OK Boys and Girls, time to start a new Fishng thread for all your fish photos and fish tales....

OK, I'll begin ....

Wednesday night air temp in low 30's, early Thursday near surface water tem 43 degrees and fish had lockjaw.
Noon water temp warmed to 45 with sparse activity.
4:00 pm near surface temp 48 degress and fish turned on.
Air temp near 80 degrees.

This morning water temp 48 degrees with moderate feding.

Caught at least a couple of dozen BEAUTIFUL CNBG beween 8 - 10 inches and 6 or 08 1 1/2 - 2# HSB.

Trees are budding out and woods are full of Robins.
Supposed to get get cold tonght and next week.
Can't wait to see CNBG in full spawning colors.

Beauty day, eh, clerk?

Wow, that makes me want to get out and wet a hook. Those are some beauitiful fish George, especially those CNBG. It looks like the share-cropper is doing just fine.

George those are some really nice CNBG (chunky). Hopefully i will have some pictures and a story some time this weekend. I am going to go and try to catch a couple of cats tonight. Tell then happy fishing everyone.

awesome george!
as i've mentioned before, those CNBG of yers give me nightmares....good ones....those guys are real piglets....

i hope to post some el dorado sunfish pics soon....

Thats it George, I am tired of you Southerners sticking it in our face how you can fish without a full set of Coast Guard survival gear to keep warm.

Tomorrow I am getting out my chainsaw and cutting through my 2 feet of ice and checkin on my fish. I have spent the last three days snowblowing a foot of snow off the pond just so I can see the ice.

Hey those CNBG must be kin to mine !!

My CNBG are the prettiest fish West of the Mississippi River and yours to the East...

George how old are the cnbg? They look awesome! I had to work today and tommorrow is supposed to be cold.

Go George Go! I love your post and pictures. Your BG are great looking, keep it up!

"Trees are budding out and woods are full of Robins."


Jeez, now that's rubbing it in! We're looking at two days of snow up here this weekend....sigh.

George, what type of fly were you shootin for the HSB and Gills? By the way, they are beauts! Keep the pics coming, please...we poor souls up North can live vicariously thru your exploits in open water!

TJ

George got a jump on all of us!! We ought to be ashamed, the rest of us all huddled up against our computers while the pondboss patriarch of ponds hurls his flies at trophy CNBG!

Shame!! Shame!!

Way to go George, nice pics of very nice fish.

I am jealous, pretty CNBG and a fine looking HSB as well! I can't wait for spring!

James, I’ll start a new thread to address your question so we can keep this a fun thread about fish tales and photos.
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=146225#Post146225

TJ, I'm not much for written records so I have created a"photo journal" to documemnt growth of OTS CNBG over a period of time.
At present I have monthly photo records since stocking.

Fly used for sampling in November was a foam pellet fly and they would not touch a "Purina Nymph".
Yesterday in cold water they wanted a sinking PN.

Great photos George. We haven't even seen our pond since November and now it it unlikely that we will until April withdrawl is getting to me.

George

Thanks for the feedback - two more questions for you....

1. If you ever have time, do you have any photos or instructions on how to tie the PN or FPF? I tried to look this up and am still sorting through the posts for pictures.

2. Do your pellet trained fish ever take natural patterns like nymphs, streamers, poppers or are they attracted to pellet patterns only?

thanks in advance George!

TJ

1. TJ, I tie the Purina Nymph ( PC name for my version of Cecil’s “panty hose” pellet fly) the same as foam pellet, but use actual AQMX 600 pellet - no need to tie and glue on hook - just run hook point thru PH material and go fish.
Link below is materials list and photo instructions:
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...ite_id=1#import

2. Our pellet-trained fish readily take wiggly leg surface foam bugs and subsurface flies as well - probably larger fish, not hook shy from pellet flies.
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=8273&Number=85790#Post85790

Perfect - thanks George. Looks much easier than tying a #20 PMD!

Just got back from the Florida Keys. Here are some Pics from the trip. For anyone with extra time on your hands (you all must have some if you are reading this post to begin with) a full account with tons of pics can be read on my Fishing Blog

Some fine eating fish there! Mmmm...

Very impressive.

Learn how to smile, Freak!

He's the James Dean of fisheries biologists.

Dark and brooding.

That third pic almost has a smile in it.

I will be smiling big in my next picture now that I am aware of my dorky lip curl in these pics.

Pics of our biggest JewFish!


Not allowed to take them out of the water.

Why can't you take them out?

Nate: Mrs. B says you are a handsome fellow!

great stuff nate, i loved seeing those fish.

is that jewfish a grouper family fish? i've heard there are strict limits on giant grouper, and yer not supposed to take those out of water.

fish pics are tough, try looking cool nate, that works for me trying to hide my giddy excitement and goofy smile......

...and missing leg.

Jew Fish are protected species. They were on the brink of extinction, but have made a huge comeback and are eating up everything! Locals think a tag harvest system will hopefully be coming real soon!

Nate glad you got a break from the ice. Nice to see you kept your cleaning skills in order and did not have them fillet the fish for you. Next time driving through ATL though you better stop by.

Took out an ice fishing trip today and caught some dandies! This one was caught by Dave, it was his birthday today. His bluegill was 11-7/8 inches long and very thick!


Also I had to run and grab one of the rods before it went through the hole and pulled up this 11-3/8 incher. I tried my absolute best to smile!

Nice smile, Mabro!

I went kayaking today and found a place that I think is going to be great for catching bluegill when are spawning. It is about 10 acres of 2-3 feet deep water.

Kind of looks like he was being held at gunpoint.

VERY nice BG.

Great Gills Nate ....!
Sometime folks are a smilin' on the outside and cryin' on the inside .... I'd rather it be the other way around, or just maybe smilin' on both sides...

Man, those BG must have both weighed over a pound.

It's easier to smile for BG. It's hard to smile for the saltwater fish because your abs are tearing while holding them straight out.

Great fish Natester.

Is it just me or does that first sunfish look like a hybrid???

Maybe a little GSF in there?

I agree that has some non-BG genes.

Father was most likely one of the original hybrids stocked and its mother was most likely a female bluegill. None of the original hybrids are still alive and a very small percentage of the bluegills still have a bit of GSF in their bloodlines.

Interesting...

thanks to pondboss, i can briefly glance at pics like Nate's and say "hybrid genetics for pic 1", "pure or near pure BG for pic 2"

Me too.


"Extremely compromised, grossly inferior genes inserted into innocent BG for pic 1",

"Minimally corrupted genetics possible to remove offending DNA via engineered phage tho host personality likely permanently affected for pic 2"

Boy, you guys must really impress the ladies.

I was thinking coelacanth.

Per our usual agreement, I'm envious of George's and Nate's fish. But I find solace in knowing that warm weather is coming soon.

It's nice to see everyone doing well.

I cant wait to see how your SUPER bass are progressing cheyenne!

This thread is causing me some real serious issues. I love where I live. But, my Seasonal Affective Disorder becomes hyperactive this time of year when I read about warm weather and I see pictures of beautiful fish being caught.

These pictures were taken about 15 minutes ago:

My fish cleaning board -- with about 3 to 4 inches of snow on it.


My pond -- about 50-feet beyond the biggest snowflake.


As I write this, the front bumper of my wife's 4WD vehicle is thankfully resting (unfortunately downhill) at about a 12% grade against a tree stump -- where it went off our driveway -- where it didn't go over our bridge -- and where it didn't go into the creek. I'll pull the car out in the morning with the tractor, after I plow more snow. I plowed about 4-inches of snow off the driveway tonight, but it just keeps falling.

I'd really love it if I didn't have to go to work in the morning where they only got rain, and it is 20 degrees warmer. (They just don't understand!)

Like young Mr. Steelman, I may try kayaking tomorrow -- but, I'll be using my kayak to sled down the mountain to my pond! I doubt I'll do much fishing.

From the top of the mountain, our groundhog created nearly a 1/4-mile long shadow this morning. I think that means winter will last until Mother's day.

Send ZOLOFT. Lots of ZOLOFT. Moonshine will do if that is all you have.

Ken, thought I would cheer you up with a picture, see things could be worse, this was a month ago, we now have 39 inches on the ground. By the way great article on raising worms.

Im so glad I live in the south!

My blood is way too thin to live in cold like that.

LSHIFIMP!


It was 14 degrees F here this morning. It actually didn't feel too bad (no wind).

You know Theo I did a google search to find out what the heck you were talking about (which as an also and besides is not all that unusual for a post by Theo, is he on a commission with Google or what?), anyhoo, I did a google search and this is what came up on google...

LSHIFIMP

I'm not kidding, cut and paste LSHIFIMP into google and you get our acronym list. Dang are we famous or what.

Oh and BTW the list needs to be edited as follows:

FOE = Friggin' Otters are Evil (Condello)
FPPT = Fish Photo Presentation Technique
FWIW = for what it's worth

GSA = Fine upstanding organization composed of some of the best minds in pond meisterdom that is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the almighty Green Sunfish. Just don't mess with them.

IIRC = if I recall/read/remember correctly
IME = in my experience
IMO = in my opinion

Hey Cheyenne, where 'ya been man?
Been missin' your reports ane big fish pics...
Update???

Done!

Oh no you're not!

FOE = Fraternal Order of Eagles (traditional)
FOE = Friggin' Otters are Evil (Condello)
FPPT = Fish Photo Presentation Technique
FWIW = for what it's worth
GSA = (1)Green Sunfish Association - just don't mess with them.
GSA = (2)Group of Simple-minded Accountants - just don't mess with them.
IIRC = if I recall/read/remember correctly
IME = in my experience
IMO = in my opinion

I always thought GSA stood for "Girl Scouts Of America".
Also when your blood gets thin does the same happen to your hair?

HELP ....
Nate , Cheyenne, fishermen, pondmeisters, call the Hi-Jack Police - we been robbed ... ... ... ...

Originally posted by AP:


Hmmmmm....an excellent question.

AP, I sense in your post the possibility of a commonality of sentiment and purpose.

Do you have any ponds with green sunfish?
Do you number any accountants within your immediate circle of family and friends?

Unfortunately I don't have any green sunfish, my tiger trout don't integrate well with foreign fish.
No accountants in my family, but I do have a politician. Also I don't have any friends.
I won't say anymore because this thread should get back to Fish and Fishin.

I will be taking out a trip on thursday and also on saturday. Until then I got nothing new.

Bruce, if nobody posts any fish pics soon, you might have to snag a pic or two from BigBluegill

Here are a couple from fishing on super bowl sunday that I forgot about. We only caught TWO FISH!!!! Closes to being skunked I have ever been! We did have alot of fun though just playing outside.

Here is a video of our ice fishing adventure today with some fun old guys!
Fun Old Men Ice Fishing Video

Great video and fish Nate ..
Don't know about all that snow and ice tho ....
Supposed to be close to 80 here today ...

I normally stop thinking about fish in the winter, but when warm weather arrives I find myself on PB checking in. I fished for a few minutes today, caught some HSB and LMB, but nothing worth capturing in stills. How have you been George?

Doin' GREAT Cason .... thanks for asking ... anxious for a few nince days in a row for a day of fishing - supposed to get some rain tonight or mid-week - everyone needs pond water - especially DD1.
Really proud of new CNBG above photos...
Let's get some big HSB photos on this thread...
Come on guys...

How about some channel cats through the ice? They will have to do until someone catches the first HSB photo of 2009.

caught these today the bass was six and the hybrid was five and a half.

Oh, man!

That gives me the fire.

That's a pretty hybrid!

James you sure your bass heavy? I have not seen a Wr less than 100% come out of your pond.

Man CC thru ice I tell everyone their metabolism is so slow until late spring doubt you will catch many. You proved me wrong. They start eating fish food much later than bluegill. You must sponn feed them that hook. Sure those did not coem from the new shock boat :).

