The mission:

Purchase a seine that is 100 feet long by 10 feet deep with 1/4 inch mesh, mudline, floats every eighteen inches and specially coated for scaled fish.

First call was made to Brunson Net Company. The call was made to toll free 1-800-211-0518. Talked to "Steve".

Rating of person's politeness and knowledge: A+
Quote given: $580

Second call was made to Memphis Net Company. The call was made to toll free 1-888-674-7638 extension 1124. Talked to "Judy".

Rating of person's politeness and knowledge: A+
Quote given: $780.30

So you're buying the $780.30 one?

No, I'm trying to convince my friend NEDOC what a good deal it would be to split the cost of the $580 one....Ooops, did I just post that on the internet?

Doesn't SHORTAY need a seine too?

You're right. It's time to start the long, sinister indoctrination of Shor-TAY.

It begins with subliminal messages. I've already tapped into his cell phone. Next I have a little "talk" with his sattelite company. Then as the final coup, I break into his house and steall all of the letters out of his Alpha-Bits except for the S, E, I and N's.

I like your line of thinking there. The Alpha-Bits angle will cinch the deal.

If it doesn't, you can whisper to him about the generational pleasures of father-son seining.

Bruce does Brunson Net Company have a web site? Where are they located?

On a complete side note, Bill, I like your new signature bar.

As usual, credit ewest for the great website.

http://www.brunsonnet.com/

I love Bill's signature line. It says it all.

Bruce

What species will you be harvesting with the seine, how many lbs fish max, and how many workers will be working the seine at a time? I may give advice if you like.

Bluegills between 2 and 12 inches

Striped Bass hybrids between 3 and 9 inches

Various other smaller species. Never more than 100 lbs of fish in all liklihood. I'll take any advice I can get. This happens to be what Bob Lusk and I used the other day at my place and he was so good at using it that I need one for myself.

In the picture above, from left to right, it's Bruce Condello, Bob Lusk, Dave Willis bending over and Frank Condello (Bruce's dad) standing and then I think this is SHORTY aka Steve.

Already got one one, but it's only a 4' x 25' siene and not near a nice as the Bob has.

Bruce or Nedoc could always borrow the one I have if they need too rather than buy one, I only use it about once in every 4-5 years.

Count me in. Let me know when you need the check. BTW, if the wife asks, remind her that I had some, ahem, dental work done. It appears about 300-400$ worth.

I may have to deliver the check over an afternoon of chukar hunting.

Oh yeah, I thought I was the one trying to talk you into splitting the cost of the net. This is going to be a great management tool for both of us. Now, if I can just get my other pond built.

Shorty, if you need some catfish to murk up your water a little bit I have a good source. If I don't find a place for them they are becoming 'tree fertilizer'. My plans for this seine is to pull as many bullhead, catfish and carp out of my big pond as I can. I will use the feeder to bring them into the area, and pow, to the shoreline they go. Maybe I will filet most of the cats. And I have heard carp is not bad pickled.

BTW, does your Sutton buddy work cheap? I may need a hand down here with this seining.

I smell dental insurance fraud.

You could probably write-up a description of a seine which sounds exactly like orthodonture. Not trying to give you any crooked ideas, you understand.

Its not going to be insurance fraud (although I like that idea), it is what I call spousal deception.

I'd like to know if I can get some pro's such as Lusk, Todd, or Greg to comment on the advantages/disadvantages to having a bag on the seine. My current 50 X 4 ft. seine has a bag. The bag seems like it helps collect fish, but the way I was originally using it, we would see some fish injury because all of the fish were packed into a very limited area. When the 100 ft. seine is purchased I would like it to be as useful as possible for the intended use, which would be non-commercial harvest of small to medium size fish, sometimes fingerlings, probably less than 100 lbs to a haul.

