Hi All -

I've been reading all winter, but have not contributed much. I'm curious what you all think will our experience will be with our 1st year pond after Ice Out. I have a couple specific questions I'm interested in, and would like to hear other comments and advice too.

First a quick synopsis, since most of you don't know me well at all. The Pond was dug in June 2008. It is about 11-12 ft deep when full, and about 7-8 ft at the shallowest. Its about 2/3 acre in area. Its spring fed, and collects run-off of about 2-3 acres.

We stocked about 200 BG in the summer(2-5"), had a limited spawn in the fall (saw very few 1" or less BG fry). We also put in 10 Brown Trout about 6-8" each in the summer. We stocked 45 SMB and 750 FH minnows in October.

Its 2 miles from any road, and we get serious snow. Its been iced up since Thanksgiving, and snow-covered since early December. Over 150" of snow this winter. There is no practical way to shovel snow off here. We are anticipating the Ice to melt in the next 1-2 weeks. Here's a picture from 3-14-09 as the snows are melting back. Its over its banks a little, and while we can see some open and moving water (runoff) -the open water is on the banks - not yet the pond. (next year we will have in a outflow Pipe, we didn't expect it to go up and over the banks.





My 2 big questions that will be answered soon are

1. Will there be a fish kill?
2. What color will the Pond be (it was a beutiful green at iceup)

Others

3. Will the pond stay anywher near this full? or will the "springs" act like a drain in the later summer months. It filled to within 3 ft of the Banks once in July last year - but never near as full as it is now!

Any predictions or advice? If there is a fish kill, can I expect fish to "float up" - or do I have to look on the bottom for signs of dead fish? any Ideas on how long a pond of this size can hold adequate levels of DO?

As a side note - my neighbor at the farm has a 1/2 acre pond of similar depth with Trout & FH minnows only - and he has trout well over 20" that winter over without any special care to the pond. He thinks we'll have no problem, I'm not so sure.

Thanks in advance -
I'll post updates.

FH

I'll take a stab at #1. This year is the best chance your (unaerated) pond will ever have to escape Winterkill - very few small fish, very low plant load, and less than a year's worth of organic sediment. My guess would be that you have not had one.

My established pond lost a bunch of big sunfish and some big bass this Winter during 1.5 months of ice cover, even though aerated. My new pond, with a few adult sunfish, a bunch of minnows, and fingerling YP & SMP, does not appear to have lost any fish even though it's NOT aerated yet. And I can testify that if you lost BG, some of them will indeed float up over time.

My pond is about 8 months older than yours, but here are my observations so far:

As Theo said you should be ok as far as a kill, unless you had some freak temperature drop like Theo had which caused his kill most likely.

Your pond will probably be very clear after ice out, as the algae will not be too numerous yet and any particulates have had lots of time to settle.

As far as pond depth, its hard to tell with springs. Your water table also has a lot to do with your final summer pond depth. If you have a high water table like I do, pond depth may never be a problem. I installed an overflow in my pond over the winter to help drain the rest of my property in the spring and in the event of a flood.

Enjoy, we had solid ice from November to now without a single melt and I have been lucky so far, no dead soldiers spotted. I am seeing tons of minnows and finally saw my first fish yesterday.

F-H, The only thing I can add from my experiences was with the winterkill I had last winter, my first winter with trout and they all died, none of them floated up and only saw 2 remains in shallow water. The pumpkinseed and GSH were fine, but I didn't have aeration, and unlike your pond mine is only 8 ft deep.

As Theo said with your pond depth and being the first year hopefully they'll be ok.

This winter I had aeration, but with the severe winter, the pond dropping 3 ft, and more than 200 inches of snow I won't know till ice out.

Here's the pond on 3-16-09

No dead fish floating at Ice Out - (didn't see any swimming either though)

One BIG Beaver swimming back & forth - Not sure how to deal with this yet.



FH

Sounds great F-H!

I suggest a bullet for the beaver right away.

What is this Ice Out of which you speak? We don't get much Ice down here.

The only problem we have with beavers is them plugging the culverts that drain the ponds and of course them chewing down trees. You don't have an outlet structure on your pond yet, so you don't have to worry about him plugging it.

If you don't mind him cutting down trees around the pond and need to add some structure, let him hang around a little while. He will pile a bunch of tree branches in the bottom of the lake for you. Kind of your own personal structure adding assistant that you don't need to pay and works all the time. I guess when he adds enough structure or cuts too many trees you could pay him in lead.

What if durring a rain the structure building beaver decides to move all the said structure to the E-spillway?

I agree with csteffen's payment method, but I'd pay him extra........in advance!

Our Ice left the pond on 3-28-09
Basically 4 months of Ice/snow.



I was worried - I hadn't seen any fish for a couple weeks. The last week,on a sunny day- I saw a bunch of BG. I got out the flyrod and caught a couple - and then I caught a Brown trout and one of the SMB I had stocked. Unfortunately, no camera that day.

Today (4/25) I fished again, for a few minutes and took a picture of one of our BG. I'd say the fish all overwintered OK -especially since I was able to catch a trought (only 8 in were put in the whole pond). He was skinny and about 10" long but alive and well( Sorry no trout pic)



Oe thing I did notice - there was not a FH Minnow to be seen, or even any YOY BG fry that we had seen last October. I doubt the 4" SMB & 8 small trout could eat 750 FHM & the small hatch of BG - all winter - so I'm guessing they are schooled up somewhere in the pond.

Thanks for looking - Still learning a lot here......

FH

Woo-Hoo!

Nice pics FH. Over winter morts for late born yoy fish up north is very large. Not saying that may have happened but is possible. They just don't have enough time to store enough reserves before the cold sets in and they starve. This should be offset somewhat because of the new pond effect (new ponds generally have high growth rates). Even if that batch is gone I am not sure it’s a bad thing based on your stocking.

Some beaver burrow , all of them chew trees and all the added wood increases somewhat the likelihood of DO problems during winter over time. Lead or steel is a good remedy.