We regularly catch CC through the ice. They are however not very active and only bite on certain days, but when they do it is alot of fun! We only have a 20% hook up to frying pan success ratio on the days the catfish are biting. Their mouths are hard to keep the little jigs hooked in, they death twirl at the hole and break the line, or they straighten the jigs.

James, That is just simply AWESOME!

Spears of jealousy and rage cast to you southerners from the great north.

WOW James - you 'da man ....
Congrats - you know you have broken the HSB private waters Texas state record at least twice if not more?

James that has got to be one of the fattest hybrids I've even seen. You have to love fat HSB.

You can be LMB crowded at one size (8-12in.) and not at other sizes like 6 lbs. I doubt James is LMB crowded also. Those 6 lbrs help keep you from being bass crowded as they are death to 8 inch LMB.

Greg and Eric we caught lots of small bass in the 3/4 pound size yesterday using very large worms. All of the fish were on the bottom in five to six foot of water in heavy cover. We were using Zoom monster worms that were I think eight inches long. I should have probably kept all of the small bass yesterday but didn't have time to clean them and so I thougt I would do it next trip. All of the fish see really fat right now I guess with eggs. Here is a picture of a fat cat we caught yesterday.

James might want to put this on another thread so as to not rob this one. I beg you please run some Wr for me on the 3/4 lb bass or give me accurate lengths and weights. Things are starting to make sense on the small cats surviving if you do not have excess bass in the pond. Yes Eric is 100% correct you can have great Wr on some with poor on other lengths. IN fact that is why we plot Wr's it shows what bass slot needs to come out.

That will be my task for next week!

Sad to report that our fishing has been slow, poor, and mostly a skunk-fest.

My biggest bass of 2009 has been 15 1/2 inches - that is basically one of the smallest bass I've ever caught from my pond. (Probably ranks as about the 3rd smallest.)

We've caught about 6 nice crappie and 2 BG.

This is the report from about 12 fishing trips - not all on our own pond because we fish about 6 different ponds. But, our pond is yielding about the same as all the others - little to nothing.

Water temps have yet to hit 50 but they are creeping up.

Al, If 15 inches is a small LMB in your pond you are doing something right. 15 Inches in my pond is a good LMB. I'm working on culling LMB and trying to get their weights and lengths up.

I'd love to take credit for that but, I bought this pond less than 6 months ago and it had been pretty much abandoned and neglected for almost 5 years. Mother Nature or some Higher Power has been "managing" this pond.

This is the only photo worthy fish I've caught.

NICE ..... beautiful photo...
A big HSB picture is worth more than a thousand words.
I love those fighting fish ....

Holy Cow!! That HSB is bigger than both of those dogs put together!!!

Mother of Pearl - one of the dog's head would fit in that monster!!!

Looks 100 lbs in that picture! HAHA

It is a whole new take on FPPT.

I keep telling them not to go in the water.

It was a sunny 70 degree day in East Texas today. I starting some spot feeding about a week ago and nothing came up to feed.
Yesterday CCs and BGs started surface feeding. For awhile I was worried that the otter cleaned me out before I got rid of him.

For all the new pondmeisters out there just starting out today was one of those special days when all the pond work, care, and $$$$ made it all worthwhile. I spent a couple of hours late afternoon just observing my beloved pond.

To actually observe LBs cruising the shallows and attaching small BGs was a site to see. Most of the sightings were in the 2-4 lb class which validates removing the small ones we catch.

It was a special day today and one I hope every pond boss gets a chance to see. Today was what it's all about. I tell this story for those just getting started. Don't get frustrated which is easier said than done. It is worth the time and energy.

Those are the types of days that we all live for Pondrookie. I've spent many an hour pond side just taking in the scenery. Sometimes it's hard to believe that we own these little slices of nature. As you said so well, it does make it all worth while.

Great job Pondrookie. I agree. For historical purposes PR and DD1 were the first Pond Boss guys I met . They set-up and handled the first PB regional meeting at the DFW Airport years ago and were nice enough to invite me by phone. Thanks guys. This pic is from the PB slide show but I don't think any DFW pics were posted here.

EWest, thanks for the photo. This was the meeting that really got me started doing the right things for my pond. Hope we can have another local meeting some day.

Gary, if you ever make it over to Cowtown/Dallas, give me a call. Some of us get together for lunch on all too infrequent occasions but it's about time to do it again.

However, I can't think of any real good reason for you to travel to the metromess from your East Texas retirement Paradise.

Dave, it is time for us to meet for lunch at Cowtown again - it's been too long.
And if Gary can't make it let's plan another Regional PB meeting (field trip) around Sulphur Springs, and look at more ponds. (hint/hint}
The last one was a blast and maybe Chris snd Frank will have ponds fulls soon if it ever rains again.

Lusk "can hold court" again - that was a blast...
We've got a bunch of NE. Texas pondmeisters within a 50 mile radius of Sulphur Springs.

Dave, you can't get lost his time since right on I-30 ..

OK, this time I will use Google maps instead of that new GPS. That darned thing took me on a 40 mile road trip and told me I had arrived. It was the middle of nowhere. I figure I was 1/2 mile as the crow flies but had to drive about 60 miles back through Paris to get there.

BBQ,Mexican,Steaks, Chicken Fried Steaks ????

Sounds good to me!

That's like going for a drive with Howard from the Sheraton Arlington!

OK, we've had a nice long warm spell and here's a couple of the better ones we caught out of our pond.




if you notice the tournament card in the photos, my pond partner and best fishing buddy are entered into an online tournament on
http://www.ultralitefishing.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=82

Maybe some of y'all should join in the fun! There are separate divisions for ice fishing and open water.

The crappie and the LMB look pretty thin for their lengths or am I mistaken?

I was thinking the same thing. they look really thin, expecially for this time of the year before spawning.

They are thin. You are correct.

Since I'm pretty broke right now, I'm monitoring the situation and trying to figure out what to do about it. Ideally, I'd like to add a bunch of adult BG because my "creel survey" tells me that we don't have enough. Unfortunately, we're in no financial condition to buy and stock much of anything.

The Georgia DNR is of no help at all. Their funding has been cut to the point where they don't have enough fish and they only want to stock new ponds and the price for that has gone way up, too.

We're working on a few different avenues to try to get some help.

Of course, not all the fish we have caught there have been so thin. I'm hoping for a BG spawn that might help us.

Another problem we have is that our pond is part of a perpetual stream system and there is a drain "somewhere" in our pond that allows a continuous flow out of the pond. I can't change that - it's a protected stream. My worry is that a lot of my forage fish are escaping.

Before anybody jumps all over me, please remember that we've only owned this pond for about 6 months and we've never seen it empty and nobody can tell us who built it so, we don't even know where this drain is located exactly or what it looks like. In warmer weather, we'll be diving around to see if we can figure it out. But, the main reason I subscribe to this site and the magazine is to learn more about how to handle these situations so, advice is welcome! But, if the advice involves spending more than $100, it's going to have to wait a while.

No need to jump over you Al!

Forage base might be an issue, but if I recall, less fish go out of the outflow than most people think.

Without knowing more details, I would think that culling LMB and crappie should be a good move to start reducing some of the predator base to leave more food for fewer mouths.

Because cost is an issue, I wonder if it's worthwhile to put up some rot baskets to create maggots to feed the forage base.

Start taking out LMB and every crappie you can. Go catch some adult BG from other lakes or ponds and add them. All that requires is a little time and an ice chest.

Thanks, y'all!

I knew nobody would really jump on me - everybody here is really nice and helpful!

Yep, I do want to try to "transplant" some BG from the other ponds we fish. I'm concerned about mortality in transporting them but, I guess that any that don't make it to my pond can make it to the table.

We've been culling all the bass and crappie that are small but leaving the bigger ones until after the spawn. I think I want the biggest spawn I can get to provide more forage. We've caught only about 2 or 3 bass under 12" and only 1 crappie that was under 12". That makes me think that they're really feeding on the young bass and crappie after the spawns. Does that make sense?

That generally indicates that they're eating their young and not getting enough to eat. You will be missing several age classes in the future.

I wouldn't worry about fish mortality in transporting adult BG. Particularly in cooler spring weather. I'd try to get out there now and catch as many of them as you can while the weather is cooler. The mortality factor will be almost zero and it will be that many more BG spawning here in the next couple months... I used to use a cheap plastic kitchen size trash can. Drill many holes in it and weight it down with something heavy. Sink it into the pond or lake your bank fishing from. As you catch the BG throw them into it. That way they are kept in the water of the lake your fishing til transport time without them sucking up all the DO in the transport container. When you leave, pull the weight out and lift the trash can out. Have a large plastic tub like you can buy at Wal-Mart with a lid. Fill it full of water from the lake or pond to about half way to the top. Pour your BG in and skedaddle. Particularly in cooler weather, unless you have a huge amount of BG they should be good for at least a half hour... I never had issues with BG dying. Only fish I had issues with were BCP but even they usually did fine. Good luck...

Howdy, Al-

No reason to be embarressed by skinny fish-at least they're alive!

As a veteran of the [ongoing]war against skinny bass, I would emphasize the need to remove as many bass as you possibly can, especially all the skinny ones, and same goes for the crappie-especially before they spawn. Yes, a lot of cannabalism will doubtless occur, but your pond will be much healthier with a lot of BG of all sizes rather than a cadre of small bait sized predators.

I would transport in as many breeding size BG as possible early in the year, remove as many predators as possible, especially skinny ones of all sizes, and strongly consider spending some money on tilapia this summer to take some of the heat off your BG population as it works its way to health. I suspect that dollar for dollar, the tilapia will be your most beneficial addition.

Thanks, guys! Didn't mean for this thread to get hi-jacked but I sincerely appreciate all the advice - especially the stuff that's free!

Great idea about the trash-can livewell - I was actually thinking about something like that or getting a fish basket since one of my best "donor" ponds we usually fish from a canoe because it's a tough place to fish from the shore.

We already seem to be missing several "year classes" in our LMB population. That's why I started off saying that we almost never catch anything under about 15" - which is true. But, I have caught 1 that was about 10" and another that was only about 6". Plenty of bigguns in there can easily eat the 6" so, I left it for food.

We'll start working on those BG donations this week! Sounds fun - I love fishing ultralite gear. I've probably got as much UL tackle as I do LMB tackle and about as much money tied up in it (bought back in the days when I had money).

Also, use barbless hooks if your sole intention is to use the BG for stocking your pond. Lessens the chance of hurting the fish. Don't play the fish, hook them and get them in. No point tiring them out playing them.

thanks! I hadn't thought about using barbless hooks but I will. That will also cut down on the number of small bass I catch while fishing for BG.

Bad news - Good news fishin' Report

Bad news was weatherman lied to me - said it would be upper 60's today and was a cold 50 degrees with fine mist and bone chillin' wind.
Near surface water temp 53 degree.
Little to no response to feed and not a hit on pellet flies - foam or AQMX - lockjaw city.

Good news - Before Todd Overton went to lake Comedora Mexico last week, he sent me a new lure/fly product to field test:
"Biogradable fish food lure.
Stays on hook "all-day long
Smells more like fish food than fish food".
Etc...etc....

My fly fishin' Lady tried in out while I stayed with my tried and true AQMX pellet fly.
She caught three nice CNBG in three casts while I loooked on.
She caught more and I finally gave in and sure enought we caught probably a dozen nice CNBG and 3 nice little fat HSB.
Don't know where the big CNBG were hiding - maybe pre-spawn?

If this thing works tomorrow like it did today, with improved weather conditions it will be a winner, and end the bother of tyin' pellet flies.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story....

Better shoot me over some more details George.......!