Anybody? Any-buddy?.... :p

Bruce :

None of my 3 seines have a bag. All are 1/4 in net- 2 are 6 ft. deep one is 4ft. deep. the 2 6ft. ones are used as blocking nets, the other as a seine to do surveys. We can't use ours like you do as our pond bottoms have lots of obstructions (limbs, rocks, brush, pondweed etc.). I have never needed a bag to seine up small fish to do a survey - seems like it would just get in the way.

Bruce we used the bag type in school. I prefer to not have bag and none of my nets have them. I got my biggest from Memphis Net and it looks very similiar to Bob's in the picture. Def. got to have mud line. Also critical if you ever happen to use it with catfish on purpose or if in pond get, get it treated, if not man it will take awhile to get those serrated fins loose from the net.

Bruce - If Bob does not have a bag on his seine it is probably for a good reason.

Btw, guys thanks for the responses. This is something Bruce and I discussed and were concerned about. It is nice to get pointed in the right direction. Now does anyone know how Bruce and I can train our wives to seine?

Apply carrot and stick motivation.

Reward successful seining with 24-carats, and stick with it.

Nedoc, I've tried everything but chest waders. I've read the book about The Horse Whisperer and talked to a guy tht trains bad dogs. Nothing has worked and she appears to be totally untrainable. I got my wife on the end of a seine just one time. She claims that she got bug bitten underwater. No way I'll ever get her to do it again.

Watch out boys! You will get more bees (or fish rather) with honey; at least I think that is how the saying goes. Dinner and a movie would do the trick. Seining a pond does not really bother me though. I still get a kick out of having mud between my toes (virtual ugh from the group). Nothing better than rolling up your pant's legs, putting on a ball cap, kicking off your shoes, and pulling a seine through the water. I'm such a little lady, aren't I?

I guess that is why I am going in on this project with Bruce, so that he can do all the work.

Besides, he has someone to fix his back if he overworks it.

Bruce:

Advantages to having a bag:
> Catch more % of fish
> Provides more room and depth for fish while harvesting. Best way is to use long stakes to hold up the bag making a big bowl.
> Catches jumping fish like lmb, grass carp, and bluegill better

Disadvantages:
> May drag in silt
> Heavy and harder to pull
> More difficult to manage
> Requires more manpower.

We use a soft bagged seine when harvesting bluegill, hsbs, grass carp, lmb...125 ft long with 8x8x8ft bag.

Dave I get the wife to help out when the employees are not around. I usually find extras on the honey Do list when I look it over. Of course you saw her no seining right now as big as she is getting.

Greg, do the right thing. Buy her a nice wheelbarrow so she won't have as much trouble getting around. DUCK!!!

Hey Greg how far along are you all? I meant to talk to you about that at the meeting, but a lot of things went unsaid (not enough time). I really am proud for you. I took the same route (IVF) and am the proudest mommy in the world. How many are on board, and when are you due? Your life is about to change forever.


PS Words of wisdom... don't tick off a pregnant woman especially in the third trimester. It is a complete mystery how objects will suddenly get hurled your way. Take the "yes mam" and "no mam" route in order to stay whole (and sane). In fact sane is better than seine at this point. :p

NEDOC Wrote:
Nedoc - he sure does, but you will have to get final permission from his boss, sometimes known as his better half, otherwise he gets in really big trouble if he is doing something she knows nothing about.

As to the catfish question we are probable good, we just put another 100 CC last fall in the 8-10" range.

Just so you know, I've been out with a nasty case of upper respitory influenza for last few days and havn't checked the PB board since Friday.

Glad you're feeling better, SHOR-TAY.

I will see his better half tomorrow. I may have to run it by her. We may have to have a small regional meeting when we seine this pond. It would be nice if we could catch several hundred pounds of bottom feeders/carp. I am thinking of getting a stock tank to put the fish in to run fresh water to them for a few days and than cleaning them.

If you ever get down this way look me up. I can show off my pond to you. 180 degrees the opposite of your pond.

I'm out your way all the time in the fall Nedoc! Let me know when you are ready to seine.

