Yesterday I saw schools of largemouth bass fry all over the swimming pond. Today, we collected some of them and transferred to a fertile 1/10 acre hatchery pond to grow to 2-3" for stocking lakes. We moved an estimated 25,000 fry in five seine hauls.
We also caught some other interesting creatures and thought I would share with you.
Ethan Lovelace has been working for us part time for the last four months. He loves this pond management stuff and part of his job has been to take care of our 8 ponds on our 12 acres.



This is the seine we used today. That's Ethan with a stern look on his face. He probably would have appreciated another photo.



Up close look at this net. It's about 100 feet long.



We caught a variety of critters. You'll see mostly bluegill and some redear sunfish in this dip net.



Here's a close-up of one of last year's redear sunfish.



Small crawfish, native to these ponds.



There's the belly of the crawfish, for those who haven't seen one.



You've heard of "sac fry"? Here's one, alive and in color. That's a largemouth bass fry, not long off the nest.



It's amazing what just three or four days do for a baby bass. Those larger ones have been off the nest, feeding, for about three or four days more than the sac fry.



This gives you a size perspective. Our mission is to grow these babies to 2-3" in length to stock into new lakes. These are native largemouth bass.



We also caught some cool looking insects. Cody will probably know what this thing is, but I would be guessing and I'm too tired to look it up tonight.



This may be the most interesting thing we caught in the seine today. It's a leech. But, look at the next photo and see if you can tell what we saw. I can't say I've ever seen it before. But, I can't say I've ever looked, either.



See what I see? Besides the sucker-mouth, of course.



Here's another angle. You can see the mouth parts very well in this photo. Still wondering what you also see?

See those bumpy looking things on the belly? Baby leeches, hundreds of them. They were writhing, moving and being protected by momma.

Pretty cool, huh?

excellent photos bob.

better you than me on the leeches....although it is highly probable they exist in my pond w/out my knowledge.

your post exemplifies the wonder of life and how ponds bring it right to our front door step.

Very good photos Bob,thanks for sharing.I wish I could take good photos like that.

I need a better camera for macro shots like that. Your an artist my friend. Great shots.

Great report!!! Ethan, try to smile a little bit. There's no benefit in trying to scare anyone with a seine net.

Dittos on the good report and awesome photos. Above the leeches looks sorta like early stage of a mantis but I doubt it is aquatic. Mr. Cody, what say you?

That's amazing how much more advanced those little LMB fry are compared to the sac fry. It's hard to believe that there is only a couple days difference between the two. I would assume the LMB that spawn early have a better survival rate of their young compared to the ones that spawn a couple days later? Interesting stuff.

The leech appears to be the type that uses turtles as a host. I've never seen one attached to anything other than turtles, and never ran across a free-swimming one.

That insect appears to be a hellgrammite. I've seen a few different kinds in the Ozarks, but if that's what it is, it's a new one to me.

looks a little small for a helgramite, which turn into dobson flys....big suckers....although i guess it could be a young one...

Also, tell Ethan that if he wants to get rid of that peach fuzz on his chin, to put some milk on there and let the cat lick it off.

I had to go back and look closely to see that.

I once told Fish Wife that I had been "growing a moustache" for 6 months when we first went out. It was news to her.

My buddy used to say that when someone was trying to grow manly facial hair but was not having success.

"Just put some milk on there and let the cat lick it off...."

I saw an insect that looked similar to the weird insect that you posted in the pond I went to the other day. I'd be interested in finding out what it is as well.

At first I thought hellgramite, but it doesnt have the large side appendges and as DIED said is much smaller.

The insect looks like a diving beetle larva to me. Cool pics, the little crawfish, used to keep them as pets when I was a kid.

Sunil....Ethan loved your idea

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It worked!

I'm shocked, amazed and educated by those photos, of the fish, leeches and the bugs, very very nice. 8 ponds, wow! And Ethan looked mean in the first photo, but you can tell he isn't at all. Cute red eye cat.

Insect was a larva of a predaceous diving beetle probably in the Family Dytiscidae, subfamily ?Dytiscinae. I could not see enough of the features to put a genus name on it.

The cat is Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Carnivora, Family: Felidae, Genus: Felis, Species: Felis catus or Felis silvestris catus, Name: Jasmine.

Awaiting Sunil's approval.....

AKA big bluegill food...

A-OK over here!!!!
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.LOL, that's some good stuff right there!