James and Cason,

Your HSBs are so fat they have back rolls.

Here's a pic of a little cool-weather fishing.

The rest of the story:
Probably two of the toughest days on our ponds ever - not a good day to test a new product.
My fishin' partner beat me about ten to three using the new product "lure".
Her 10 or so CNBG to my 2 CNBG. 1 small HSB and lost one jumpin' trout on AQMX pellet.

She may just be a better fly fisher than me.
If they produce on a bad day, I'm doing further testing on a good day

Nate, you and othrs know that Overton does not advertise hie services or products on the forum so y'all shoot him a PM for details.

davatsa, you look better with the goatee.

advances in modern medicine have yielded extraordinary procedures in head separation

I better look again. Is Dave in that picture?

that is a really healthy looking fish! what does it weigh? It looks like it should have a really high wr.

I don't know, James, her wr looks ok to me, but the heavy clothing does make it a little difficult to tell.

There is a pretty sweet new bluegill fishing video at http://bigbluegill.com/video/big-bluegill-video-and-fishing

Nice, fat BG for the winter doldrums, Nate. Also vivid coloration to be under snow covered ice.

I'm not sure on the weight, but I'd say over 4 pounds. Not sure on the wr, either. We were actually at my inlaws' farm up near Cranfills Gap. They do a little hunting, but not much fishing. My FIL has stocked BG and LMB a few times over the years and he's basically left the 4 acre pond alone. I had fabulous catch rates on LMB up to 5 pounds. Only a couple were what I'd consider thin...most were in great shape.






She's 5'2" and 108 pounds. Wr of maybe 80 (I suppose the goal for females is any wr under 100 ). I'm 6'2" and 250 pounds. Wr of maybe 130. Unfortunately, I'm a lunker.

Did you just drop your wife's weight in a public forum? Your wife must be awfully understanding! My girlfriend would beat my...

LOL. When it comes to Wr, all the facts must come out!


Disclaimer: I think anything below 110 is fair game. After that, you're asking for it...

I thought you were standing in a hole.

Hes young,if he survives,he'll know better later in life

I see your living the life of being married, compromise. Wanted beard shea wanted it gone you got goateee not bad deal, way to hold strong. I shaved the beard but could not stand the stubble so back to mountain man again at least until March. Lucky my job allows it.

Texas Rainbow Trout and OTS CNBG

George, did you eat the trout?
That is sooooo cool!

Was planning to cook them today but my wife won't let me cook in the house - only outside on propane fish cooker.
It's 36 degrees this morning with a howling north wind - gosh it was 87 degrees Wednesday - only in Texas.
How do you cook them?
Battered with corn meal and deep fried Texas style is not the way to go I presume?

Great looking fish George!

Hopefully DIED will see this, he has trout recipies.

hi george. we typically only use two recipes both good for the BBQ.

1) put cleaned fish whole or fileted in heavy duty foil
put thin slabs of butter in cavity and on top
put thin slices of lemon in cavity and on top
wrap/seal up foil around fish so it will hold cooking juices
put on preheated BBQ on side or rack away from flame
cook for a 1/2 hr at most (small fish 15 minutes, large fish 1/2 hr)
serve and use accumulated cooking juices to spread on fish on plate

have a nice rice with it, put the cooking juices on rice too.

2) get some lowry's teriyaki and pineapple marinade
soak filets or whole fish for at least an hour in marinade (usu. do this in fridge)
put fish and marinade juices in foil and cook on BBQ as described above.

after serving fish on plate, dribble on some PURE maple syrup on the fish (to taste), you wont be dissappointed with this one. they taste surprisingly smokey and yummy prepared this way.

good luck and nice lookin fish BTW....

dave

p.s. jhap, jean and i might inspect yer place this weekend, will give you a full report if we do....good luck on rest of tax season and hope all is well w/ you two....

I sure can't compare with George, but our ice is out for right now. Nasty winter weather forecast for tonight through Monday morning.

I went down to the pond for a little while this afternoon. The water 4-feet down at the end of my dock was 40 degrees. The air temp was 32 degrees. When the wind blew, ice was forming on my line.

I got three little bass between 6-8 inches, and these two 9-inch critters. When the crappie and the BG came out, they were nearly colorless. When I first pulled out the crappie it had virtually no markings, and was just about plain white. I wasn't even sure what it was until I looked at it closely. After a few minutes it turned this color. The BG was mostly light pink when first pulled out, then it turned this color.

There sure is a lot more meat on a 9-inch bluegill compared to a 9-inch crappie.

We'll have our first fish fry this season this evening, even if we don't have a lot of fish.





EDIT

This is what happened to the 9-inch bluegill and 9-inch crappie. They were great with homemade "shoestring" potato fries and green salad.



Good Eatn'
Ken

Nice looking fish!

Thank you sir, I appreciate that. I would tell you that there are cold beer in the fridge, but there's not. I'll get you caught up next time I'm up there.

George,

How do you manage such magnificent rainbow in a warm climate?

I'm in a far cooler climate, and I can only keep trout in my pond from about mid-October to early June. They only grow a few inches during that time. If I put 12-inch trout into the pond in October, I get 14 inch trout in May, and they've eaten a lot of pellets by then.

Thanks,
Ken

Ken, where do you buy your trout at? I am getting ready to buy 100 to stock in the stream behind our hunting cabin. I have always bought from Laurel Hill Trout Farm, no complaints but always like to keep my options open. Plus, I am looking for a source of tiger trout...

Travis

George,
If I don't cook a trout like DIED mentioned above within about 2 days of catching it, I just fillet off the meat, saute them in butter and mix with cream cheese, shredded cheese, and whatever else I can find to throw into the dip! Sour cream and mayo can be substituted for the cream cheese.

Hi Ken, I believe that I got good of growth due to pond full of late CNBG spawn, because they got off of pellets and couldn’t be caught until last week on “Stubby” flies.
Don’t know any other reason because feeder off most of the time during this period.

I stocked 25 trout early winter in ¼ acre pond from Overton, who supplies them to customers for fun and food fishin’, until they are either caught or will die late spring.

Gotta have to start fishin’….!

Travis,

My wonderful neighborhood trout dealer closed down last winter. As you may have heard, Northern Virginia is really hungry for power from West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Like me, he already had a big power line going through his property. He recently sold much of his additional property, including his fantastic trout runs, for power lines.

I unfortunately didn't get trout this winter. I've got a local line on rainbow for next winter. The other issue is taking any salmonoids across state lines. It has gotten really tight here in WV.

I'll contact friends in McConnellsburg, PA who stock trout each winter to find out where they get their trout.

Possbily Sunil has a trout source in your area.

Zetts, in Martinsburg, has rainbow, brook, golden, and brown trout for the four-state region. Unforntuatnely, they mostly only have fingerlings, and I don't think they have tiger trout. But, they are really nice people. A call to them (304-229-3654) might lead you to another dealer.

Regards,
Ken

Ken,

Thanks for the info. Yes, there has been a giant outcry with all the power hungry power companies wanting to build more powerlines. Lots of nastiness on both sides of the issue. Its a shame that they would wipe out a beautiful trout farm for a stupid powerline, but I guess the power has to come from somewhere. Laurel Hill Trout Farm is where I have been getting my trout from. No complaints, great service and they are very nice. They just don't have tiger trout and they don't know of anyone in the area that does either... If you are looking for a source yourself, check them out. I don't think they are too far from you and may deliver, but I am not sure about the whole crossing state line thing. There site is http://www.laurelhilltroutfarm.com/index.html I know they loan out haul tanks that can hold up to 100 lbs of trout. That is usually what I do. Never any problems... Will be picking my trout up in a couple weeks to stock.

Travis

World's greatest hybrid fisherman. Bruce came to visit me on one of the worst weather days we have had this year and yet was still able to catch twenty two fish. I was mainly only able to watch because my hands were so numb from the arctic hurricane we were having on Saturday. I only caught four fish to his twenty something and it was my own pond! He caught some bigger fish than this one but they are on his camera.

To be fair, James, it was probably about as nice as a slightly chilly Summer day in Denton.

That HSB almost looks like a pure striper. Beautiful fish!

Good news James, bet y'all had fun - it was cold, windy and miserable Saturday.
Details please, tackle and technique for us HSB folks.

I wish Bruce would post his technique and possibly even do a class at the conference.

And in the meantime?????????

Great fish guys. HSB and rainbow, I'm jealous. It is supposed to be warm here by the weekend, maybe I can get out and make some fish famous for you guys.

Great fish, Bruce!. Looks like a pretty messy day. James is that your house in the background? Is your lake 10A?

Super fish Bruce. How old is that fish roughly?

Just wanted to give a quick update on my fish that we had been discussing - the last few trips yielded several nice bass that were quite plump and healthy looking. I'm still trying to add some bluegill as I can but it's clear that not all my fish are skinny.

I appreciate all the helpful advice y'all have offered.

We continue to wait with baited breath..
Tackle and technique please...

EXCERPT FROM NEBRASKALAND MAGAZINE

Strictly bank anglers, Bruce Condello, his father, Frank, and cousin, Craig, have found that from late-April to early-June is the only period they consistently catch open-water species.

"Fish are hungry in the spring," said Bruce Condello. "Mid-May is the best time to catch white bass and walleyes in the shallows. For wipers, it's late-May to early-June."

The three Lincoln men spend many days fishing the Salt Valley lakes for walleyes, white bass and wipers. They don chest waders and head for a dam, wind-blown point or

Wading close to deep water, Craig Condello fishes for white bass at Pawnee Lake near Emerald.
other areas where they have found fish. They cast jigs into the teeth of the wind using light spinning tackle and light line.

Unlike many anglers, the Condellos prefer wind. It's the first thing they check in the weather forecast, and, when the wind doesn't blow, they're disappointed. "Give us any 15- or 20-mph wind, northwest, south, anything," Bruce Condello said.

Many anglers curse the wind because it makes fishing difficult. Whether in a boat or casting from the bank, wind puts slack in their lines, making bites difficult to detect. It's easier for anglers to cast with the wind to their backs, but there probably aren't as many fish around to take the bait. But wind-driven waves also concentrate zooplankton and other microorganisms that baitfish feed on in shallow water. Where there's zooplankton, there are shad, and where there are shad, there are game fish.

Bruce Condello said he sometimes uses a lipless crankbait at night or when water conditions indicate a need for a large-profile lure or noise to help attract fish. But most of the time, the Condellos fish with jigs. A Roadrunner or a hand-tied bucktail jig is about as fancy as they get. "I like to keep it nice, clean and simple," he said. "It's a lot more satisfying."

The Condellos make their own jigs, using heavy-duty hooks on jigs for wipers, which can straighten most commercially made wire hooks. "Use the lightest jig you can fish in the conditions," Bruce Condello said. Typically, that's 1/8- or 1/16-ounce jig, but on windy days they also use a 3/16-ounce jig - a size not available at most stores.

Their favorite body is a Fuzz-E-Grub (page 112). They use the largest size to get a long feather tail, and, if necessary, trim the body to fit their jig. Chartreuse is their favorite color for walleyes, white-and-pink for wipers and white or white-and-red for white bass.

Bank erosion has created shallow flats around most lakes. The Condellos reach deep water by wading. "If you want your jig to be in 6 feet of water you have to be throwing from 3 feet," said Craig Condello. "You can catch fish from shore, but your entire cast is in productive water when you're wading. From shore, it's only productive for the first quarter of your cast."

To find fish, the Condellos vary the speed and depth of their retrieves. Wipers and white bass look for baitfish silhouettes above them. Bruce Condello believes that aggressive fish are close to the surface, and he fishes there first. He allows little time for a jig to sink before beginning his retrieve. If he doesn't catch a fish, he'll let the jig sink another second or two, gradually increasing the time until he's fishing on the bottom. If he has covered an area casting in a fan-shaped pattern and doesn't catch fish, he moves down the shore until he does.