I don't like the bag for several reasons. First, if you catch too many fish, they can quickly become overcrowded in a bag, in a pond with no quick aeration. You are forced to move fish quickly. I don't care for that.
Next, I don't always pull the seine equally, side to side. With a bag, you must pull the seine toward the bag.
If you have fish of different sizes, or different species, the big ones beat up the small ones. I like to allow them room to move and separate according to size. Bruce, you noticed how the fish separated themselves in the seine? You can't work them as well in a bag.
Bags, to me, are for big numbers of big fish to be handled in a big way, fast.
You saw what happened when we took our time.

Thanks Bob. I think we have decided to go without the bag, so it is nice to see you agree with that choice. How is the house coming along?

The slab is cleared, inspected by an engineer, we are working with an architect to finalize plans, then we'll start to rebuild.

Tell the wife I said hello. I would love to see pictures as the house progresses. ICF homes fascinate me.

Ordered the seine just now. I'll post a picture of it when it arrives if anyone is interested.

Please.

I'm interested in a picture of it Bruce.

Seriously, I meant to email you today to ask about ETA of the seine. Of course, with this snow my mind got sidetracked.

Two weeks, they told me. Can't wait!

Thanks again, Bruce, for all of the work. I can't wait!!!

Bruce, can you give us the exact details of what you ordered? I'm thinking of getting one so that I can sample our lake more throughly.

I purchased a seine that is 100 feet long by 10 feet deep with 1/4 inch mesh, mudline, floats every eighteen inches and specially coated for scaled fish.

580 bucks.

It's the same one Bob Lusk uses. 'Nuff said.

Name Dropper!

What kind of treating for scaled fish? Is is like a silicone?
I got my seine from Nichols net and twine 6 or 7 years ago and a "hatchery seine" 10x100x1/4 inch treated with a net preserve would be 400 bucks. Six years later and different treating might be the difference in price but Norm might want to compare prices.
Sorry I'm too late for you, Bruce.

Here is the home page. You must call them for info on a custom seine:

http://www.nicholsnetandtwine.com/

If anyone contacts them, I would like to know about pricing.

Has anyone tried a gill net? I was thinking about getting one.

Bruce, we expect pictures tomorrow.

SkinMan, a gill net is OK for catching eating fish but the fish it catches dies.

The seine is awesome! Very, very durable looking. My Dad and I ran it today in my big pond and pulled up 9 bluegill, four of which were over 1 pound. One of them was probably more like 1-6. I was very excited. Also got a turtle, some tadpoles and some giant dragonfly larvae. The bluegill looked like they were going to blow up. Wr's around 130-140.

We need pics. That is awesome.

I recall the first time I pulled a seine in the ponds and it filled up with BG/RES and small LMB. What a trip.

Was looking at the seines. has any body used them to get the FA out of the ponds. Is this a viable option? Is there a seine strong enough?

Getting some pictures of this seine from Bruce is like pulling teeth. :p

PF2, you need to ask Bruce for a picture of a Diet Mountain Dew can, or an empty bottle of Jack Daniels.

Then, mysteriously enough, a new seine will appear in the picture.

Alright! I confess!

I keep forgettin' my dang camera!!

Don't forget about Brian's question. I think the seine would be strong enough but I have'nt ever pulled one through a lot of algae. Anyone?

It will catch a lot of FA and be hard to pull. It is a mess to get out of the net and then dump somewhere else. It may catch a few fish in with the FA which you have to try and save.

Fully agree with ewest--This 100 foot net is hard enough to pull with nothing in it. Add several hundred pounds of FA and you've got a nightmare.

Thats why we never believe you when you tell us about these behemoth bluegill. j/k

More later about my failed attempt to run this seine tonight. It went OK the first time, but I did something wrong the second time. I guess there's a learning curve here. NEDOC and his wife were a huge help but I didn't keep the lead line down.

Here's a photo, though.

I heard a rumor that NEDOC seined about a million pounds of fish from his big pond. Report, please.

Per Bruce's request....

To save myself retyping this I will Copy and Paste my email to Bruce and Shorty. Obviously, some of this is not pertinent to the seine discussion. NEfish is Blake,and hopefully he will add or subtract from this short story (and hopefully add some pictures)...........

