Quick rundown,
.25 acre pond put in 50 3-6" CNBG July 2009 to start a production pond. no aeration.

Had decent spawn and have been feeding a few thousand yoy that are in the 2-3" range right now at 6 lbs feed per day.

Spring 2010 I got covered up with pondweed and coontail so I dropped in 8oz whitecap April 10th. Saw signs of a second spawn this spring.

The whitcap killed off 80% of the moss withen the first 30 days. Fish and water were fine. Then about 2wks ago I have a pondweed explosion in the pond. It covered about 10-15% withen 5 days. Water went murky at about 12" visability. Next about 5 days ago I guess the Whitecap is still present because the pondweed completely collapsed and went away. Water is still murky, not green, a brownish tint. Fish are still fine. THEN for the last two days we were cloudy and rainy.

Yesterday evening I had 25 ~8" fish and 2 3" CNBG floating. They appeared to have been dead from the day before

Bad luck I guess....

I went out this morning, no new dead fish. I threw out a small handful of food and I had my YOY coming up to get it.


QUESTIONS:
Do you think, I lost a bunch of my YOY based on what I saw floating? I don't mind losing the big ones they can be replaced at .80 cents a piece tomorrow.
Also, Im gonna stop feeding untill my seine net comes in next week and I pull out a bunch of my YOY. This should help the water out.

I would have liked to grow them larger than 2-3" before I transfer them to my larger mature bass ponds but I don't know if I should risk losing them all in the Hot summer.

Any thoughts.

one more detail, as my luck goes, its cloudy today no sunshine and forecasted to be like this for a few days more. The wind is blowing though.

I wonder if im in the clear yet if I stop feeding and the wind keeps blowing for a days atleast. probably not though, this is my first rodeo with this so don't know what to expect.

Is there any way that you could rig up an electric trolling motor with the prop sticking part way out of the water? That would agitate the water, helping to put O2 back into it.

Or run well water into the pond.

Or aerate with a diffuser.

I don't know what resources you have available to put more O2 into there before you seine.

The wind will help a bit, but I'd feel better if you could aerate somehow.

I have a pump but probably will just let it sit and see what happens, due to the location of the pond and my work load right now. One of those deals I guess where i'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

well the wind blew 20mph+ today, the sun finally came out.

I went by to take a look and I have about 12-14" visability. It appears that my YOY are fine, they were really looking for some food but I didn't feed them untill I get a game plan on what to do now with this CLOSE call.

Im thinking the mass of decaying moss at its peak of breaking down along with my feeding and short weather change did it.

Im just wondering if I should go on feeding as normal through the hot months and maybe the water quality will improve with the moss decay on the decline.

Or should I move them at 2-3" and take my chances on survival rates in the big lakes they're going in?

What would you do?

Make up your mind is my best advice,you got some good advice from esshup, but decided to let your pump sitt,and cross fingers do to heavy woork load.
So you either have the time to follow up on the small pond or you don't.
Hard to give you advice on how or where, to spend your time.
Keep a log on the developmente for future management if you have the time.

wow, if I could touch that post above this it would probably burn my fingers.

Chad

I don't think our Norwegian friend meant it in an unfriendly way, but I understand your interpretation.

Why do you think your pondweed blew up so quickly, then crashed as fast? Did you apply more herbicide? It seems odd to me it would explode and implode like that...any clues forum? If whitecap was still doing it's job would the pondweed have grown in the first place? Doesn't make sense to me....but I'm a total novice when it comes to aquatic vegetation.

Have you considered aeration or at least circulation for the forage pond? Do you have a source of irrigation? I would think for a pond that small an aeration system wouldn't be too bad - $800-$1000?

I am sorry to hear about your partial kill - I hope you can find some way to get to the bottom of the pondweed situation and introduce some 02 ASAP. Have you thought about calling Bob?

Absolutely not unfrendliy ment, sorry about that.
It's like that for us all,now and then, we don't have the time, we wish for to put in.
Iff posible when that ocure, try to keep a track or log, on the reasones to avoid, repeating the same next year/season, have saved me some money, and frustrationes.