"Locating fish is easier with two or three people," he said. "If one gets a fish the others can move in. These are schooling fish."

The Condellos' luck from the bank diminishes when the water temperature reaches about 70 degrees and the fish move to deep water.

This guy is a regular media man now!

That is for sure Sunil. Some day we'll be saying....

Yea, I know Maxwell Spackelberry personally, we used to hang out together until he got all famous and stuck up.

Neat article, Bruce.

When I fish saltwater, I almost exclusively wade fish. It's definitely the way to go.

great stuff bruce, thanks for sharing...

jig fishing is cool..

I havent been fishing for two weeks and I dont think I will get to any time soon?

George, that HSB is just AWESOME!!!

George, to say I am jealous of you is an understatment. Also do you sleep in your fishing gear, or just have it by the bed ready to go? haha j/k

Great fish!

The remarkable thing about this fish is that it was grown-out in a ¼ acre un-aerated pond with very little supplemental feeding.

The pond was full of a gazillion fry and fingerlings from TAF CNBG, culled from main pond.
We transferred ~#30, 1.5 – 3# HSB to main pond last fall/early winter, but left a few to control BG spawn.

Gotta get the rest of them outa that pond for spring stocking of Floirda LMB fingerlings for future use in main pond.

I know it's early and the water's cold here, but I haven't gotten a bite in 2-3 attempts since my fishkill. So george, I'm glad it's you catching those nice fish right now - after your kill last year, it is inspiring rather than depressing.

Hang in there, Theo. The remaining fish should have more than enough to eat this spring/summer.

They'll get their spawn on as well and it won't be long until everything is back to normal.

Thanks Theo, I really appreciate your support.
As you recall I was so sick at my stomach I could not return to check on pond for several weeks, but with the support of my forum friends, it's been a blast starting all over.

The 1/4 acre pond saved my HSB program, after losing my big HSB in the fish kill in main pond.

That big mama I caught yesterday morning is swmming in the big pond this morning.

You likely have more survivors than you think - near surface water temp was only 52 degrees Wednesday morning and fish just now becoming active.

george, i'm guessing that beautiful hsb is the star player, but since no one has chimed in on that RES i must say.........outstanding FISH!!. i havent seen mine in over a year.......

Just for you George.
And you too Nate.
And really anyone else who likes big fish.

Some real nice looking HSB!

I am chomping at the bit to get out after my HSB!
Thanks for the pics cheyenne!

Beautiful fish Cheyenne - thank you very much for the photos of my favorite pond fish...
What a way to begin a beauiful spring morning...

Wow, nice fish Cheyenne!

And a smile to boot!!!

Looks like you were using a swim bait?

some of cheyenne's and George's fish look to be ready to spawn. Do the females actually develop eggs in ponds? When would they normally spawn? White bass very early. What about wipers and stripers?

Yes, the females develop eggs in ponds. Fewer than 50% are females however. My experience is that it's somewhere between 15 and 25%. The female hybrid striped bass go through a strange ritual when they're ready to lay eggs, and this is true in both ponds and reservoirs. They will just kind of randomly find an area near a rocky shoreline, or windblown point, then they'll go to the surface and start swimming in kind of slow circles. The males will then gather around her and swim around her in bigger circle in a kind of frenzy.

Another interesting fact is that when we catch hybrids in reservoirs in the spring we generally catch the males and females together. The females are almost always clustered together, and almost always turn on and off as a group in regards to angling susceptibility.

Some people don't realize this but HSB are fertile and can back cross back to white bass and striped bass. This is the reason they are illegal to stock in VA. The VDGIF is afraid they will escape the pond, swim their way to the Chesapeake Bay and spawn with wild striped bass and screw the gene pool up. However, few if any ponds would have the correct spawning locations for HSB to successfully pull of a spawn.

All true, but the biggest hole in the reasoning by the VDGIF is that white bass can and do naturally cross with stripers as well, and they've never screwed up the gene pool. There's a reason these fish stay apart. The bluegill gene pool hasn't been screwed up over time and there may be as many as a dozen other fish close enough genetically to cross their DNA with the BG. I understand their reasoning, and support it up to a point, but if they're going to outlaw HSB stockings they may also have to undertake a massive white bass eradication program if they're going to be consistent.

I agree, its a narrow view. There are not many lakes I can think of with naturally reproducing white bass populations that are part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. White bass are native to the Mississippi drainages but not Atlantic drainages. Although the world record white bass was caught in a lake not 30 minutes from my house which is part of the Atlantic drainage. Funny thing is, no one has any clue how white bass got there!

World Record White Bass Lake

World Record White Bass

I was able to find these after work on Friday.



And these on Saturday.



Fridays fish tasted mighty fine Saturday evening.

Pretty crappie.

CJBS2003 - Along those same lines, how likely do you think it is for pure white bass to pull off a successful spawn in a larger pond of 8 or so acres? A friend of mine has a pond that was flooded by a large rain event. He's in the drainage area of a large lake that has a TON of white bass, and he's now confirmed they are in his pond a year later. He expressed some concern about them being in there, but I told him that I personally didn't think I'd worry about them too much as I didn't think they'd overpopulate.... and they are a lot of fun to catch anyway. Was I correct in saying that?

White bass prefer to spawn in rivers, they often go miles upstream where they spawn at the base of a dam. Their eggs are adhesive and sink to the bottom where they attach to rocks. In some lakes, white bass are able to successfully spawn on wind blown shorelines, but this is extremely rare. In an 8 acre pond, I would be very surprised to see white bass naturally reproduce. So it sounds like your buddy will have a handful of white bass for a couple of years til they die out and then they'll be over with. He may grow some nice sized white bass though before they do die off... I would be more worried about other species that came in during the flood event, not the white bass...

It's likely he has some gizzard shad in there now too. They are thick in that lake.

Well, the white bass will love em this spring when they spawn... Does he have any HSB in there?

Was a typical bass heavy mix of LMB, BG and CC prior to 2007 when he added some HSB... and a single common carp of all things. He should probably just have a shock survey done, so we know what the heck he's dealing with.

Thanks for the info CJBS2003. Didn't mean to hijack the thread... was just kind of curious about the white bass reproduction posibilities.

Went fishing at a friends 2 acre stunted bass pond on Saturday for 1 hour. I ended up catching 12-13 fish and all but one of them were fat. I don't know if it is because of the 150 adult bluegill we added last spring or them getting ready to spawn. I would have thought they would have spawned by this point. The biggest was about 2 lbs. and the smallest maybe 3/4 lbs. The small one was removed.

The friend wants a big bass pond. So should he be removing everything under 13-14 inches?

If the pond is not currently way overcrowded, I would remove medium sized bass of low & moderate RW. A big, fat 14 incher (if present) must be growing pretty well - let him ride.

I have been telling him to take out some bass but I am not sure how many he has actually taken out.

The next time I go down there I will get some lengths and weights.

If your friend wants a big bass pond, you guys should remove as many as you can including the fat ones. Get the total number of bass in the 2 acre pond down to about 100 bass and you will grow MONSTERS! Keep dinking around with should I release this bass even though he is fat, and you will grow some nice 2 lbers.

I can consistently grow bass BIG, but I cant do it as fast or easily with much more than 75 per acre. Your definition of BIG needs to be defined.

Chris at what time in the North Texas area would you expect the bass to have spawned? Does the fact we have had a cold spring play into a delayed bass spawn? My father in law told me the crappie are just now spawning in south Texas.

I have always heard that the spawn was around the end of February-early March in Lake Fork and I was getting water temps right at 60 up here in Arkansas during the middle of March.

Chris I just read on the internet that bass would be spawning in the north Texas area for the next sixty days and that the bass in a given body of water would not all spawn at the same time. Some would be early spawners and some would be late spawners. So some have spawned already but many have not.

My guess is the LMB spawn in TX is in full swing now. As James notes some are finished and some just starting. Keep in mind that generally large deep lakes don't cool as fast or warm up as fast as smaller ponds.

Chris my water temp just now hit 60 but only two weeks ago we had snow.

James, dont believe everything you read on the internet! Probably the only completely accurate source on information would have to be the TV....just messin with ya!

Need.....more...........pictures.....

Chris, our near surface water yesterday morning was 57.4.
Air temp a couple of nights ago was 27 - go figure....

Yesterday afternoon report, 2 Bows, 2 fat little HSB, a few CNBG including a couple of 10 inchers from little pond.
Slow but steady action.

Moderate feeding on main pond with AQP and TH feeders performing well.

Two GBH have taken up residence on main pond and one on little pond.
The devils kill for the fun of it and leave big spawning CNBG dead on the bank with a hole the size of a quarer in them.

I'm heading up to our hunting cabin in PA now that the rains have cleared out... Hopefully, I'll be posting some pictures of trout tonight or tomorrow! Wish me luck...

Well, as promised I took some photos. I was solo other than the dog, so the photos aren't the greatest but you get a taste... I ended up catching 12 brown trout, 5 rainbow trout and one golden morph rainbow trout. George, wish you could have been there, the trout were rising like crazy on size 12 black stone flies. I am gonna have to bring the fly rod next trip!

One of my rainbows in the water and then in hand.





A couple of the brown trout.





After the rains the creek looked great, not too clear but not dingy either.



A view from the top of the mountain looking over the valley.



My dog had to take a swim in the deer watering hole.

CJ, droolin' all over my keyboard - great pictures - thanks for sharing.

Ditto George:
CJ, what part of PA is that? It is beautiful!!!!!!!!!! The fish are really nice looking too. I love PA, spent some summers there as a teen, nortwest corner of the state, Montrose, one hour out of Binghamton, NY, breathtakingly beautiful. Have to get back there, I hear it hasn't changed.

Beautiful pictures. Your lab might have had a better time than you did.

It is in southern Bedford County about 2 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line. The next county east of Sunil's pond. Very pretty area indeed!

Great photo's CJ, that Brown was sharp, were they for dinner or did you release them?
Nice view from the mountain, is it on your property?

Top notch CJ - what a great way to spend the day. Please do me a favor - take your flyrod next time and have your lab video you.

Might talk the lady into going up next time... She can do the photography/videography. The browns went back, the rainbows are filleted and in the fridge for dinner tomorrow. The view is from the top of our property... That large gap in the distant mountain is the Sideling Hill Mountain Gap where they blasted a hole in the side of the mountain to put I-68 through... Pretty neat looking.

Interesting Link

Very interesting. Wish I hadnt been so young and dumb when I lived in that part of the country. Great fish and awesome view.

So, you are invious of us folks with spring upon us? Man you got it all. Thanks for sharing.

outahere

I'm just lucky my dad bought the place! Hopefully one day it'll be mine... Anyone coming east is more than welcome to stop by for the view or to fish.

4 pounds, 8 ounces
22 inches

We've been working hard on culling and increasing our forage fish. My pond partner has placed an order for a million golden shiner fry from one of the suppliers that supports Pond Boss - we should have them in May.

We've seen some LMB and BG fry swimming lately, too. So, we're hoping that we can get our WR up to the right levels by the end of the summer though we suspect we'll still have some stunted fish swimming.

Nice fish!

6lb 4oz HSB

1st overwintered BG - Glad to see they all made it OK



FH

What a HAWG!!!!!
Now that's what I call a POND FISH - it would drown a 10# LMB tied tail to tail.... what a blast.
CONGRATUALTIONS!

George you should've seen the medium heavy Fenwick bend over like an ultralight. Needless to say the guy in the pic loves HSB.

cheyenne, do you have plans on sustaining a HSB fishery by annually or biannually stocking?

