When my pond was redone, I had an Agri-Drain water control structure put in so I have the ability to lower my water level about 3 ft, or probably about 25% of volume within a few days. I also have the ability to refill with well water fairly quickly. My pond is stocked with RES, SMB and FHM. My objectives presently are oriented toward raising trophy redears. At this time I plan to lower my pond twice a year in an attempt to help me achieve those objectives and I wanted thoughts from Pond Boss.

Spring: Lower the water level when water hits approximately 70-72 degrees for 2 weeks. RES begin to spawn at 68-75 degrees. I'm thinking lowering the water at this time may disrupt the spawn and make it less successful, decreasing recruitment of young RES. Also, a secondary benefit may be that it may help control the amount of Filamentous Algae that grows in the pond at this time of year.

Fall: I have lowered my pond presently, again for a couple reasons. This seems to have put most of my vegetation on the banks and forced the young of the year RES into open water to be more readily predated by larger fish. I'm also hoping the rotting and decaying Filamentous Algae will die on shore rather than in the water and use up dissolved oxygen.

Maybe I'm overthinking this whole thing, but as a bit of a biology nerd I wanted to play around and see what type of response I would get from the pond when doing such. I don't wanna lower the pond in warmer temps as I don't want to play around too much when the DO levels aren't as high.

Another project I'm working on is adding on an elbow and an extension to the pond side of my Agri Drain water control structure. I could set the extension in the bottom of my pond so that the water being released would actually be the anoxic water being pushed up from the bottom.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I can tell you that water level changes certainly help with vegetation control....both my big and small ponds have responded well to that this year. I don't have any data on spawn changes and/or YOY control, but based on what I've read it certainly should help.

NEDOC, beautiful picture! The algae draped over the rocks is one of the reasons I'm not sure I want to put a lot of rocks or riprap on the shore line. I love the rock look and really see the benefit for critters of all shapes and sizes to live around and under the rocks. But I do a fair amount of raking out of fallen leaves in the spring and a lot of algae in the late summer and fall. I imagine it would be quite tough to clean riprap and rocks of algae? is it all manual picking it out piece by piece by hand?

I use a landscape rake now and can get quite a bit of algae and leaves pretty rapidly with my smooth sloped bottom. Still it is hard work no matter what way you look at it.

I don't plan to physically remove it. I was just letting it die on land. I'm positive it would be better to remove it, but figure having it die and oxidize on land would be better than dying in the water. I'm sure much of the nutrient load will still be in my pond. Maybe I'm wrong. Hoping Bill Cody chimes in on his thoughts about how this may impact water chemistry.

Yes,
I'd love to know where the nutrients go. My understanding is that floating FA is 'dead' already and therefore this is why it is floating. If the nutrients are tied up in the strands then I don't know if those nutrients can be released back into the pond even if the FA is dead. (whether wet and dead in the water or dry and dead on the land)

So if your FA lays on the rocks, is dead but then the water level comes up and the FA goes back to floating in the shallows are the nutrients still going back in the pond? Maybe it depends on how dried out the dead FA strands are?

NEDOC,

Wondering if it would be better to let the RES start spawning and then drop the water vs. dropping the water before they spawn.

That's something I was hoping for a response on. When and if I should drop the water level. And if I may need to lower the pond more than the 3 ft that I am lowering it.

Again, I don't want the water getting too warm while I have it lowered as I'm afraid of it creating some DO issues.

I think that if you drop the water level before they spawn they will just move to new spawning location.

If you let them spawn and then drop the water level you would be drying up the spawning beds and forcing any fry to open water where they would be preyed upon.

^^^^^^ What he said.

Unless you walk around the pond and pick up the dried up FA and remove it from the watershed, when the water levels rise the nutrients will be recycled back into the pond.

If there is sufficient water clarity, the bass will spawn in deeper water, and not be affected by the draw down. IIRC a pond with SMB and LMB experienced spring water level draw downs and it was found that the SMB recruitment was better than the LMB recruitment because the SMB were making nests in deeper water that did not go dry when the water level dropped.

Which begs the question, how exactly do I know when to drop the water for maximum benefit?

You would need to observe spawning behavior and guarding. You would need to know how long the eggs take to hatch and how long until they leave the nest.

Whats your visibilty like in the spring? If you walked around the pond could you see them spawning?

Interesting idea. I think I'm missing part of the equation though. Once the SMB and RES eliminate the FHM, what are the SMB going to eat if you take away most/part of the RES spawn as well?

Nedoc, I have the same mix of fish but also have a small number of YP and lots of golden shiners, I also have zero FA in my pond.

I'm definitely considering golden shiners in the future. Since you're trying that option I thought I'd stick with this combo for now and compare notes. Btw I do have a small population of yp as well. Damn near identical ponds but I think clarity in my pond averages 3' plus.

1) Optimal feed
2) Almost 0% I wipe out the spawn altogether. Just hoping to limit recruitment a bit so the larger ones don't have to compete as much. I also plan on using rod n reel to control numbers.

I can definitely watch the fish on the beds. Or at least the shallower ones.

