Started hauling and dropping gravel around the pond banks yesterday.
I had a load of 8" and a load of 3" brought in. Just dumping the 8" at first.
It was around 15 degrees. It's still a bit puckering to run the tractor down the slope to dump gravel. If it was slick at all, no way. Those 8" limestone rocks are heavy, put some dents in the bucket on the tractor.
Starting with SMB beds, then going to dump some additional and shallower spots for crawdads.


Also, can anyone tell me what this is? It's not a good pic, but the best I could get. It looks like a jell type mass of some kind. I thought maybe it was a dead frog just covered with some type of jell?? I was going to break through the ice to get a closer look. Easier said than done.

Might be bryozoans. There is a picture on page 10 of the current issue of PBM.

Are you going to arrange the stones in any way to make them more appealing for the SMB?

I've got the latest issue up at the farm, I'll take a look when I go back to spread more rock.
Thx

Yes, I'm going to get all the big stuff hauled first, then sort of make level layers in it, then bring down the 3" minus stuff to put on top.
Hopefully that will work..
Thx

The more I look at that pic of the jell mass, I'll bet it's a frog.. There was one about 40' from this one, that was clearly a frog, this one just isn't as recognizable.

That should work great. You could even limit the finer stuff to the middle of the pile and leave some larger rocks around the edge open. FHM will use the underside of the rocks to spawn and small BG will use it as cover. Crawdads will use the open spaces between rocks and burrow under them. The nesting fish will move the small stuff around to suit them. Surprising what fish can do to a rock pile.

You sound a little uncertain. Check out this thread. It has a lot of nice links too. Well worth a look.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92626#Post92626

Lots of reading. With links to lots more reading. Solidified my interest in smallmouth and perch vs LMB and BG. I've got plans to be on the tractor hauling rock most of tomorrow.

Thx!

Looking great! Man, that is some crystal clear ice!

Finished product. I leveled the 8" rock, and added the 3". I hope this will work.
I'll end up with six beds for a 1.5 (approx) sized pond. Plus two long sections of 8" rock for crawdads, and a section of 3" gravel for, I'm not sure..

Crawdad zone. Rake for reference. You can tell it had warmed up when I took this pic. The ice was melting away.. I got off the tractor when it got too slippery.. Ha, didn't want to slide it into the pond.. Nope

How they are arranged. All are in the shallow end of the pond.

Just need some moisture to get it full..

I think I would take one of those new beds and add that half wall of rock that is shown in the thread mentioned. Surely you must have a few bigger rocks around to try it. That way when they start spawning you will find out do they prefer it with/with out the wall. Could even use large branches tied/weighted down somehow.

You have come a long way. Nice work. Enjoy it..... Nice setting.

The bigger rocks around the edge to make a short wall could be as simple as a few cement blocks. Make the wall on the shallow or up hill part of the nest at least on one bed. Try a couple different arrangements to see which style of wall your bass prefer. Some may not want the wall in their nest. The blocks can be added, removed, or rearranged later if necessary. To hold each block in place, use a short rod or stake driven into the pond bank through the opening in the block. You may have a bass create a nest on the rock pile of the crayfish zone.

Looks good to me.

Fish n chips, and Bill Cody. I'll give the cinder blocks a try on the uphill side.
I have to admit, I wasn't sure where to place them, but Bill's details helped.
Thanks

Was up at the pond over the weekend. Single digits at night and teens during the day. It was ice covered, of course. The ice looked to be in the 3 to 4" range. Clear enough to see down through it.
Interesting that two of the five SMB spawning sites I build look like they are on a seep of some kind. We had about a 1/2" of rain the week before. I was assuming zero runoff, and indeed the pond level didn't change, but look at the ice flows coming in on these SMB beds. The seep would be at or slightly higher than the expected water level.
Three small seeps above this nest. Snow on the ice almost looks like the pic is upside down.

Second shot shows another seep over the bed. Coming from up in the leaves.
It'll be like running water for the smallies!

I actually hope I don't have any of these "seeps" below the water level.

Well, no change in the water level. We've had a few inches of snow, but not enough to raise the water level much. Got a good four to six inches if ice on it, but there are thin spots, and holes that form in the ice? Not sure how or why they've opened up.