We're planning on stocking every third year. That's what Dr. Slipke at SE Pond reccomended. Our morts are really low, and we don't plan to harvest any.

Here's a 19lb BC caught on 6lb line today.


And thanks to the help of some friends we were able to find these.

Man Cheyenne, those are all some really big fish!!!

How big is the crappie in the lower pic? Looks like a nice one...

Looks like a 19lb blue......

I'd guess that it was just under a pound.
It could be a blue cat. Large cats are hard for me to judge, but I made that call based on the shape of its head, and large belly. The big blues that we've caught had a muscular head and more slender shape.

Pretty crappie! Look at the straight edge on the anal fin... Perfect example of a blue cat. CC's have a very curved edge to theirs. Pretty cat none the less though!

Is that a huddleston shad? Have much luck with that?

WOW! Those are some serious Brutes! You could film a pretty sweet fishing show!

Cheyenne, I don’t understand the logic of a three year stocking program.
As you likely know, there is a finite lifespan for HSB in southern waters even if it has not been firmly established as yet. Obviously you have outstanding water quality to produce the quality HSB you regularly catch.

IMO you will “hit a wall” with their recommended stocking schedule, resulting in a three year gap in size.
I am a firm believer of an annual stocking ladder to maintain max size fish on a continuing basis.

Do they recommend fingerling HSB stocking or do you have larger size HSB available to avoid predation?

It's a mattlures shad. I've caught all of my big HSB on it.

We have access to HSB stocking as large as 12". With the number of predators that are in our pond I believe that the logic in a three year stocking plan is to avoid overstocking. It is quite possible that I misunderstood Dr. Slipke. I'll check with him before I talk to the fish farm. The main goal is a LMB fishery. HSB are just the icing on the cake. We only stocked 25 HSB per acre to start with. That combined with Crappie, BC, CC, and LMB makes for a lot of predators. This wasn't all by design. This was an existing pond with a large number of fish already in it.

Cheyenne, you are right on .... with your goal of trophy LMB verifies "it all depends".
IMO the key to HSB stocking plan/numbers depends on goals and unknown lifespan of HSB in southern waters.
Dr. Slipke's opinion will be appreciated.
Thanks,
George

George,
I spoke with Dr. Slipke. He told me that it's really our choice between 100HSB per year, 200 every other year, or 300 every third. Based on our original stocking of 750. He said that those numbers should represent a fair recruitment. He also said that I could adjust the stocking according to how many HSB I wanted overall.
Cason

Thanks Cason, apppreciate the info - so "it all depends" after all.

Easy choice for me - 100 HSB per year, and I betcha it will be your choice when your LMB get hook-shy and I get you hooked on fly fishin'!

Forgot to ask about a feeding program?
How 'bout tilapia for incresed LMB forage?

You have a great resource and appreciate your sharing.
You and Nate are the greatest....!!!!

George,
No need to thank me. You're my go to guy for everything HSB, including Stiper on the halfshell.
We put in 300lb of tilapia last year in early June.
We put in 200lb last friday. We went with fewer tilapia this year because we were able to get them earlier, and in the end felt like we'd get at least one, if not two, more spawns. We also added threadfin last year to supplement our smaller LMB BC and HSB. The GSD are a little big for them. However, I think that our larger HSB are able to feed on them and in turn are doing very well. In the summer we pump well water into our pond at a rate near 1500gpm. We start this in June, and don't stop until late august. The HSB love the cool water. And it creates a nice place to feed aquamax largemouth to them. And they hammer it!

As far as the catfish above, I almost forgot that several years ago (before I got involved) blue x channel hybrid catfish were stocked to this pond. That may be what we're looking at.
Cason

Interesting, I am not sure I have ever seen an adult hybrid catfish... Anyone have a known picture of one or know what the anal fin characteristics are of it in comparison to the adult fish of each species?

I havent found a source for the hybrid cats. All the info I have incountered was related to fish farming. I am ready to stock a few cats and was considering small amounts of both. The hybrid would be my choice if I could find any.

I was considering stocking CB Hybrids and found a hatchery down south who had them...I could have sworn they advertise in PB backpages.

I do know they grow upward of 30-40 lbs - very fast growing - but was discouraged to stock them because of their:
1. impact on the forage base
2. reportedly hookshy after being caught once or twice

I think the hatchery was in MS.

I have a thread somewhere in the archives RE CB Hybrids...

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...true#Post118395

Cason, your operation facinates me, as well as Nates.
You both have excellent water quality, intensve management and outstanding results growing superior fish.
I want to go back in the archives and revive your origial post about your operation.
Maybe we can find it - if not I know Eric can.
We need your story.

What do you want to know about Hybrid Cats ?

Try this. I think that is a hybrid cat .

SRAC 0190 Production of Hybrid Catfish - http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=3

I've got several pics of large catfish with straight anal fins. One that imo is clearly a BC, the others are not that clear. They're not from 2009 so I can post them, email them, or if everyone likes we can start a new thread. I feel as if I've hijacked this thread.

Cheyenne, the thread has 25 pages. You think it hasnt been robbed, raped, pillaged, hyjacked? We like pics.

ok
I think both of these are hybrids.




This one was a CC imo. This is the only pic I have, and it isn't a very good example.


No question this is a BC. Notice the difference in the head and body shape?

Got to fish this weekend and caught a redear. I catch one of these once every blue moon. Will redear reproduce in a pond or do their numbers need to be replenished every so often?

Sorry for the bad pic. I took it from my phone. Next time I'll do a little better.

That is a redear isn't it?

no i dont think so brett.
looky like a pumpkinseed.

lets see what others say.

my res have not done well in the reproduction area.....too many other lepomis.

I thought so too DIED, but that red mark on the gill plate made me second guess myself. I'm beginning to wonder if it's some kind of hybrid.

FWIW, it looks like a PS to me. Color and patterning is not right for a RES.

Either RES (or PS, IIRC) should not have reproducing in Illinois. My RES manage on a straight clay bottom. Their spawning/recruitment numbers will not be anywhere near those of BG, however, in most situations. I would say "always", but Lusk has reported ponds wheree RES thrive & BG don't for some reason.

It is not easy to id fish 100% from pics unless the quality is high and it shows enough morphological features. I would say that is a PS. Could be a PS mix with high % of PS.

Here this is from the Hybrid Catfish linked fact sheet. Now you guys tell me what those cats are.

On my computer I was able to count 28 on the first pic. I was unable to count the second as it appears something is wrong with it. The third I couldn't count either due to the photo. The fourth had 35. The one that was posted the other day I counted 30. So all in all, I don't know.

I had noticed the long whiskers and knew blues had short ones. So, it was definitely a hybrid. Long barbels, straight anal fin= hybrid.

The Lady is a Champ..

Great pic, George! You lucky dog...the furthest one back in the pic is the real keeper.

Took the boys fishing last night, just a little wind, but nice enough to let them wade around in the pond.


Cole's first fish all by himself (after I cast the bobber out). He hooked it and landed it. Poppa was proud!


I caught this one, but he looks better with it.


Rowan trying to get in on the action.



Stringer so heavy he could barely lift it.


From a couple of weeks ago.

Excellent!

Great photos George and Svoberts. Pond meistering at its finest.

that's great. Looks like you have a future Bill Dance on your hands.

I'm planing on taking my son on his first fishing trip to the pond this spring. He will be 1 in may. I'm sure he won't be interested in sitting and fishing but he will probably think the fish are pretty cool.

Rowan is two on Monday, but he screams and giggles every time we pull one in. Brett, in your picture, it looks like he has already had his first fishing trip

hahaha. He was only about 2 months old in that picture. I got a picture of him with a rod sticking out of his pumpkin seat at the pond too. I can't wait to see his reaction to a live fish. He loves aquarium fish.

Sounds like you have some fishin buddies for life. Great post, It's always good to see parents teaching their kids the joys of the out doors.

So here's a 25lb Cat. Any guess as to what kind of cat????

Woops appears I was misinformed as a kid.

Blue cat

All the ones you have shown don't have a very sloped nape(forehead) like the one I have seen.

Definitely has blue cat in it...but I couldn't tell you 100% whether it's a hybrid or a pure blue.

It's a fat cat.

seriously, I think a hybrid. More the color of a channel, but tough to tell.
They are easy to tell apart when a couple of pounds, then the channels and hybrids lose their spots and it gets harder. Easier to tell live than on a photo.
OK, I'll admit, it's been too long since I caught a blue cat. That's why I want a few, or hybrids. I really think I can catch a good % of them out.

I'm gonna stick my neck out and say female.

I'm really not sure myself. I think that the hybrids that are in there are old enough to be this big. I don't think it looks anything like the last one I posted on page 25. To me the head looks altogether different. I can count 31 rays in the fin. The smaller BC that we put in have the distinct head of a BC. However, the fish we catch in this size range (with the exception of the one on page 25) seem to look different.

Thought I'd share some pics of a few BG I caught last weekend. I had no Idea I had BG that size in my pond. I guess years of overpopulated LMB created some good BG. Feeding probably didn't hurt either.

I know these are nothing compared to some of the BG I've seen on this site but I'm pretty proud of them.

I normaly fish for LMB and I had planned on managing for big LMB but catching all those BG this weekend realy got me excited about BG. I'm realy leaning toward having balanced pond for both BG and LMB. I won't neglect the BG any more. Those BG are a ton of fun to fish for.

nice lookin fish there brett. colored really dark, do you have pretty clear water?

I have pretty clear water rignt now. It won't last long though. By june it will be murkey. I'd guess visibility is pretty close to 3 feet. I could see the bottom of the pond in a shallow area that is about 3 feet deep.

By june it will look like the picture in my avatar. I'm pretty suprised that I get those plankton blooms without any fertilization. I usualy get the blooms just in time for all the fry to hatch so it works out pretty well.

I assumed those colors were spawning colors. I didn't know water clarity affected a BG's color that much. There are a lot of things I don't know about BG. I need to start doing some more research on those critters. They are my new favorite game fish (for now). I'm sure I'll go back to LMB later this spring.

Am I the only one on the forum who on a regular basis can go to their pond and have a difficult time catching anything! I took a friend fishing today. We started out bass fishing. I caught three and he caught none after three hours. After we went and had lunch we tried catfishing. We caught a total of seven catfish. the total catch for the day was ten fish. That is only one fish between two people every forty five minutes and that includes cheating by throwing fish food. Very few fish even ate the fish food. After fishing today he asked me if I had ever stocked my pond. I told him no but I am considering it!

James you made the mistake of letting Condello fish your pond.

1. Compared to Bruce, the rest of us all seem like lousy fishermen.

2. Your fish no longer respect mere mortals such as yourself.

BTW, wrt fishing reports:

MY BG WERE HITTING GOOD TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!

I landed 7 of them in an hour. 1 7" eatin' sized and 6 from 8" to 9 3/4" - 5 of them gravid females. That's not a great CPUE, but it's more than all the rest of the BG I have caught since last Winter's fish kill.

yea how come bruce can catch so many fish with a little jig? Is he still going to put on a fishing class at the conferance? I really need to go.

When I started using a "Condello-rigged" worm last year, my cool water catch rate for BG soared. It came up to almost a quarter of Bruce's catch rate.

I did a search and couldn't find it. Where can I see this "Condello-rigged" worm?

I dont know which one Theo's is referring to, but since I've been using his small jig head tipped with a piece of worm, I cant miss. That is with or without bobber.

Theo, congrats on the large females. Sounds like you're out of the woods so to speak. Those are some hosses, or mares, or whatever.