What a day of seining!!! I am sure I will forget some details but here is my short story of how our virgin seining voyage went..........

My friend Blake and I decided Saturday night to meet up and do a little seining around noon on Sunday. We also ran into my old roommate who agreed to meet us. Thankfully, Blake brought his fiance, sister, brother-in-law and all of their kids (about 6 kids). We ended up with about 5 guys and 3 women and the kids to do the seining. Luckily we had that many people, because we ended up using ALL of them. We decided to start with the east arm of my pond, which is roughly 150' wide where we started and seined to the north inlet, which was about 200 yds. long. When we pulled up to the cove we spotted about five 'pods' of carp with 10-20 fish in each pod. We knew we may catch a few. Blake and I spanned the pond fine but once we started pulling the mud began to gather in the net and we had to get 2 guys on each side to pull. We got the net within feet of the pods of carp and corraled them. The water was no more than 3 ft. deep throughout the seining process. By the time we got 100 yds into the seining we began to wear down and had 3 guys on each side. We began to feel fish bump into our legs, escaping out the sides. This is when the kids got put to use. We put them on each side of the net to 'herd' the fish. It worked! And they had a blast. As we got to the north end it was all we could do to pull it with 6 guys. The mud was piling up. In fact there were so many fish and so much mud that the water on the side of the net we were pulling towards was 4-6" higher that the lake itself!! It was like a miniature tsunami moving through the water. Fish boiling everywhere! Once we pulled the net up on to shore we just looked in amazement. We had close to 1000 fish averaging at about .5 lbs of which 200-400 were carp. I may still take a count on those #'s to get a good idea of how many carp there were. Totals were 200-400 carp (2lb avg), 200-400 catfish (.5-1 lb avg), 100+ 4-6" crappie, 2 bullhead, 2 largemouth, 1 green sungish and 4 bluegill. The idiot that I am, I didn't plan for this. We literally had a 'pile' of fish laying there on the shore. With deep water 150 feet away. I hollered at my wife to go get buckets but she didn't want to. We all started grabbing as many crappie as we could and hauling them back to the lake. We lost 30% of them. I didn't expect to see that many crappie and I didn't expect to be in such shallow water when we got them to shore. I left all of the carp and catfish laying. My poor uncle's house is only 100 yds away from the pile of fish. haha I may have to go get the loader and haul dead fish tonight.


The rest of the day we seined the body of the lake with 3 guys and a boat pulling on one side and a 4 wheeler on the other side. We caught several hundred fish (including 6lb. and 8lb. cats) but had no where close to what we caught that first haul.


When it was all said and done blake and I walked back to the east arm of the pond and looked at the water. Both of us remarked that we thought the water clarity had tripled since that morning in that arm of the pond. Maybe we had drank too many beers


Unbelievable experience!! I am sure I will think of more details, but thought this may interest you.


BTW, my horizontal aeration and BoJo buglight should be installed by the end of the week. You are more than welcome to come down anytime.

PS There wasn't a single tear in the net after we were done. I was amazed. Every other time I have seined, we have had slight tears in the net. That thing is tough. The only thing I am a little worried about is mice in my shop. I am trying to remedy that.

NEDoc pretty much hit the nail on the head. What a day and a sight to see. Again just to emphasize the water clarity issue, I really think that cove increased by a couple of inches in that short of time. I couldn't believe it!

If Doc can keep the carp down and get the vegetation growing there is a chance for a really good fishery.

WOW that was a lot of carp, Im going to say that the carp # might be even higher than 400, not sure but a couple more times of siening and we could make a serios difference in the water quality.

Let me make one brief point on the water quality issue.

One time I was ice fishing with a well known Nebraska fisheries biologist on a five acre pond which was somewhat shallow.

Since there was ice, the water quality was extemely good. I could see all the way to the bottom easily in five feet of water. I was looking down the hole and a dozen or so catfish swam by. I could see 'em clear as day. As they passed I caught one and the others swam on. Well these few fish made the water so turbid during that one pass that the water clarity dropped to a few inches and stayed that way for over an hour.