The SMB beds are mostly complete (below the snow) still need to get a bunch of cedar trees sunk in the shallow end. Hopefully will get that done in March.
Should I be making plans to get fish in? Do I need orders on the books now? It's almost March!
Jeff

Question.. The pond came up a foot or so. One of the SMB beds is submerged, and two more are close. Then there are still two more that are up about a foot from present water level.
I took a tape measure down to the drain pipe, it looks like I've still got 4' to go. If the beds are down 3 to 5' are they going to be too deep? I can add rock on top to raise them a bit.
Right now the banks are really slippery, not going to take the tractor down there! Ha

Setter based on everything I've read optimum SMB beds are right in that range...maybe someone smarter than me can confirm, but I put all my beds between 3-6 feet down at full pool.

Thanks.. I'll leave them alone then. Hope to get smallies by fall. Believe it or not, I'm at the same water level I was when the ice melted. Maybe up 6". My pond must have some powerful energy force over it. While the entire Midwest gets soaked day after day, I've received less than 2" since early March. Just little .5" showers that are keeping the farmers off the ledge, but not helping my water level at all.

Setter sounds like me , got a force field over my area it seems sometimes

Same here guys. Every chance of rain just misses us. Water table is down and I am sitting at late summer level. I am resisting using the well to top up as I have guy scheduled in a couple weeks to do some pond renovation so I guess the lower the better for that. I expect it will rain right before so the work will be delayed!

How well did these beds end up working out in 3-5' of water? I'm adding some SMB to my pond shortly and am thinking of providing some bedding habitat over the winter. I have a few seeps/springs that enter my pond that are very similar to those pictured

Well, I'm at full pool right now. But my water level has just come up 4.5' since March. We've had a drought for the last eight or nine month, but it's over that's for sure. Water going out the pipe.
The SMB were large enough to spawn last spring, but I haven't found any evidence that they did. Until now I've had too many tadpoles to catch a single minnow, as all traps would just immediately fill with tadpoles. The tadpoles seem to have tapered off though. Hopefully I'll start actually some fish in the traps. I will have them out over the weekend.
Earlier this spring, most of the SMB beds were above water. Now they are down 3-5 feet. I imagine I've missed any chance to observe the SMB on the beds this spring. I had ankle surgery four weeks ago, and have been pretty much down and out since then. But I'm headed up in a hour or so to see what's going on. Only I believe it's raining again.
I'll let you know if I observe any SMB fry in the fish traps. Between my trees drinking the water, the drought, and a small leak, my water level is just very inconsistent. I don't think that's helping the spawn.

My water is a dark brown this morning. I cannot see any of the SMB beds. No idea if they were used for spawning or not. Not even sure when SMB spawn.
I did catch one this morning. (The long nose pliers are 7")


I've got a fair number of GSH. I'm hoping the SMB and HSB can control them. When they get this big though, I'm not sure the SMB can eat them.

Think you need LMB or a few big Blue Catfish to control them.

A large SMB or HSB can eat any size GSH.

That is good to know. Now I just need my SMB to grow up!

That is great to know! I was thinking the GSH were going to get too big. I tried to catch HSB today. Still no luck. The weird thing is a can see them! There will be five or six swimming, almost in formation, out in the middle of the pond. Just cruising along. I cast out to them, no takers. They must be the HSB, because they are definitely bigger than the SMB I have been catching.

Maybe those HSB are too well fed?

I don't know. They don't seem interested in anything I throw out there. I may keep the next GSH I get, and throw it out under a big bobber. I still need to try chicken liver. I was told that'll catch them. It's cool watching them cruise along. Just would like to see one up close..

This could be the reason. I'm finally catching something besides tadpoles in the fish traps. One trap did have at least 100 tadpoles but it also had two GSH. The traps along the bank had almost all fry from HBG and RES.. (I think)
FYI, I took the two GSH and and threw them out in the middle of the pond, under a bobber. No hits.. However, when the little GSH got near the bank it was immediately taken by a YP. Really surprised me, as the YP weren't that much bigger than the GSH.

Where I have the best luck catching RES, especially smaller ones, is less than 3' from the bank. I think that is where a lot of snails and insect larvae are that they feed on.