Again sorry and good luck

OKI here we go.
Iff you some how can put your pump in to action wihin time available,I would go that route instead off spending time on colecting/mowing stock,this might cost the loss off the entire stock, but the upside or gain is the experience (the biggest value is the log or outcome of your efforts/input(tools and time spent))
You can stop your intentionaly reason for stocking the 1/4 acre pond now, and move the stck to the bigger pond.
Or you can put in the tools/time available, to turn your original goals with stocking the 1/4 pond, in to a experience, that you can profit on (long term) by just observing as best as you can, nature taking its turns, with minimum interference(input).
I can identiefie with your experience (been there done that), so my post was ment as:Turn a unforseen thing, in to a learning experience, no matter predicteble outcome, even if you don't have any time or tool available.
Your investment (stocking/1/4 pond) will give a long term profit, in this prospectiv.
That was my intntions with my burning post, shearing my thaughts(any) as you requested.
I'w seen a lot of people dropping out in this
(pond or other habitat husbandery) because off what you are experiencing right now, do to lack off recogniseing the value off a failed investment(time/efort spent).

Anyhow If you have a small pond trying to raise forage or other things where you are deepended on recurculate your water I belive the cheapest and most eficiente way to loop water is patented by
Dr. Novak do to its simplicity availability and all over cost (free) a part from the building part (low).
And maybe most important it still does woork biologicaly below 32F/0C. http://www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/anoxic_filtration.html
It is a UK link but the best on the subject, I think, the problem of beeing recogniced as a genius amongst your own has slaughterd
Dr. Novak, in the US, (I'w been reading 1000ends of pages on differente forums on this an are amaced that he is not a nervous wreck by the beating his got, on tha patent.
In Europe an down under this have been wery much welcomed dough.
And the ovner off mankysanke beeing a journalist for populare magazines have made it undersandebale and dereby available for the hobbieist.
So again good luck on the developement no matter what you do or don't keep sharing your thaughts out loud, I will
(but newer to intentionally offend or burn anybody)
I think the link might be of intrest for a lot off the pondmeisters

No problem andedammen, I probably made it appear I just wanted it to work with no effort from me... lazy route. Not the case though but I have a reason... will get to that shortly.

T57, I have no idea about the weird pondweed growth then dieoff. I put the whitecap in April and Nothing else.

I picked up some fingerling bass and feed from Todd O today and ran it by him also. Basically its my call but if I do keep them in the pond through the summer he advised to back off the feeding. 6lbs/day in .25 acres is a lot for no aeration. I could back it down to 3lbs and just let'em coast through the summer months and take a chance. the pond my have just gotten slam-dunked by the weird pondweed dieoff, me pushing the fish hard with feed, and the 2day rain. It might level out and improve. The payoff is bigger stocker fish with higher survival rates, the risk being losing them all...

Back to my original thoughts about "money/time/effort" expense. My goal here is im doing this for a hobby along with getting our larger lakes on the ranch back up to par as far as stocking goes. We need CNBG in all of them so I need 10000 3-6" fish ruffly. If I can grow my own fish for basically a little time everyday feeding and direct feed cost itself then so be it. I'll save some money and have fun along the way. HOWEVER, if its gonna cost me the same money per fish in the end to grow them my own vs. just making a trip in the A/C down to Overtons then I might as well buy all the fish and not full with it.

Thanks Chad for posting about your experience. I sympathize for your loss of the larger bluegill. I know exactly how that feels as it has also happened to me. Incidents like this just go to show how challenging and unpredictable growing fish can be. On the bright side, small bluegill have tremendous tolerance of low oxygen concentrations and if you do lose large bluegill during a depletion then you can have recruits taking their place almost during the same season. This is one reason that I feel you need to maintain your program, just learn from the mistakes and adjust your management plan accordingly. It's nice, IMO, to have "hobbyists" out there taking risks and pushing limits.

Thanks Todd, btw the bass hauled nicely and looked better this year than ever.

Yeah, at first I was thinking, be conservative and pull them at 2-4" before it gets extremely hot. But if I do that I won't know if they could handle the summer or not if left in the .25 pond. This is the smaller of the 3 growout ponds i have so now Im thinking I should go for it and leave them in and feed 2-3lbs daily for the hot months and see what happens. I guess maybe I should learn with the small pond rather than take chances with the larger ones.