My water clarity has been 11" to 14" all summer, I can take a bucket of pond water, set it on the dock and it will clear up and start growing FA in few days. I think my GSH are eating and keeping the FA at bay and also stiring up the bottom along the pond edges.

I may have to try some golden shiners in my dad's pond. He has a significant FA problem. And by significant, I mean my stepmother can't stand the looks of it.

Man do I ever get crazy rock envy when you post on your RES pond!

Crayfish will help with FA control...your SMB should keep populations under control.

If you allow the FA to dry, you can remove it much easier as it comes off in mats...as I'm sure you're aware. Still, a crappy job. Maybe time to consider some aeration?

How are your SMB doing? Any WR measurements this Fall? They should be 10-12" by now, with a few exceptional fish up to 14"???

As far as I can tell my SMB are doing great. I honestly haven't fished it much yet as the RES I want to cull didn't become large enough to catch til here recently. We can catch RES about every 2 min if we want to. But as soon as someone catches a 10+" I shut them down and let them apply for that Master Angler award (kids only). So far we've caught 35-40 RES total, and 6 of them have been over 10". The others are around 9.5" and some smaller in size. Anything under 8" goes into my big pond. We've only caught
3 SMB and they were 10-11.5" but I didn't get a RW on them as it was one of the few moments I didn't have a scale with. They look super healthy though. They're a blast. I'm thinking they will keep the RES under 3" under control and anything above that I will control with rod and reel then transport to my larger pond. One of the big reasons I opted to lower my water was to give the SMB a predatory advantage this fall. We'll see soon enough.

Would a decent leaf blower knock the FA off of the riprap when it all dries? Maybe hit it wish a brush extension on a weed-eater body, and then use a leaf blower to kick it out of the basin.

Catching RES every two minutes.................... wow. You have them trained like BG.

As far as removing dried FA, it is best to catch it at just the right moisture content. When it is completely wet it is slimy, heavy and hard to handle. If you let it dry completely out it becomes brittle so it breaks up easily and it also sticks to rocks making the collection even harder.

But if you catch it when it is about half dried, most of the moisture is gone out so you do not break your back lifting it. But it is still pliable enough (and not stuck to the rocks hard enough) so a pitch fork (old farm manure fork) can slide under a portion and lift up a big mat then fold it over and get a good big mat to remove.

That is the best way I have found to handle it. Drag it to the edge of the shore line (or in your case just drop the water level), let it partially (but not fully) dry, and remove with pitch fork like a person was handling hay with it.

Thanks snrub

That SMB is a chunk, I'm guessing easily 110-120 WR maybe more.

The Optimal feed is probably what made the RES size take off! If not the Optimal though, it's likely snails, but I don't think I'd want to inhibit the spawn, which is only once. RES can spawn in the fall rather than spring, also.

I've had bedding RES in late Summer/early Fall...guess it's not entirely uncommon.

I've had a late summer spawn both years since stocking RES. So it doesn't sound like I will have much of an impact if I do a spring draw down. I think I'll still stick with a fall draw down to expose the YOY to predation.

I was just texting TJ about the Optimal feed tonight. I don't know exactly why my RES take to Optimal so well, but it is unreal when my feeder goes off. 2 miles down the road my dad has a pond with BG and HBG in it. When the feeder goes off, they feed well. But they don't feed anything like my RES. These RES explode on the Optimal feed like HSB did when I had them in my pond. It's an impressive sight. I'm hoping to break that 12" mark next year.

I had a sub-inch RES in a minnow trap last night from my forage pond so I assume that spawn was fairly recent.

NEDOC were your RES specifically feed trained or did they just take to the Optimal feed on their own?

I got mine at about 3" and they were feed trained with specialty feed. Think of a mad scientist RES lover that used to be on this board a lot. When I stocked them they pretty much went off feed for a year as I was trying to feed them with Aquamax. They didn't take to that at all so I quit feeding. Then I read about Optimal. The RES took to that pretty quickly. But what really seemed to be the kicker was when I mixed in some Optimal Jr in the middle of this summer. At that point it seemed all classes of RES in my pond began feeding well. So yes, my RES were somewhat genetically predisposed to be fish that take feed. But I also believe the Optimal has played a big role in subsequent generations feed training.

Interesting. May have to give that a try.

I put feed out at my forage pond (RES, FHM and GS) but the FHM have been wiped out and I figure it is only the GS I see hitting it on the top. But the AM MVP has some sinking components so was hoping at least some of the RES were getting some.

May have to get another bag of Optimal just for that pond.

It is only 1/20th an acre and the 10" RES I caught recently looked fat and sassy. So either it was munching on snails or GS fry or MVP or something. I have been a little worried about not knowing for sure what is in the pond in the way of RES populations and if they had enough to eat. But all I have caught either looked "ok" or pretty darn good. Did not take any relative weights.

I'd order the bag of Optimal Jr. The little fish take to it much quicker it seemed. And once they got started they go crazy.

Ok, thanks.

I will try to get a bag of each ordered from Esshup Hoosier Pond Pros this weekend some time.

I know my small BG really loved the AM400 I had. Really small pellets.