Condello Rigged Jig

DIED has a variation of this Jig in which he uses a Berkley Maggot instead of a real worm. Both versions SLAUGHTER sunfish. DIED and Bruce both have the jigging rhythm down pat. They both out fish me 3 or 4 to one but I still catch a lot of fish with that set up. DIED also puts bits of worm on a fly - another killer rig. At my place DIED looked around walked over to an area and started digging and BAM found some worms - I think he's some kind of worm whisperer. (not to be confused with Caterpillar Yodeler).

Thanks Jeff. I struck out on the lake today.

Omaha you make me feel better that I have someone in the same boat not catching fish but I also like having Condello in the boat catching lots of fish.

This one came from one of Condello's favorite public lakes. They were hitting top water chug bugs in the rain last night.

Nice one Shorty. It's always fun when they are hitting top water.

Great Fish!

What a GREAT morning - watched the sun come up one more time and giant CNBG on Gurglers - double lip - black foam on bottom - yellow on top for strike indicator - chartreaus body and tail - perfect bug for turbid water.
Been waiting for the water to get just right for topwater - love it.....

Many HSB on magic bullets- 1/2# - 2.5# - had one that put me on the reel with screaming drag.

Don't know where Jeff's feed trained bass are hiding?
Is mouth of 10 inch LMB large enough for 3/4 inch LMB AQMX?
"Bout time to put some growth on those critters...

I would admonish you for not getting a pic of that giant BG, george, but OTOH it would just make me feel inadequate.

My most vehement AM Largemouth feeders are smaller bass, on the order of 13" or so. They can put away 3 or 4 of them (I hand toss each one). I think a 10 incher could handle a pellet.

OK, I think I'll give them a try - my HSB might also like them.

I promised no more CNBG photos unless 11 inches - might be a long time coming because they are getting wider than longer.
I've posted so many CNBG photos on the forum that they have become repetitive...

Post one 10" long if it's 11" wide, george.

OUCH....
http://www.bigbluegill.com/photo/photo/s...3D33v4thv78jx0l

George your hsb will love the bass pellets

CNBG
I swiped this photo from Texas Fishing Forum - from Jon
http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbt...airfield#UNREAD

“Cooler full of Fairfield Fatties - that's an Igloo 52 qt for reference.”

Dichotomy.

The big Bluegill lover in me cringes to see them in a cooler; the fried Bluegill lover in me longs to take them out of the cooler and put them in hot oil.

It also makes me cringe to see those monster CNBG in a cooler, but Lake Fairfield has an endless supply - it's legal so NOMB.
I don't care for BG as table fare but wish I had those in my pond instead of a skillet.

Lake Fairfield is in my Freestone County backyard; a power plant lake that is coal fired resulting in warm water year round.
Tilapia and salt water RedFish stocked many years along with Florida LMB.

Tilapia keeps the power plant screens clean as well as abundant forage for the predators.

Looks like mostly males in the pic, only bad thing when they are nesting. The males get hammered way harder than the females, it should be the opposite way around for proper management...

My feelings exactly.

Caught 16 bass this evening in a friends stunted bass pond. Only two went back and they were right at 14". I bet I lost 8-10 fish.

Also caught a 7-8" GSF. He went over the back of the dam.

That BG pic almost looks like it has been photoshopped. but I guess its just that the BG are so HUGE.

"He went over the back of the dam." Not a wise post Youngblood.

Those are some hoss CN for public waters. I wonder if the redfish forage on them heavily?

Now see, why did you have to go and do that? Jeez, you're young and have so much life ahead of you, I hate to put you on the list with Rainman and Yolk. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to an error in judgement.

But I'm watching you now.

Now why would an aspiring fish squeezer do something like that?

I'm thinking temporary insanity.

Darn straight. A 7"-8" GSF is eatin' sized.

Or, in the very least, grow one mean stalk of corn

Jeez, this list keeps getting longer and longer. I think I'm gonna have to hire a secretary.

Over the back of the dam into a feeder creek to swim another day... That's his story and he's sticking to it!

Howdy Guys (and gals...a gal that reads PB and goes fishing etc. IMHO is "just one of the guys", but that is a different topic.)

My son Tony wanted me to show you the crappie he caught last night in our pond. He has really taken an interest in it this year.



About 8 inches caught on a redworm. Not huge, but it makes him happy to catch one.

Couple BG 1 year after stocking -

There is a good "moonscape" of BG beds on the east edge of the pond.

Nice to see some serious spawing unfolding!!





Both were released this spring. This Fall, they'll be fish fry material if I have my way!!!

FH

mobass, the smile is what it's all about.

You are right burgermeister. I need to get him out on the lake with a floating Rapala and let him hook on to a LMB coming out of the water. That will make the smile much bigger.

A really nice HSB from my pond, but not a great picture. I took off work yesterday and caught this one. It was about 21-22" long, and maybe 4 pounds. I was by myself and didn't have time to measure or weigh it. Water temps were 62 F, and these HSB were just thrashing the feed hard in the open water, deep end of my pond.

Really nice Sunil - HSB are beauties...!
Bet it put up a fight ...

Proof that HSB can be in nice condition without a lot of feedding, too.

Nice fish!

OK, I finally got my bass hunters on the pond to prove to me that the Florida LMB survived the 2008 fish kill, as well as all other species. I know – y’all tried to tell me that I had more survivors than thought – but I was devastated over the fish kill.
Maybe this will help recent fish kill victims that there is always light after the dark…

Good news is that the Florida survivors have spawned with the feed trained native LMB stocked last fall that will produce a good crop of F-1’s for my bass hunters.

George whats the story on the goat?

Jake, son Jeff owns "our" ponds and I am the "sharecropper".
He raises goats and has beutiful Great Pyranese livestock guard dogs that think they are goats.
Meat goats for market and brush control.
They love water primrose and keep pond banks manicuread.
Texas livestock ag tax exempt is nice also.

Yep I can relate to all of that. We raise show sheep and also have Great Pyreneese Dogs.

I went fishing with a friend in Montana this weekend and froze. I wasn't quite ready for snow in June but we caught some really nice trout out of some of the small lakes up there. Here are a couple of pictures and George they were all caught on a flyrod.

That one brown trout is just awesome! What coloration! Nice fish...

Man, the gold in those BRNT is fantastic, I wonder what their eating.

Well no pictures (Bad Dad) but My 3yo daughter Gracie caught her first fish (gills) of the season the other day.
She caught several, but my favorite was when she picked out her own meal worm, I put it on the hook and she did the rest, all I had to do was remove the fish from the hook.
She cast out, hooked the fish and reeled it in and dropped it in my lap.
This is the first time that she has actually been able to cast herself (see mom all that practice last winter did pay off).
She was getting better at it so I tied on a crank bait and started casting while she fished.
First time I was actually able to fish while she was fishing, cast out and retrieve, normally I'm too busy casting out for her.
It was kind of nice, now to just get her trained around hooks to bait them and remove fish and we'll be set.

Oh yeah there was another guy down from us fishing for gills, gracie outfished him 4 to 1 at least.

Can't get much prouder than this.

Matt

Very nice James - I told you so .....

great fish james. awesome!

Last night was the best fishing I've had yet this year! It was the most BG action I have seen since I lost so many big ones last Winter under the ice. The BG are getting ready to spawn; I caught 3 gravid females (2 pretty nice) and this 9 Inch big Bull (who got moved to my SMB/YP/RES as a bonus fish):


The LMB were also very aggressive last night. I can easily tell which ones are really into eating Aquamax Largemouth pellets - they look like they may be football shaped by football season. This 17 Incher weighed 3 lbs 6 oz - not much by Greg Grimes standards, but in much better condition than another last night that only weighed 2 lbs 11 oz and was 18 Inches long.

Theo, that's a BIG BULL BRIM - call it a BG if you wish but you deserve the title ....
Nice LMB ...
Well earned gratifiation after a fish kill ....!..
CONGRATS ...

2 beauties, Theo. Glad things are looking up. Man, that big helmet would have made a good fillet. Maybe after the spawn.

Theo, great looking fish. How old do you think that 17" bass is?

I do not believe it is one of the original stockers (2003). My best guess is that it is from the first LMB spawn in 2005 - 4 years old. But that's just a guess.

Theo:

What's up with the BG's tail? It looks a wee bit ragged.

Fish size and condition = A+

Photographic technique = D-

Theo, you really need to work on your Condello Photographic Technique.

What I'm attempting for the "2009" fin clip code - top portion of the tail fin.

Spoken like a Green Sunfish.

P.S. Has Bruce ever photographed a bass bigger than a barn door?

awesome fish theo. does that BG have a strange tail or is that me?

It's not you. Look up about three posts.

couple of nice crappie from Lake Ray Roberts.

A "couple"?

Dinner is served.........>Nice fish

Mmmm... What's the length and weight on the big one?

A bit less than two pounds.

Here is a hybrid BG picture from this afternoon.

Wow. That is a great picture.

Shorty.............that is huge! It took up my whole monitor for just the head. It appears that you have taken the Condello photo technique to a whole other level! WOW!

Beautiful photography. Tell us about the camera. Nevr seen a helmet going like that on a HBG. You must have oiled it down. Look at 'em glisten.
Piscture; I got it!

That's just a cropped image, here is the original picture from which that giant HBG head was cropped. The camera is a Sony Steady shot, 8.1 megapixal with a 10x zoom. I did use the zoom to take the original picture while my buddy was sitting in the front of the boat 10-12 feet away.

Woohoo! This 9.5 Inch bad boy is a triple first for me:

1st fish on a new rod & reel,
1st BG caught in my new pond, and
1st BG ever caught on a lure (curly-tailed grub on a 1/16th oz jighead)

He is one of 15 BG I put in my SMB-YP-RES pond last year as the first year class of Bonus Male BGs.

Very nice.

So we're out at the lake yesterday and there are bullfrogs everywhere. Heavy algae. So I'm flipping my bullfrog lure and just for the fun of it, toss it by these bullfrogs. They went at them like they hadn't eaten all year. I had no idea bullfrogs were cannibalistic.

that is one violent looking fish.

I doubled with ya, Omaha. Other bullfrogs are favorite snacks of bullfrogs.

Omaha,
My son loves to catch bullfrogs. He will see one 3-4 foot from the bank and throw a worm, or any type of lure upon the pond bank close to the frog and just "jiggle" the lure in one spot as much as possible. These frogs will swim to shore, jump up on the bank and eat the lure. The the fight is on, and what a fight it is with those web feet. Lot's of fun, and funny!

Very cool. So much to learn. I'll have to have my boy give that a shot.

Sweet sucess well deserved - great fish Theo ...

Way to go Theo!

Very, very nice BG!

Nice fish Theo !!!! Did you get a weight ? A real porker.

I was 300 yards from a scale and lucky I had my cell phone camera with me - I was just trying out the new pole. I am sure it was over a pound; Bruce is guessing 22 oz.

Grandson Clint's HSB and LMB caught this week.
I've got to get him back to his flyrod - he cheated with a white and chartreaus spinner bait...

Fine looking young man there george.

I can see your Hugh Hefner in him.

No pipe or smokin' jacket but does have a neat pickum truck ...

Chip off the ole block. Good stuff, George.
Hey, dont let him forget about the CNBG; tell him what you missed for so many years...Well, except for HSB and stripers and rainbows, brooks, browns, Dorado, tarpon, etc.

I got to spend a couple of hours fishing last night. Everything turned out to be way down in the water - I didn't get anything until I dropped the bait to about 4 feet. Then I started landing LMB and a couple of BG.

I got this female who tied the pond record for length, and decided it was a good time to knock off.


But I still had one line left in the pond, with another couple inches of nightcrawler on it. So I cast it back close to where the last BG got hooked, right underneath where I feed Aquamax Largemouth six nights a week.

The bobber dropped, I set the hook, and pandemonium broke loose. About 75 yards of line screamed off the reel before I was able to turn what fought like about a 15 lbs CC. It swam back in 2/3 of the distance without stopping as I cranked furiously to recover the line. THEN the fight started.