I have seen a lot of fish inexplicably die. I'm pretty good at killing them.

However, I'm not at all understanding about why the Pondweed blew up and then died.

Dave, it took about 5 days for it to grow up from the bottom and circle about 1/2 the bank. Then even less time for it to retreat back out of sight and fall apart.

I have never seen or heard of that. Whitecap stays in the water column longer than some other herbicides; they say up to 30 days. I thought it would prevent the re-emergence. I guess it doesn't matter as long as it kept on working. That stuff is pretty expensive.

Keep in mind that you can't run the .25 acre pond like Todd does as you are not running an aquaculture operation (time and constant monitoring) with aeration. You are probably nearing natural carrying capacity in your situation. I would move some of the fish.

Here is the conundrum. Fish under stress (crowding and low DO) do not grow well. If you have to reduce feeding and they are under stress they will not grow much and you will not reach the goal easily. If you lose to predation or otherwise 80% of the fish you seine and move you are still ahead. Here is why. If you move 1/3 of the fish by weight the remaining fish in the pond will more than make up the possible loss through better growth and condition. Plus the surviving 20 % of the fish you seine and move will also grow better in their new home plus the 80% that get eaten will be reflected in better LMB growth. I would rather have a small BG become forage for a LMB than be part of a large group of floaters in an over stressed pond. I would not risk them all to save a small % from being eaten. Diversify the risk with better upside potential.

You can't run an engine at max rpm indefinitely . It will seize and crash. Same for a pond. Now if you just want the info on how far you can push that pond then that is ok also. Gathering info is an appropriate reason to push the limits if that is the goal.

I ditto ewests solution/answer if you can find the time, you spread the risk and reduce loss potential, whilst partly get to follow the(developement) result off your original idea(invest)

good info from everyone,

I will take a look at the water/visability and fish tomorrow and post a report and let everyone know. My netting is coming in tomorrow also. We'll see...

Interesting project . Keep us updated.

Ok everyone, quick update this morning. Im gonna check this evening before I head home also just to make sure.

So I dropped by the pond this morning with 2.5lbs of feed and took a look. The water looks like its around 18" visability. There is little to no vegetation present now. I guess its gameover for that finally. It has been very calm for the last 24 hrs i'd say and all i can see that makes the pond not look 100% normal is a small area on one end about 25ft along the bank that has a thin white film on top. Its located where what little breeze we had pushed it to one end. Let me say again though it is very thin and not something that I want to make sound bad.

The fish were very active and rushed to the edge for the feeding. I tossed out the 2.5lbs, they consumed all of it and were ready for more. No visible stress signs on the fish, and no fungus growths whatsoever.

I'll try to get a photo maybe of the water/pond and fish if i remember to take my camera today.

Maybe you should ask for a discount as a repeat customer buying fish. I hate to be harsh, but honest. You are killing your own fish. And your pondweed story does not make sense at all. You just do not have spontaneous reeemrgent growth and die off with white cap or sonar.

First, you are trying to do too much, too fast in too small of pond. The smaller the volume, the smaller margin for error. It does not matter that baby bg are good at surviving low O2 levels. You should not be putting them through that to begin with. Nor any fish. I would not restock anything until I figured out what went wrong. What is wrong. Why you are having crazy vegetative results. Until you get that figured out and the vegetation settled in and working, you could go through the same thing over and over. Putting more fish in is not the answer, stabalizing the pond is.

pond frog you need to ease up a little you know it. I'll take some bashing here and there, but im the one out there trying with what i have to work with.

I'll go tell that pondweed thats now decaying at the pond to apologize to all the scientific minds here for throwing a wrench into the works. This is not some model or aquarium in a classroom. Those models sometimes change in the real world. i myself tend to lean to the science of explaining things but realize that sometimes weird crap happens... I don't know why in the world it did what it did, but it happened, and why would I make something up like that to begin with.... Im the one that lost the fish, and i accept that.