So my point is, I think several hundred carp in a shallow cove with fine particle clay substrate could cause immediate turbidity and I can imagine that the converse would be true that removing them would allow for increase in water quality shortly thereafter.

Good job, guys.

Keep after those carp Nedoc, your SMB will thank you!

Thats a good bit of info and a good observation Bruce and I bet you had a good time with Dr. Peters perhaps???

We shall see how this works out. We have a couple other ponds NEfish and I are going to seine. One with similar turbidity problems due to bullhead. This one is small enough that I think we can get the majority of bullhead and get a good idea how much difference it makes in water clarity.

Edit: After reading Bruce's comments I am glad I left the catfish laying on the bank. I realized they stir up sediment, but I did not realize they would make as much difference as a carp.

I was with Dave Tunink, who is an administrator for Nebraska Game and Parks Commission fisheries division.

I think the type of substrate in the pond is important, as is the foraging technique being used by the catfish. If the catfish's food is on the bottom, that's where he'll spend his time.

NEDOC, good decision on your part to leave all those catfish high and dry. We really should have kept a couple of those nice sizer's and fried them up that night but I think we can get some more "somewhere"????
Also, Scott, the fella that took the pictures that day did not use a digital camera. Soooo... he is going to scan them as soon as he gets them developed and I will post them asap.

I think our next job is to get those trees out of the west finger and run the siene though there. Get the vegetation growing!
And by the way, have you been down to see how the coons cleaned up??

Bruce, I know Dave. I worked for Gerald Mestl for the last 4 summers on the MO Riv. and got to know Dave around the office. Dave is quite the character.

NEDOC, Im really busy at work today as you can tell and was looking at some previous posts and came across the idea of a gill net. I understand in warm water that it will kill the fish without a doubt, but as far as right now with not very many quality fish in the pond and killing of the fish anyway, do you think it could be set out over night and do a job on the carp and cats? With the right size of mesh it would eliminate all the larger carp and let the smaller BG and crappie swim through. Just a thought, but the only problem is finding a net.

NEfish, great thinking. In fact, in one of the old Pond Boss issues (circa 1994) they had an article about a guy who eliminated carp from a LMB pond by gill netting them. I was considering doing that rather than a seining net, and than Bruce mentioned he was interested in purchasing a seine, so I went that direction. I need to research it a little more to see what size I need. In fact, I have called a few net companies to get assistance. It is an interesting idea to try, but I imagine eventually I will drain the pond and start over anyway. At this point I would rather not dump a bunch more money into a gill net if I am going to drain it anyway. At least with the seine I know I will use it when I build my smaller 'grow out' pond in a few years.

I have been considering ordering a small gill net (maybe 40 ft.) for the purpose of removing carp and catfish. I will have to look into that further. See what you can come up with for info on that and maybe we will do it next year.

Anybody with any gill net experience, please feel free to chime in.

Another seining adventure with NEDOC and NEfish:

Got started about 1230 on 7/9 and decided to seine the east arm of my pond again. The same one we had pulled all of the carp out of before. Well NEfish was a little under the weather so he didn't get to partake in the carp seine. So we will blame our failure on him. Anyway, this time we attached 2-100' ropes on each side (1 to the float line and 1 to the weighted line) so that we could stand on dry ground to facilitate the pulling of the net. That worked great but.......... as we finished I noticed there were a couple spots the weighted line and float line got tangled and/or crossed. Needless to say, we caught very few fish. In fact 3 was the total. Lesson #2342 in seining: apply nearly all pulling force (or all of it when applicable) to the weighted line. In fact, in the second pond (which I will tell about shortly) we let the float line drag behind with no force at all.

