I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Andy Coursey and I am well versed in aquaculture and pond management. I have both undergraduate and master's degrees in aquaculture and spent the past nine years managing a 10,000 square foot RAS facility and a pond complex with 90 research ponds and a 6.5 acre water storage reservoir at Southern Illinois University. I have worked with a wide variety of fish and truly love to work with fish and ponds.
I have recently moved on from that position to Purdue, but I will still be working in aquaculture and recreational pond management as a consultant. I look forward to sharing my knowledge with the folks on the forum and getting to know everyone.
A hardy Welcome. We look forward to all the good fishery management information that you can share with this forum. We have a wide spectrum of members from all types of job descriptions. We are passionate here about raising fish using the best applied science methods. Thanks for taking time to advise and help us.
Welcome to the forum Andy!
A lot of good people to share your pond passion with here on PBF.
Welcome to PBF Andy!
Go Boilermakers!
I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Andy Coursey and I am well versed in aquaculture and pond management. I have both undergraduate and master's degrees in aquaculture and spent the past nine years managing a 10,000 square foot RAS facility and a pond complex with 90 research ponds and a 6.5 acre water storage reservoir at Southern Illinois University. I have worked with a wide variety of fish and truly love to work with fish and ponds.
I have recently moved on from that position to Purdue, but I will still be working in aquaculture and recreational pond management as a consultant. I look forward to sharing my knowledge with the folks on the forum and getting to know everyone.
I have almost the exact same history which includes sequence and places of education and work. Difference is I about 20 years further down the pipe. I hug trees when no one is looking as well and manage a facility you will likely be at least in contact with down the road.
I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Andy Coursey and I am well versed in aquaculture and pond management. I have both undergraduate and master's degrees in aquaculture and spent the past nine years managing a 10,000 square foot RAS facility and a pond complex with 90 research ponds and a 6.5 acre water storage reservoir at Southern Illinois University. I have worked with a wide variety of fish and truly love to work with fish and ponds.
I have recently moved on from that position to Purdue, but I will still be working in aquaculture and recreational pond management as a consultant. I look forward to sharing my knowledge with the folks on the forum and getting to know everyone.
I have almost the exact same history which includes sequence and places of education and work. Difference is I about 20 years further down the pipe. I hug trees when no one is looking as well and manage a facility you will likely be at least in contact with down the road.
I was finishing up my undergraduate degree at the tail end of your time at SIUC. Good to see you on here. I am sure we will be in touch at some point.
Are you working with Bob Rhode?
We are gearing up for commercial production of RBT, LMB and possibly Spotted Bass. Intent is to do a lot of demonstration that might be of value to even small backyard scale efforts to simply enhance a fishery.
As of right now I am not. I am responsible for departmental operations of Forestry and natural resources and will be doing some Illinois-Indiana Seagrant work starting soon.
I started looking at pond boss recently as I my family and I are building a pond in SE Iowa and there are lots of good articles here. I'll be stocking fish out next week. It's already loaded with GSH, and I'll be stocking SMB and WE. We drained and removed silt from the old pond, added structure like rip rap, pea gravel, stumps, pvc habitat, etc. Can't wait to see how it progresses over the next couple of years.
We plan to renovate another pond in a few years as well.
Welcome to the forum!!
Where are you sourcing your SMB and Walleye? How big are they? How big is your pond that you are stocking, and what Purdue location are you at?
Glad to be here! The SMB and Walleye are being sourced from clear creek fisheries in Martinsville, IN. They produce the SMB but the WE are coming from another hatchery (not sure which). I won't know the size until I see them, as it seems ruler size varies at every hatchery...but they indicated the SMB are around 4" and WE 5-7".
The pond that I am stocking out is a little under 3/4 acre, with a good sized watershed that is in CRP.
I am in West Lafayette, IN
Welcome you to Indiana! I transplanted in 1990. I look forward to your input on projects. I am a little ways in on a pond started with FHM and GSH, then added YP, and finally SMB. Have only fished it once (past summer) and hooked a SMB that was a lot larger than I thought it could have grown is such a short time (about 14-16"). What a hoot! I am hoping for SMB recruitment, so I have not fished it anymore. Hoping to see fry next year. Current project is a 1/2-acre ill-advised blue catfish pond. Still figuring out what forage species to add after the FHM. Pond is still filling. Hope to dig my 4th pond next year.
Good folks at Clear Creek, I source some fish there also.