Who said I put more fish in. I said I COULD replace the lost brooders if i wanted, the point there was... losing the big fish wasn't a big loss.

Why did it happen.... Seems fairly clear now,
1. Weird, unexplainable, and to some here not possible, growth of pondweed rose and then died off very quickly according to the norms, a week or so ago putting a strain on the water column.
2. I was probably feeding a little much for that size pond. MY FAULT! Lesson learned, thats what im trying to do here... learn something
3. 2 days of rain here pushed it to the breaking point.

Now im ready to move on and make this work. It is working by the way, im not running some fish torture facility the way you make it sound and just cowboy'n the situation.

Look everyone, im not trying to prove anything, pick any fights, push any crazy limits, or kill fish for the heck of it. I really like this forum and thought I'd start this thread to let everyone know my experience and get ideas on future decisions that i must make.

I guess im not trying to be harsh, just honest. Right, pond frog?

No harm done here everybody. But lets just ease up a little and move on. My netting just came in, the ups driver is in the driveway!!!

It’s your pond and you are free do exactly what you want. Most of us have killed a few fish. I know I have. I think your plan will work it just needs some minor adjusting as the fish grow. After all that was the plan from the start. Put them in , grow them out to size and move them to the big pond. Leave a few to start over and repeat as needed for forage.

Thanks for the update. Let us know what happens.

I have to follow-up here if I may.

On the vegetation rebound, Chad, do you think it is possible that you had a boom of chara or nitella, either of which could be mistaken for "pondweed?" It was bushy pondweed right? Chara or nitella is are complex forms of algae and not treatable with active ingredient fluridone, or whitecap or sonar trade names. This would be a possible explanation, then did you use some copper sulfate or did this algae just crash?? I have never seen this type of rebound/crash following fluridone treatment. Not saying it can't happen.

Also I have to request clarification on how Ewest might suggest that Chad move his fish, with 95 deg water temps recorded today on my ponds in the same vicinity as Chads', I can't imagine Chad seining them right now. Nature already removed a significant amount of fish biomass which lightened the load, plus Chad can lighten his feeding regime, or even stop it until fall, and still be ok with small/medium bluegill in a pond with a plankton bloom through the summer. Remember, Chad is a fish farmer now, has likely killed more than 1000 fish?? But he may not have the required help, equipment, time, and experience to move fish successfully in this kind of weather. Rod and reel would work, however, but now most of his big fish have died....Bill Cody can suggest something....

Cast-nets are killers.

PondFrog if you haven't ever been down South you need to make that trip sometime and look at some of the rural farm ponds around here. 80%+ of them have issues. Summers are hot, small ponds are boom and bust, ponds lose fish on a more regular basis than people realize, droughts and dried up ponds are commonplace. With these limitations and challenges I think Chad is doing pretty good so far.

Todd I though only a few of his fish died (a few big ones) and his concern was about all the rest (small fish). It really is a question of how crowded they are now and what will happen as they double and triple in size (weight) again during the hot summer. He has a full years worth of BG with no predation (other than BG). That could be a bunch of different sizes from multi-spawns last year and this year. Better to deal with it now than in 2 mths when they are even more and bigger. I would rather take the risk of losing a few now do to a move rather than later at a higher risk factor and cost. This assumes though that the problem was accurately described. Your concern is one reason I moved to blocking nets – no move – no handling as they get bigger and minimal water quality problems.. This option was presented early in this process.

I have moved small fish this time of year a number of times without problem. Very short moves do not seem to effect fish like long crowded moves from a hatchery. I only move a few in a batch of oxygenated water and the move only lasts about 15 mins. Usually one seine pull ( 100-200 small fish) I do this early in the am and move to a habituation area (netted area) for protection and observation. I see very low morts moving 2-3 inch BG.

I do agree with the concept an so advised - often. You just have to monitor the carrying capacity and move fish out or mother nature will fix it for you. I think you noted the risk in your earlier post. IMO the best way to use this method is to start with small BG 2-3 inches and only feed them one spring and summer and move them all in the fall. Here they would go from 2 inches to about 6 inches. Stock , growout and move them out leaving only a few adults for next year. This seems to avoid water quality issues and heat problems. This was my suggestion early on.