About this time NEfish shows up (looking very poor). His soon to be father-in-law has a pond with an overabundance of small crappie, so we decided to seine there. This pond has a small (30' x 30') island on it so we swam the rope over to it and then pulled one end of the net over. From there, we swam that end of the rope over to the far bank and began pulling the net so that we could span as much of the pond as possible. We had 5 guys and we were all on dry ground pulling. If you have seined before you know that it is almost impossible to pull a 100' net while standing in muck. But this time we only pulled the rope that was attached to the bottom weighted line and let the float line go on its own. It took us about 15 minutes and a whole lot of muscle to get the net worked to the corner of the pond and corral all of the fish. About 10 yds from shore fish began jumping everywhere. Some were even successful in clearing the net and reaching freedom. We pulled the net to shore slowly and had nearly 600-700 fish and 2 snapping turtles nearly the size of trash cans. We grabbed the crappie and hauled 320 of them to a friends pond and threw the BG, LMB and CC back. I am sure I will have more details that I will have to edit in but all in all it was a great day.

ps NEfish, did I hit all of the important stuff?


ps The snapping turtle died from massive cranial trauma

You pretty much included all the important details, but don't worry I slept great last night and am now fully recovered. A very successful day of pond management was spent removing the competitive crappie and providing abundant resources for the LMB and BG.

Oh! these turtles NEDOC speaks of are sure to be cleaned and eaten for the gentleman that euthanized them and took them home, does not kill anything he does not eat!

Great report guys. If you have large GC (10 lbs.+) be careful when seining or pulling a gill net. When you trap them in shallow water if there is any room they will try to jump the net. I saw one separated shoulder , and was informed by WF&P fisheries biologist of one broken jaw , one set of cracked ribs and one death by drowning as a result. Not kidding - they go wild when trapped shallow and a 30 lb. GC moving at 20 mph when it jumps the net is dangerous. One knocked a man out who fell out of the boat and drowned before they could get him out.

It must make a lot of difference in the hole size. I have a 100' seine with 1" holes and it isn't that hard to pull. I don't catch the little fish which I'm sure helps.
I love to seine as much or more than fishing. It does take practice though. I don't know how you pull it out of the water but one thing I have learned is to drop the end ropes and pull the seine out and set it on the bank as you walk towards the other guy. Does that make sense? It makes it easier to get it back into the water to go the other way.

We have 1/4" netting, so that makes it tough to pull. And we have been pulling in silted in ponds. It is very diffucult.

When we get to the end, I get on my knees and pull the weighted line into shore. Therefore it is not allowed to lift and leave room for escape.

We honestly, pull up several hundred pounds of mud each time we seine these ponds. It is alot of work to clean the net. I have started to lay it under my sprinklers for about 24 hours after each seining.

NEDOC says, Not to mention rolling it up and getting it in to the back of a pick-up. But well worth the fish caught and "natual" beverages consumed. Next job is to get those trees out of the west finger of your big pond and siene it..start feed training in that corner and we can whipe them out!

My seine never catches silt. Does yours have two ropes for the lead line? I think that is supposed to help.

ewest - it sounds as though you have some experience with gill nets. Do you have any idea if getting a gill net the proper size to remove my carp and/or catfish would get their #'s under control. This is an idea NEfish and I have been looking into. Any advice would be appreciated.

Brian - two ropes for the lead line? I don't understand what you mean.

NEDOC I have had some experience with them. They can be used at least 2 ways. Stationary or pulled. Both kill a lot of fish not just carp. We some times deploy one to get out rough fish or to trap them followed by rotenone.

This method is as follows:

1. Put out the right size net at a good location , for carp where a large shallow water area is constricted on the edge of deeper water.
2. Start at the shore behind the net (shallow side) and with boats and chain or sticks hitting the sides of the boats and the water (noise and vibration) drive the fish toward the net.
3.Follow behind drivers with rotenone poured from boats making a moving line (wave) toward net that will get any stragglers. It will also get other fish not driven out. Step 3 can be skipped if not needed.
4. take the fish out of the gill net and dispose. Repeat in other areas.

