately down the center with a post driver. I will drive these down even more tommorow and adjust the top of the net accordingly to play it safe. (I ran out of daylight!)
Here is the netting where I have weaved in a nylon rope top and bottom thru the mesh and attached a chain link to the bottom with cable ties.
Here is the chain link I attached to the bottom of the net to hold the net down on the bottom of the pond. I bought a roll of this on sale a while back for another project so it came in handy.
Here is the net spanning the pond. The bank on one side is actually quite a bit above the water line so believe it or not the top ot the net will be at least 2 feet above the water line to prevent trout from jumping over. Ignore the yellow nylon rope on the bottom off to the right. It has nothing to do with the net. It was used to pull the sump pump up and down and around when draining the pond. I drain my small ponds with an electric sump pump tied inside a bucket. It only takes a few days.
Here is a the net in the bottom of the pond where there was standing water. (Water keeps coming up from the water table after I stop pumping) I pushing the bottom of the net into the muck and also tramped it down to be sure there were no openings on the bottom for fish to swim through. The Chara will probably quickly hem in the net on the bottom as it grows back.
I thought I would share this with any of you that might consider doing something like this. One thing I would stress is to allow extra net to span the pond. I laid a rope down on bottom from one side to another to figure out how much net to use, but then added about 20 feet. I'm glad I did as the net not only stretches width wise it stretched lenthwise. The extra feet allowed enough slack to touch the bottom easily.
It was another thing for me to learn as I assumed since I planted them all same size at the same time, all would be fine. Wrong! Apparently the water temp in summer is more optimum for the browns by a few degrees (warmer) and they are now up to 3 inches longer and up to a pound and half heavier. I've had brooks and browns in a pond before, but never this many brooks in with browns.
I caught and released three trout a week ago to see what sizes they are and there were 2 brooks; 13 and 15 inches both under 2 lbs. and one brown that was 17 inches and about 3 lbs.
It would seem the simple answer is to put them in two separate ponds, but I don't believe my well pump could keep two ponds cool enough. And I want to use one of the ponds to produce my own perch. So to remedy the siuation I have drained another pond that had only a cage and fathead minnows it it. Ordered a 12 feet by 200 feet poly bird netting with a one inch mesh (would have prefered 2 inch mesh but it would have make a perfect gill net unfortunately!) for avaries and cages from Memphis Net and Twine. Cost with shipping was just under $100.00. The plan was to put a blocking net down the center and move the brooks and browns into this pond with the two species seperated by the blocking net. I could have ordered more expensive netting but the catalog says this stuff is used on fish farms and will last a long time in the water. I also though the stretchiness of the netting would make for a nicer blocking net and this netting is very light which puts less stress on the top net rope.
Here are a few pics of the process which I have never done btw.
One thing that scared me right of the bat was the netting, when unrolled, was only about 3 to 4 feet wide! I thought there had to be a mistake as I was expecting a net that was 12 feet wide! Turns out this stuff is really really stretchy (and quite strong btw) so it worked out and it did stretch to about 12 feet.
Here I have driven two posts on each side of the pond approximately down the center with a post driver. I will drive these down even more tommorow and adjust the top of the net accordingly to play it safe. (I ran out of daylight!)
Here is the netting where I have weaved in a nylon rope top and bottom thru the mesh and attached a chain link to the bottom with cable ties.
Here is the chain link I attached to the bottom of the net to hold the net down on the bottom of the pond. I bought a roll of this on sale a while back for another project so it came in handy.
Here is the net spanning the pond. The bank on one side is actually quite a bit above the water line so believe it or not the top ot the net will be at least 2 feet above the water line to prevent trout from jumping over. Ignore the yellow nylon rope on the bottom off to the right. It has nothing to do with the net. It was used to pull the sump pump up and down and around when draining the pond. I drain my small ponds with an electric sump pump tied inside a bucket. It only takes a few days.
Here is a the net in the bottom of the pond where there was standing water. (Water keeps coming up from the water table after I stop pumping) I pushing the bottom of the net into the muck and also tramped it down to be sure there were no openings on the bottom for fish to swim through. The Chara will probably quickly hem in the net on the bottom as it grows back.
I thought I would share this with any of you that might consider doing something like this. One thing I would stress is to allow extra net to span the pond. I laid a rope down on bottom from one side to another to figure out how much net to use, but then added about 20 feet. I'm glad I did as the net not only stretches width wise it stretched lenthwise. The extra feet allowed enough slack to touch the bottom easily.