Thanks for that clarification Ewest. Yeah looking back Chad didn't lose as many fish as I thought, but I still classify him as official fish farmer now, even if he didn't reach the mark.

I will be interested to see where Chad goes from here.

Only lost 25 larger 8" CNBG.

Todd, Im pretty sure it was the bushy pondweed. Thats all I have out here along with coontail in my other ponds. What Im wondering though is could it have been on the bottom or below the plankton bloom out of my sight and then boiled up to the surface during its final days before it completely decayed out to nothing? It was a tan color when it was visable, not green, but in tack. Normal looking just not green.

Im gonna try to post some photos from this morning, im not sure if the fish will be clearly visable or not. here goes

looks like the first shot turned out the best, I wish I would have left them full size instead of shrunk them. Anyone got any guesses on quantity! The last shot was my first handful of food thrown out.

Anyways, so thats the main mass of fish that pill up where I feed normally. There are plenty more in the pond especially 1" fish but thats my normal gang that I feed.


This group can no doubt consume 10 lbs of feed per day. I normally feed 5 but chunked in 10 lbs a few weeks ago and they had no trouble with that.

SO... what im wondering is if i back down to 50% or normal which is 2.5lbs for the next 2-3 months i may/may not gain much size... If I do try and move these now and succeed then I probably will have removed say 75% of the lbs of fish in the pond. I could then continue to feed 5 lbs which would be plenty probably for the remaining fish and use this summer to grow another crop...


By the way, im actually thinking about a huge lift net to catch them. I have material to make a 20ft by 10ft lift net. I would submerge it 2ft down for example and feed over it for a few days. They are either gonna crowd over it or not. SEe the last photo, when they are rolling all over each other trying to get the food I figure they are in about a 10ft by 10ft area... Might work and might not, but it is a simple, and fast way to catch them. Pull the net up, dip them into a 200-300 gallon tank, then 10 minutes to there new home.

I don't mean to be harsh, just frank or honest. First, Floridone does not work that way, it is very slow acting, up to 90 days to see results. And in a pond like that it could stay active for up to two seasons. At least you only paid $20 a oz for Whitecap at that amount. Avast or Sonar about $25 per oz. And then when you treated the pond, you probably killed off most if not all oxygenating plants, which made your total carrying capacity way less. It is almost impossible for pondweed to reemerge in a pond that small treated with Floridone. I know it is a live and learn event, and I have made way worse calls than that. I think moving or adding fish now is out of the question. You mentioned replacements were so much, so I thought you were replacing the brooders. What you have now is the new carrying capacity. But as thos efish growout it will be exceeded again. In a way you are lucky you suffered a partial crash instead of a total dead pond with zero survivors. Floridone kills so slow it barely causes O2 depletion from rotting plant mass. Plus your water temps must have been forgiving. I personally would either establish oxygenating plants and or get some o2 in there. And I would back off the pushing it to the edge numbers. Better off harvesting less than killing them all. I always stay on the low sides of the numbers to allow for reproduction and growout on small ponds. Like I said before, with itty bitty ponds there is just not a lot of room for errors. Good luck and sorry if I came across like I always do. Not personally singling you out for my torment and ridicule. I honestly wish you luck.

PF, I have always considered phyto, sun, and wind as a more consistent producer of oxygen than the actually growing plants. Am I mistaken?

BTW, Todd is right about the challenges here. A one acre pond in April can become a 3/8 acre pond by September. My 1/4 acre forage pond can easily be 1/10 acre before I can take action. My fish kills are legendary.

One year we try for a plankton bloom and the next year we have all kinds of noxious weeds to spray. It's nice and sunny around here.

Chad, Your net idea will work especially if you have a dock!!!

Well it seems the acute phase is over for now?
I initialy read this as a 911 call on thaughts of what to do, to cut losses.
So things/thaughts came out with out any overwiev, so imidiate actions that popp up is water pharameters (o2, temp C/F) need changing or fish moved fast.
If no action is posible to take (for any reason) hang on for the ride (rolercoaster or rodeo) eyes vide open an keep track on details.
Maybe a few others had the same thaughts, and shot advice from the hip?