Only do an area that you can handle. Don't drive carp toward anyone (keep all people behind the drivers)and no one on deep side of the net during the drive. You need to know how to handle rotenone. It should only be used by someone who understands how to use it. If you do that wrong you could kill the entire pond. Easier to drive big fish than pull a gill net full of them 200 yards.


I think your seine has a mudline roll at the bottom which makes it stay down. That is why you get so much mud. It does help with getting all the fish in a pull though. Ask Bruce about that.

Thanks for the info. You bet we have a mudline. I did not really purchase this seine for the purpose we are using it for right now. Bruce happened to be buying one for his small ponds where the mud line and 1/4" netting was needed, and that is what I will need for my grow out pond in a few years so we split the costs of one. But it is working great if you have enough guys to man it. We really do it more for fun than anything.

The top has one rope with floats on it and the bottom has two ropes together and only one has weights on it.
I don't know what ewest is talking about being a mudline roll. Is that the same thing?

That may be what he is talking about.

Use a mud-line instead of a lead-line on the bottom of the net. A mudline is made out of many strands of rope bound together. As the seine is drawn across the bottom, the mud line stays on top of the mud and eliminates the-digging effect of lead-weighted lines. Not sure about the conclusion. I was told they are made by taking several strands of rope and wraping it with extra net on the bottom. Example on a 5 foot seine start with 6 ft and wrap the bottom 1 ft around 4 strands of rope and tie off and you have a 5 ft seine with a mudline.

Here is another neat method for harvesting by net. I hope the pic works.



Periodic use of a trap-seine will harvest most of the fish from a pond. Generally, a seine 150 to 200 feet long and six to eight feet deep is used for trapping. Set the seine in the water in a location with a smooth bottom 50 feet from shore in an area no deeper than three to four feet (Figure 2). Stretch out the middle third of the seine and coil the remaining sections of the seine at each end. Connect a rope from each coiled end to the shore.


After the seine is set, feed daily between the seine and the pond bank. Sometimes feed must spread on the water outside the catch area to lead fish into the trap. It may take several days, but when the fish are accustomed to feeding between the seine and the pond bank, they are ready to trap. On the day you plan to harvest, feed the fish within the trap area and pull the seine ends to shore.

The trap-seine method cannot be used more than once every seven days. Fish that escape harvest become wary of the net and take a while before they will come back to the area. Also, remember, catfish are creatures of habit and you should consistently feed at the same time of day, including the day of harvest.

Will leaving a seine in the water that long shorten the life span of the seine? I don't really want to do any damage to a net that is only half mine.

I may try this if you don't think this would shorten the life span of the net.

Thanks again for all of the help ewest, this has been a very helpful thread for us guys that are inseine.

Just leave Bruce's half in the water.

I'm positive that it wouldn't damage the seine. Even if it got a little nick in it from a turtle---so what, right?

My seine is just like yours except for the mudline and size. I have used it for a blocking net for mths at a time with no negative effect. They are designed and built by people who make saltwater commercial nets.

OK NEfish, you heard the boys. Lets Git Er Done. I will start the feeding process by hand TODAY and try to get the net in place this weekend. Next time you are around we will drag that seine through the feeding section.

How does Aug. 12th work for seining? (Inside Joke: that is his wedding day)

NEDOC, then Aug. 12 should work fine. You two can be like Grumpy Old Men seining in your tuxedos.

GUSTAVSON!!!!

LMAO!!!

The bad part is, I could see guys like NEfish and Bruce doing something like that.

I am already in trouble with NEfish's fiance because I am trying to get them to just televise the wedding at the local tavern.

Im in guys, wedding is at 4:30, pictures at 1:00, we have plenty of time to do a little pond management! Im sure the "nag" won't mind!

With that many people invited its the only way to go. Projected on to Maury's wall, it'll be like your sitting in the front row!

here is one of the pics of the succesful seining day featuring nedoc and ne fish [img]http://static.flickr.com/67/199642199_3a484cb148.jpg?v=0[/img]

Armageddon!