When it was all over, I had one of the HSB stocked 32 months ago as 7"-8" juveniles. I have not seen much of them since; perhaps many of them were eaten by adult LMB. It measured 21" and weighed 4 lbs 4 oz. I will be evaluating it's culinary aspects soon.

I'm sold, george, and I will definitely be stocking more HSB in the future in one or both of my ponds!

CONGRATULATIONS Theo - they are a great sport fish .... now for the fly rod ....

You're killing me, Theo. I am soooo jealous. Good to see someone is actually fishing instead of just feeding their fish. Can hardly wait til some of mine grow up. Your BG are getting hefty.
A big CONGRATS! Also good to know I may actually have some HSB left. Problem I forsee is that you always have to fish with the heavy duty stuff, or chance missing one.

I hooked that one on a #6 aberdeen. Every HSB I've ever caught has been on a worm/n-crawler.

Theo, great catch, fish kills are helpful sometimes would you agree?. I'm sure knowing you you used the tag gun to mark this fish to see if same HSB if you catch one again.

I am using this HSB to do a full, complete evaluation of their potential.

I can tag it when I cook it, Greg, if you want.

Just be careful. Those tags are tough to piss out.

Sunil, Sunil, Sunil. What are we going to do with you my friend.

Great HSB Theo!

I'm in Buenos Aires right now, so just get the GSA Deathstar off of TOM G, and send me a zap down here.

Been trying to remove as many of my HBG as I can this year. The pic below is typical of what I've been catching. Stocked two tears ago that 2-3 inches.

Interesting colored HBG...

Is nobody fishing? Where are your pictures?

From two weeks ago at a lake near my house. This lake had a collapsed walleye population and has had a zero limit for walleye the last twelve years. Now it's not unusual to catch fifty or more walleye per day.The pike are all skinny and very few and far between, yellow perch are mostly gone, you can still catch some whitefish and burbot in the winter. The gov't still has a zero keep on walleye, but I guess it's fun for the kids.

Here's a couple pics from this morning. No carp, but it's not only fish that like pellet flies!

Looking out from shore (no it isn't the pond! )


GHS

'nother one


It's amazing how hard a turtle can pull!


I removed the hook and it scurried back into the lake pretty quick!

esshup, as i scratched the morning from my bleary eyes, i'd swear that last pic was a frozen chicken.......

Tastes like chicken.

More coffee?? I was going to turn it over, but as soon as I did it wanted to get back into the lake.

It's the other "other" white meat!

thank you for the pictures I feel better already.

Fish'in in the pond yesterday only caught brookies, the Browns and Rainbows weren't interested.
The BRKT in my pond all come from the stream that flows thru my property, and they fatten up in the pond.

Here's a BRKT from the pond


Here's a couple just out of the stream.

AP - does my soul good to see fine squaretail specimens like these. Did you tempt them with your flyrod? If so, what did they take?

What kinda growth rates are you seeing on your BRKT after you put them in the pond?

TJ, I'm gonna start practicing with the flyrod tomorrow while I'm watchin the grandkids, they'll get a good laugh.
I caught the brookies on pieces of nightcrawlers, that always seems to work, but I'm looking forward to trying them with the flyrod.

CJ, I can't tell with the BRKT cause I get them all sizes in the stream, but the biggest one I put in this spring was 8 inches and this one was 10. I've gotten 29 BRKT from the stream since April, and I probably should tag some to check growth.
I was hoping to get some BRNT and RT so I could check their growth but no luck, I'm really not a very good fisherman, but there's plenty of time after the hordes of bugs die down.

Give me GPS coordinates, I'll gladly come test my fishing skills... HAHA

When you're ready and do try to fly fish your pond, try a scud pattern. One of my favorite patterns for trout in ponds and even works well on sunfish too. Try a light split shot to get it to slowly sink and just twitch it ever so slightly with little strips of the line.

CJ, if you want to travel your welcome to fish the pond anytime, just bring plenty of bug repellent.
The guy on the fly fishing video recommended a black gnat, so I picked some up, have you used them?

Yes, an excellent dry fly pattern. Adams is another all around work horse for ponds. If you can, try to start out with a bigger fly pattern. When I was learning, I found larger patterns easier to learn with.

And far easier to see...if you're fishing the stream a "parachute" pattern is very helpful if you have trouble tracking your fly like myself - its an extra tuft of white or pink hackle on the top of the fly. It's critical for me or I lose sight if there is any glare on the water, which there ALWAYS is.

I don't know about East Coast flies, but out here an Elk Hair Caddis catches trout in all water...we also use Adams, Wulff and Ant patterns effectively in almost any water.

Travis is right, if you can get away with fishing something in the 12-14 range it makes hooking up and casting a little easier.

Good luck AP - have your Gkids send us a video of your fly fishing exploits...I want to see you nail some!

Had a pair of firsts in the new pond last night! (drumroll)

Despite a complete lack of evidence from direct observation and seining last year, I DID have a RES spawn in 2008! The 5 1/2" evidence shown below is the first fish caught in the pond which was hatched there (not counting FHM). Perhaps even small RES enjoy eating the Gambusia I was trying to match with the curlytailed grub.


Secondly, this is the first of the YP stocked last October to be caught. It's huge bulk measures almost 6" long.


I also landed three SMB, the biggest was a fat 10".

RES reproduction!!! Cool!!!

BTW, I had YP reproduction in my Dad's pond last year!

Free fish!

Success feels good - cheers for Theo !!

Nice work and next time, try and land the fish by hooking it inside it's mouth.

Can I help it if the Perch has astygmatism?

I'm excited to hear about the RES spawn - gives many of us hope - and that's a nice YP. Congrats!

I got some 1/64 oz jigs and some tube baits in the mail today. Even though it's 90 degrees out I thought I would tie one on my ultra light rig and go out to the pond. After a short time I caught the biggest LBM to come out of my pond to date. Stocked spring of 07 at 2-3 inches. I keep a 5 gallon bucket out at the pond so I put some water in and brought her up to the house for a pic. Hope it wasn't to hard on her.

WOW! What a beauty, the Wr on her must be great. That is a healthy looking fish! What is she eating that she got so fat???

As far as I cant tell she eating BG and GSH. The LMB that are eating pellets aren't near that size but they are from last years spawn.

Had a fun hour last night at my new pond. I caught two 6"+ YP, one of the Bonus Male BG (now 9"), and two 3" long RES.

Dang Theo you're growing some really nice BG.

Theo - you are raising the bar!!!!
NICE ...

What a brute! Looks like a Buckeye linebacker.

How old is that bluegill, Theo?

I would guess 4. He could be 5.

Tom, nice, fat bass you have there. Especially with all this heat; you know, them sweating like us all the time. I'm down 3 pounds since Lusk started his diet.

Today's fun:
8" 10 Oz BG

10" RES

17.5" 3 lbs 14oz LMB. One of my Aquamax Largemouth Fans

Not bad for a Disney Princess pole

Caught my first muskie this past weekend after two years of huntin'! What a beast too. Is there any way to post pics without having to open a photo account somewhere?
Seeing a 52" muskie glide by in only 6' of crystal clear water is pretty cool. Circling back and seeing it t-bone your 12" Jake really gets the adrenaline going!

Muskie! Muskie!

[You have to open a photo account somewhere.]

if you use tinypic.com you can upload it - note, tinypic has a habit of taking down photos after some time.

flip me the pic to greg@lakework.com and I will get it up for you on our website and linked here b/c I do not have a muskie pic.

[img]http://lakework.com/photo_gallery/gallery2/v/Fish+ID/muskie/muskie.JPG.html[/img]

for some reason the add an image method is not working. It is here if you click below, someone get it to popup for cody.
One day I will go over these northern giants.
http://lakework.com/photo_gallery/gallery2/v/Fish+ID/muskie/muskie.JPG.html

Nicely done.

Thanks very much guys, this fish means a lot to me. Funny thing was that there was a family of canadian geese (which is rare on this lake) that had a nest in the same bay. The geese only had two young ones with them and I couldn't help but think "I bet you started the year off with 6..."

Yep I bet baby geese make a good muskie bait. Ok Omaha how did you do that?

I use photobucket.com. I think there are others out there, and I'm no expert on which one's are best, but I've had good luck and consistency using photobucket. It's really easy, you have your picture saved into a file on your computer somewhere and you register on photobucket to upload the photo and then it provides you 4 options to paste onto a forum (a few other places to paste too, but I only use the IMG forum paste one). And that's it. If I can do it, you can do it.

Nice fish!

I would like to give Cheyenne a run for his $$$

I think the "IMG" in the brackets needs to be capital letters as opposed to "[img]"

Could be. Here's what the picture looks like in the post, or in code form, and the IMGs are capitalized.

Pic of my dad with a bluegill caught in May. Caught from a nearby pond, but now resides in our pond. The length was 9 7/8". The width was close to 3". Didn't have a tape to get an actual girth measurement.

That's a nice porker!

That bluegill needs an intervention. Or perhaps a Tae Bo workout DVD.

Theo

I'm elated for you - absolutely gorgeous. Jig and crawler Condello style?

IIRC the BG & LMB were on Gulp Earthworms, the RES on a Powerbait Honeyworm, all under a bobber. Getting too dry to get many earthworms/crawlers now unless I have watered the worm patch, and I forgot that week.

The Disney Princess pole strikes again

I guess you were using it this time?

Yeah, she hooked into a grass carp that wore her out earlier. She didn't want to fish but wanted me to keep fishing. There was $1200 worth bass rods and the $20 Princess pole with the line that came on it did the job just fine.

Ryan, how big was that one?

I have no idea. I've been slacking on data collection. My produce scale is a 1/4 mile away in the barn with both of my golden rules.

I decided to get out and do some of my favorite laid back fishing this past evening. Tossing grass shrimp under a bobber for anything that'll bite. I took my boat out on the Potomac River. The ramp I launched from is at the end of the Reagan National Airport runway. Quite a sight having jets screaming over your head as you launch your boat. Anyways, I headed up river into the heart of Washington, DC waters. As usual, the grass shrimp didn't let me down and I caught a mixed bag of fish. Several redbreasted sunfish, a few bluegills, 1 small yellow perch, a couple largemouth bass, and three channel cats one of which was a hair over 6 pounds all caught on 2 pound test.

1 of the redbreasts

A channel cat

My dinky yellow perch

One of my largemouths withe Lincoln and Washington Monuments in the background

A bluegill with the monuments in the background

A pretty sunset on the Potomac, who'd think the river could be so pretty in DC!

Nice pics Smagoogs!

Did you live-line the perch?

cool pics CJ!

CJ I would say your catch represented the city population (temporary residents portion) well. A wide variety of aggressive big mouths who like to mooch free shrimp.

A COUPLE PICTURES FROM LAST WEEK







FH

Nope, minimum size to keep YP is 9" in DC waters... Surprisingly the DC Police Dept's harbor patrol is very active in enforcing fish size and limit restrictions... I think it is because anyway they can make a buck!

9 1/2"(Female) BG, 12 3/8 oz, caught on a big grubworm:


17 1/2" LMB, 3 lbs 6 oz, on a nightcrawler piece; one of my Aquamax Largemouth eaters:

cj, that first pic is a GSF or my name aint DIED!!

nice fish guys.....

CJ,
What are we going to call DIED since that isnt his name anymore????

The pic is hard for me to see on this puter but I sure would not want to put money on it being a GSF.

Definitely not a GSF. It's either a redbreast or a longear sunfish. Hard to tell from the coloring but the elongated opercule belongs to one of those two species.

Dave it is no more died on PB board. redbreast or my name ain't greg.

DIED, or should we call him the poster formally known as DIED...