Good post anyway we learn from shearing these experiences (good/bad) thats why we keep posting? So a bit temperament comes naturall in a acute situatione (adrenaline)

Reading thru I wonder a bit, about the surprise some are expresing on the speed of the algal blooms and the fact that one was reeleased by another in a few days.
I'w seen this a number of times ocure in natur, one disaster reeleses the other, and we talk houres not days, like a landslide start a chain of events. High densetie stocking in a pond located outside, where the sun and rain rules the environement I'd say the chanse of experiencing this increases? (calculated risk)

Hope you keep sharing the "rodeo" the sucsess or failure is good learning for many.

As for the challenge in raising fish in Texas, i think there is differente and simmilare chalenges on the matter in any locationes, and the kind of fish you try raising on your turf increase or decrease the challenge, or trill

Good luck ahead

In most ponds, Aquatic plants are the primary producers of oxygen. The Sun helps with photosynthesis, but without plants it just heats up the water, which lowers O2 levels. Higher temps, lower O2, crashes occur in Summer. You just are not going to get consistent O2 from wind or wave action in small ponds. You do not have the surface area exposed for it. A few small ripples if you have wind at all just does not do it. Phytoplankton is huge, could be a pond's number one oxygen producer. It is an aquatic plant. Single celled, bottom of the totem pole, but a pond backbone. I encourage any kind of aquatic plants, and phyto is probably the best. Bear in mind, those same plants take oxygen back at night. Your lowest levels are going to be before sun up. If those fish are gulping at the surface, you know you are right on the edge.

Some of my best fish farmers up here have oxygen diffusers, and aggressive aeration. That would be my thought with this pond also.

Beleive it or not, I have way worse drawdowns than that. My 1/4 acres ponds are bone dry in September. My bigger ponds lose 75% to 90% of volume. The fish kills are almost a matter of time without very close management. I am reworking a bad die off pond now. We can have stretches of a week of triple digits with no wind, and years of droughts consecutive. Luckily, this season is my best this decade. My best pond has not dropped a foot yet.

It's a high wire act here also. Or Forrest Gump's box o chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. I think prevention is a key, but I rarely get a call from someone who thinks that way. I am there after everything is dead, dying, overrun and unfishable. I am undoing years if not decades of no or mismanagement.

My thoughts remain the same. And you have to plan for these potential conditions. Keep the numbers low. Monitor oxygen, especially right before sun up. If you have a brood pond, harvest it aggressively, before the long hot drawdown summers. Your lowest total fish population should be during Summer. Don't treat a pond all at once. Don't treat a small pond with herbicides unless there is no recourse. Don't leave dead material in the water. Don't overfeed. If you can, add oxygen, or aerate. Shade, and add water.

This was a Floridone created fish kill. And that chemical does not really have that happen very often. You should start slow, even half dosage and wait. It does not go away, and will continue to work an entire season, just slow. Smaller ponds are unforgiving. One small mistake and they crash and burn.

Little update, the pond seems ok i guess for now. fish are eating although only getting 2.5lbs a day now. Bloom doesn't show any increase or decrease, everything is just holding...

The pond is about 10-12" low however and I'm gonna grab some help and string out some pipe and pump some water in from a larger lake about 300yds away. I figure i'll just fill it up till it runs out.

Anything to watch out for here. I'm gonna place the suction probably in 3-5ft water depths to put in water thats around the same temp and not pump it from way down deep in the colder region of the larger lake. Should I just let the water run in over the land and let it wash in a certain amount of debris but oxygenate along the way. Or just prop the discharge right next to the pond where the water dumps right in...

Chad

What about making a little cheap waterfall with a liner and some rocks to oxygenate? At least then you're not worrying about sediment or debris washing back into the pond? Could be a cool water feature?

Chad, anything, like vegetation, in the big water hole that you don't want pumped into the smaller one?

dave, there is but, im not sure if I can really do anything about that, probably the smallest particle can cause trouble. From what im hereing though the Whitecap is still probably present and might keep anything from growing for a season.