Here are some more that I finally got uploaded. Plus a nice shot of NEDoc! This pic is taken at the start of the finger 200yds away. Here is myself and a gentelman we call "scrap iron" after the long battle with a heavy net. And my lovely wife-to-be even lent a hand.

The Nebraska Seine Posse strikes again!

Come on Man! How bout some details about what you've pulled up?? Is it carp?

In the first pic that Brucille posted, can you describe what we're looking at? I think I see fish on the green sein itself; now what is to the left of the sein? Is it some very shallow water and some dried dirt??

Agree with Sunil, what hath you guys wrought?

Carp and catfish by the hundreds!!

We also caught about 100 crappie. This seems to be working. If we can get enough guys together to hit this 3-4 times a year we may get these 'trash' fish controlled. 1 seining has already seemed to improve water quality.

BTW, NEfish, thanks for the pix. I love it. I had forgotten the mountain of fish we hauled out of there. I am trying to get some guys together for a seining party Monday night so I will try to get some more pix. If you can make it, come on down.

PS Guys, this truly seems to be helping the gamefish population and water clarity. Last weekend we caught the first LMB that has been caught out of there with rod-n-reel in years.(10+yrs) And the water quality seems to have improved substantially compared to July of most years. It seems as though the water improves in the winter when there is less trash fish activity, but as soon as the carp start becoming active it turns to chocolate milk.

I thought I would update this thread just in case we do end up controlling trash fish with the 'seining method'. Last night, 7-31-06, we seined the east arm of my pond again. 3 guys on one side and a 4 wheeler pulling on the other. This time around we caught several times as many catfish (80+) as we did carp (40+). I don't really know why (warmer water temps?). And we only caught 2 crappie. If you recall, the first seining adventure had close to 400 or 500 carp (which after counting the fish this time I am almost certain is a low estimate) ,200 or 300 catfish, and over 100 crappie.

Anyway, we cleaned all of the catfish over 1 lb. (15-20) and released the rest in a friends pond. The carp we released onto the shoreline If NEfish and I can coordinate, we plan on hitting it 1 more time over Labor Day. I will try to get pictures. We also hope to hit another pond overpopulated by crappie and releasing them into my pond to help control the trash fish. As much as people do not like overpopulated crappie, I could only wish that was my problem at this point. I am actually hoping they overpopulate, so that the trash fish numbers decline. Remember, water clarity is my issue of concern.

Tomorrow I'm running the final seine of the year in one of my lined ponds. There should be a good representation of age-1 fish that may go as high as 8 inches. I've isolated these fish so that they only have pellets available. I suspect that a bunch of the fish didn't thrive, but I'll be thrilled if I get 50-100 that look really good for the reproduction pond next spring. I've already packed the camera. I'm hoping to get some pics of those 4.5-5 inch age-zeros too.

Bruce how did you isolate them so only pellets were available ? Are they in an RAS ? Are there no bugs in the lined pond and if so how did you do that ?

They're in a lined pond that has little or no vegetation in it. I'm sure there are some invertebrates, but they get hammered so hard from the get-go that they probably don't ever get any size to 'em. I've done some jar sampling and never find anything visible to the naked eye.

Wish me luck.

Take plenty of pics for us to see !!

Pulled up over 1,000 bluegill today. These fish are the age-1's that Lusk, Willis, Shorty, Nedoc, Norm, my Dad and I seined up in February. The fish averaged about 4.5 inches, with lots of 5's, 6's and one that was 9 inches!!!!

My biggest shock came when I found these age-1's had pulled off a spawn. There were thousands of bluegill at less than 1 inch to about 1 inch. And that out of a LINED pond with extremely steep slopes and only a little tiny bit of silt stuck to the sides. I guess nature finds a way.

Pictures when I get my computer back someday.

Those BG are determined and prolific aren't they.

The will to survive by procreation is the dominant force along with food and safety.

Look forward to your pics.

I think Mr. Cody will find this especially interesting. Apparently even in poor conditions there will be reproduction.

Ducks probably brought in them young-ens!

Mother Nature and a little help from Dr. Bruce!