HAHA It's a redbreast, they are the most common sunfish in the Potomac River. There is a small introduced population of longears, but they are not very common except for a few smaller tributaries where they have taken hold better. GSF are in the Potomac as well, but they tend to not get very big and hold tight to rocky areas.

All those years as "DIED," and what now.

This guy lost his upper lip when I caught him last year, but has done well enough without it.

following the lipless bg, awlright, i'll be DANGED instead of DIED. sure looks slimlined like a GSF, w/ the emerald mouth streaks.....but the fins are the wrong color, and his mouth is a bit small......i humbly defer to you east coasters.....its been too long since i been back there.

I'll mail you a couple for your pond if you like... You just pay for the FedEx overnight!

For all UL panfishing addicts - check this great article:

http://www.in-fisherman.com/content/ultralight-panfish/2

I had one of these spinning rods made - 7.5' 1 wt fly rod blank - and use 1 lb fireline crystal and can launch jigs at light as 1/80 oz...it's quickly replacing my Loomis UL's as my favorite panfish stick...thought it deserved a recommendation especially when fishing overpressured waters and "tiny jigs presented on gossamer thread" is essential.

A couple of fish from this year. Stuffed with Theadfin shad!

Sweet! Jsap, where is Appling - I live in Temple (W GA).

Its in east central Ga. 30 minutes outside of Augusta.

jsand, how big is that second LMB?

Nice!!!!

She was just under 7 lbs. I caught her a couple of times last year. Thats my brother holding her in the pic. He caught her in the baitcasting net when we where moving some shad to another pond. I haven't caught any of the big fish on rod and real this year. The shad had a unbeliavable spawn and its almost impossible to get them to bite anything. There were 12 different schools of shad up a couple of afternoons ago and the ponds only 2 acres.

SMB I caught this year (June) on Big Sand Lake near Park Rapids, MN on our annual family vacation. The lake was so clear this year, you could see them swimming under the boat in 20 feet of water. The MN DNR was out the day before we arrived and took a secchi disk reading... They stopped at 40 feet because they still could see the disk!

This lake has some nice largemouth also, but the smallmouth are able to outcompete them due to fantastic habitat. There are also tons of huge Rockbass, a few bluegill, some yellow perch, a few big muskie and a ton of walleye in this lake. What's funny, is that the owner of the resort we stay at up there says that about 12 years ago Big Sand was considered to be a top crappie lake in the area. In 4 years of fishing this lake, I've never caught a single one. It's amazing how lakes go through population phases like that.

A pretty and nice sized rebreast sunfish caught in the creek behind my family's hunting cabin.

What's that craw lure?

I took the day off and fishing my pond before the rains came.

I caught around (20) LMB ranging from 10" to about 18" with the majority of them being say 2-3 lbs. But nothing was really photo-worthy.

I did catch a snapping turtle on a live-shiner which was odd. I had just cast out near some submerged trees, and within about 5 seconds, the bobber went straight down. I set the hook and it was like pulling in a tire, and I was pretty sure I knew it was a turtle.

I hauled it to the side of the boat when it proceeded to start hissing at me. I was like "look dude, I'm going to try and get that hook out of your lip." He just hissed back.

I pulled out my long hemos and grabbed the hook and slid it out.

It's a sliding weight craw baby. One of my favorite lures of all time. Unfortunately, the company that makes it went out of bidness and they are crazy hard to find. When ever I see them on eBay I buy them. I like the smaller craw baby size which is 3", but they also come in 4" and 5" sizes as well. It is unusual how it is rigged. The rigging causes it to swim very naturally. The SMB, LMB, trout and RBS all love to hammer it in the creek and I use it many other locations with great success.

I've caught snappers fishing for catfish using cut bait, but never caught one on a live shiner. That shiner must have plopped right in front of its face and been in complete shock before he knew what hit him... No signs of HSB or WE in the pond? Still seeing large schools of shiners balled up in the open areas of your pond?

Our youngest grand daughter still thinks it is a fun to spend most weekends at our place. Fishing still thrills her. Yesterday the fish were going absolutely crazy. Tonight, the fish bellies must have still been full from all the dragon flies they ate yesterday. So, Alexis got a little restless while fishing this evening. She grabbed one of the old cameras and took a lot of pictures, including this self-portrait.



Then she wandered off to get more worms from the worm bin. That left me with both fishing rods. As soon as she was out of sight and hearing range, one rod bent over with this fat little guy who was just short of 12 inches.



Before I got the fat BG landed, the other rod bent over with a big fat bass that I' guessing was about 18-inches. The two fish battled and tangled the lines to the point where only a knife will get them back to usable. I pulled the bass to the pond edge by hand. It got off just as I was lifting it out of the water.

By the time my grand daughter got back to the pond, the bass was off the line, and I threw the BG back in. All I had was a massive tangle between the two rods. She looked at me and said, "See, I told you they weren't biting!"

Great story, Ken! Your granddaughter is precious...good to hear that she enjoys fishing.

Great pics, good story. Thanks for posting. That's a huge BG!!!

Adorable granddaughter and giant BG Ken!

SKULL ISLAND FISHING EXPEDITION

My daughter and I portaged the canoe to the new pond today. We tied up to the end of the uncompleted dock overlooking submerged
Skull Island, currently about 3' under water. It's one place I can't reach from shore, and I wanted to see how the fishing was there.

Fishing was fantastic! We caught 30 YP, 22 RES, and 6 SMB there in an hour and a half. I have GOT to get that dock finished!

Wow!!! That's awesome!!!

That is one primo BG. Do you feed that pond, catmandoo?

Walt - yes, we do feed. I also cull the BG fairly heavily. This year, all females get taken that are 9 inches or less. Most males that are 9 inches or less also get taken, unless they are real husky. We also keep an overabundance of small skinny bass in the pond.

Thanks to Pond Boss, I now catch one or more citation size BG almost everytime I go fishing. (WV BG citation size is 10 inches or 1 lb.). I would hope that in a few more years I can start to approach the state records -- I think it is 13.75 inches at about 2-1/4 pounds, and I think the other is about 12 inches, but at 2.75 lbs.

My first grayling taken on a three weight fly rod.

What a neat fish! Very nice... Caught in Florida right? HAHA

If there are Smallies in the heat of Az, why not Grayling in Fl?

Caught him just an hour north of London in a spring creek.

London Ontario?

James where did you come by the grayling? I'm guessing Pacific Northwest or Canada.

Gorgeous fish...kind of looks like a mix between a striper and a freshwater drum.

London U.K. The trout are not as big as some of the ones I have caught in Montana but these fish are naturally reproducing native brown trout and grayling from some of the waters where fly fishing began.

You clean up real nice, james!

Did you try to swap that guard his hat for your shirt?

Very cool brown trout... I've wanted to visit Iceland, I hear the salmanoid fishing there is spectacular, although I don't believe they have grayling. My dad has visited England several times and mentioned the fishing to be great. He said the thing he was blown away by were the number of pheasants running around everywhere in the country.

English Springer Spaniel = Pheasants.

Midwest = Pheasants

Although PA is trying darn hard to bring back wild birds.

I just wish that there were more in Indiana. The wild birds are few and far between.

neat fish caught on a local public lake fishing with the fiance:

normal fish side


"other" side



Looks like a Redear/Bluegill hybrid to me. The state doesn't stock the hybrid, but the lake contains both parent species, so must have happened the natural way. He fought like a bluegill: circle, circle, circle some more. But for being 8.5" had a lot of power.

Not sure what caused the sores on the one side. It looked like that when I caught it.

The fish had a lot more color to it when first caught. The dark lines in the face were a really brilliant orange. I should also note that my fiance outfished me

That's the sign of a keeper!

I'd be willing to bet George's lovely bride outfishes him all the time.

This will be good for the Rotenone-Engagement Pictures.

Cool, looking sunny... Definitely a hybrid, are there any pumpkinseeds in the lake?

Still not healed up from spawning?? Nice looking fish (at least on one side.)

Maybe something tried to eat it.

Theo:

That's what I thought at first, but I can't discern any mouth/beak pattern or shape.

Very helpful info, catmandoo. I never keep a bass from ponds I'm managing for trophy 'gills, and like you, I culled heavily in years past when I had several such ponds. I just recently started managing ponds again after ten years in CA, and I have a five-acre pond that I'm working with that I've been wondering if I should be culling in more heavily. The 'gills average about 8" but they averaged close to 10" and very chunky when I last worked with the pond twelve years ago, and I used to keep quite a bit of them. This year I've just been keeping some of the females, but I may start keeping more of them as well as some of the smaller males.

Congrats on a great pond! Any man who manages for trophy bluegill is a man I admire. I too would love someday to produce a state-record bluegill or shellcracker. There's a good probability that a shellcracker caught about fifteen years ago from the pond I mention above would've stomped the TN record (the record is 3 lbs. 5.5. oz.), but it was eaten without being weighed. There's a photo of it in my photos on bigbluegill.com; it's almost as long as the torso of the man who caught it, and is so thick it looks like it recently played major league baseball.

Me either. That slash on an angle is too wide/spread out to look like a heron strike, and to straight to fit a bass mouth.

Maybe the fish was just clumsy.

Not that I know of. Its in Southern Iowa a couple hours South of where the first lakes with pumpkinseeds are. I helped the DNR shock this lake once and we didn't see any then either.



The fiance is definitely a keeper. She has both a BS and masters degree in fisheries. Her interests lie in the Human Dimensions part of fisheries: peoples beliefs and attitudes, why they fish, what they keep, etc.

Shes also a Texan. The midwest girls couldn't keep me in line so I had to go to Texas to get my own supermodel wife.

my first thought too cj...cool looking fish.....lucky man csteffen

Way to go! God blessed Texas in many ways...beautiful women is certainly one of them.

"The fiance is definitely a keeper. She has both a BS and masters degree in fisheries. Her interests lie in the Human Dimensions part of fisheries: peoples beliefs and attitudes, why they fish, what they keep, etc.

Shes also a Texan. The midwest girls couldn't keep me in line so I had to go to Texas to get my own supermodel wife."

So the Rotenone-Engagement Photo Shoot was/is really a WIN-WIN for both parties.

davatsa got his own supermodel wife from Texas.

Here is a picture from last week, a sea run cutthroat trout from Puget Sound.

and another picture from the "big" pond out west last week.

Nice use of the Condello fish-holding technique, Shorty...but that fish didn't need it!!

Nice catch!

She didn't help out with the rotenone, we did the engagement photos a different day.

I know about davatsa's supermodel wife. Thats what inspired me to go looking for a wife in Texas (actually met her doing stream fish assessments in MO). Turns out transplanting a Texas girl into an Iowa winter isn't the best idea.....

That's incredible, Shorty!

You were in the Puget Sound area, and the sun was shining!

Now, now Theo, the "hundred days of darkness" (more like 6 months) is primarily a wintertime thing in the Puget Sound area.

I also caught a whole bunch of these "bullheads" out of the Sound in addition to that sea run cutthroat.

That's a cool fish. Where'd you catch it? Your location says Lincoln, NE. You didn't catch it in Lincoln did you?

I was on vacation last week visiting the Puget Sound area in Washington state, the fish is called a sculpin. The locals call them "bullheads", they are fairly common and will readily hit a curly tailed jig. The one pictured is 10" and is pretty good sized for a sculpin out there.

Oh, ok, very cool. I saw something similar last October when we were vacationing in Ft. Lauderdale except they were nearly 3 feet in length. Not sure what it was. Resembled a plecostomus, but they were huge. Didn't know how to hook one though. Caught a "walking" catfish while we were down there though. And a number of black bass, tilapia, and peacock bass.

Shorty did you eat that salmon or throw it back? What did it weigh? It looks huge!