So chad.
Is there a end to the story?
Got things sorted?
Would be nice to get update

Sure thing, I have been super busy and haven't been on the site since the post but maybe once.

Here we go:
So after the thread I went about week and got some help stringing out a bunch of 6" alum and setting up my smaller 3" pump. I topped off the pond, everything seemed ok. Then we got about a week of rainy cloudy days right after that. I was checking the pond now morning and evening and found that by the second morning of cloudy/rain the fish were piping at the top. The pond was full so best I could do was just run fresh water in from the lake nearby with my pump. I ran it for 3hrs every morning and that relaxed the pond. Well I'll say by the end of the week when we started getting sun I was ready to pull'em out.
So I took 2" PVC, made a 10 by 20 ft rectangle, tie-wrapped in my 1/4 net, drilled holes all in the PVC for water to flow in and out when lifting the net, and put it in the water with one side right on the edge of the bank. I tied three ropes to the side sticking out in the water, The idea was to pull on the ropes and the net would raise out of the water much like a big crane raises and lowers it's boom.
It took another week for the fish to get used to the white netting laying on the bottom under them. By the way Im still running my pump off and on during this time.
That Saturday morning i grabbed my brother and father and my mom came along to watch. I filled my water trough with my pump got everyone on a rope and started throwing food. I was really fretting the next couple minutes as this was the first time to test the net.
Up it came and the whole swarm of fish i've been feeding was in it!!!!!
We lost maybe 100 fish that catapulted themselves out of the net before we got it high enough.
First thought, "Holy crap they are larger than 2-3"
Second thought, "Thats a lot of money!"
Third thought, "Why am i just standing here staring like an idiot?"
PROBLEM #1 If we held the net to low letting the fish have good water to hold in they jumped out. If we hold it right, they are laying in the water on there sides 50% of the fish just laying on the net totally out of water!!!
So after seeing this I kicked it in high gear and scooped the fish out of the net as fast as possible into my trough and we left for the larger lake. 5mins later we arrive. I setup a small tub for a salt bath and I start netting them out, dipping them in the salt bath then releasing them. At this time I decided to guage the scoop size to estimate the numbers. I got 8 scoops out of the trough that were the same weight. Average size was 4.5"! My fault on guessing the size wrong, the range was more like 4-5" with some 3" in there also. Boy was I happy with that mistake though.

Quick count on the last scoop = 300 a scoop! Estimated total 2400!!! they all swam away!!!

Mission accomplished! I was super happy with that. For one they were a lot larger than i thought and its nothing like a plan working the first time. ~2400 fish in one hual just made my day.

There will be a next time and I did make one HUGE mistake, I was so worried about them laying in the net in the hot low DO water I didn't take a photo with all the fish in the net...That is my biggest screwup but next time I will have another person to film the whole process. I did get a couple when we released them though.

Now what? Now that I know what 2400 looks like its been about 2wks since the move and I'm still feeding. I have what looks like 1200-1500 more fish at the net everyday. They seem very healthy im thinking about feeding them and leaving them in to grow and letting the water cool off. I hope I releaved the pond of the strain with pulling out the 2400. Im watching the new batch and will make the call as I go i guess. Right now it looks like I can make it to fall and maybe have a big batch of 5-6" fish which would be even better.

The pond i released the fish in is mature with bass but I have higher hopes now that we found out they are 3-5" fish.

Me scooping out some fish, mother and brother.


Brother releasing them in 7acre home.

Great job! That had to be fun and rewarding......

Very cool Chad and an innovative way to net fish, another fine example of pond meistering.

Thanks

Like i said earlier I really would have liked to take a lots of photos and not rush up the process but with my crude setup the only thing I could do was keep the total handling time at a bare minimum.

I've been trying to guess how much weight I pulled out with ~2400 3-5" fish. They were in good shape. This would be great info for me on how much the pond was holding. We have a lot of talks here on lbs per acre in "normal" ponds.

If I had an idea I can ruffly figure the fish I took out plus the group I still positively have +/- a few more I don't see.

Any help here.

Good go.
Nice end off story,with help from the family, and the weather gods playing along.