A friend has a dam. Built three years ago. has at least 2 dams up the drainage from it. It is also more than a mile from the dam to the top of the drainage, and the over flow from the well goes into the dam. it gets plenty of water.
it is about a 1/4 surfaceacre and he boasts 30 ft deep, id believe 25 ft.
we have put 400 male 3" perch, 50 adult bluegill, 25 adult bass includeing some 4-5 ponders, 18 adult walleye, and 10 smallmaouth bass, in the first years. along with a few gallons of fhm right off the bat.
The walleye had a spawn, but not as well as the bass did. The perch have not (may need to add some females)and we have caught no you BG yet.
But we do catch a lot of GSF and BH!!! Grrrr..
He seems to like the GSF and can not distinguish them from bluegill. But the bull head are annouying.
What are your opinions.
ok, now that we have your opions with out my questions, I will ask a few.
Obviosly to kill off all three dams may bee the best choice. But he will not want to do that, how could I talk him in to it.
Second, if we do that, there are some real trophies in his dam now, how could we preserve them? There are large walley, and one bass that makes your jaw drop, and I have not seen the blue gill for my self yet but he says tey are socer plate.
Despite all that, with the constant inlow of water from the well, would that help incourage the walleye to spawn as they did once the dam was newer and not so mossed up, Would it help if we put gravel infront of that small amout of incomeing water, and how could we keep the weeds out of it??
OK JHAP,, how do you grow trophie GSF, I hear nothing swimms up stream like a little greenie, so we are probly doomed to have them....
and again bull head, no way to irradicate them??
Set lines??
Do they like stink as much as catfish.
There are a lot of cattails so catching the young may be diffacult.
I am thinking of making one of those snow fence PVC traps I saw on the Crappie Mistake post ond them sort though the catch.
We have thrown out minnow trapps before with no luck.
oh-ya, the bass are reproduceing nicely too. and they are not on the skinny side yet, but are not the biggest I have seen.
Do catfish like to eat bullhead??
Thanks guys, I know I am asking alot.
GSF don't do well with BG. They don't seem to be able to compete with the reproduction rate that BG are capable of sustaining. Your friend should be congratulated for liking GSF, this demonstrates that he is a man of impeccable character and above average intelligence.
I'm certainly no expert, just an idiot with a keyboard (JAIWAK), but it seems to me like you have a huge variety of species (perch - do you mean real perch like yellow perch?, GSF, BG, WE, adult bass (I'm assuming you mean LMB), SMB, bullhead. Sounds like a recipe for disaster in a 1/4 acre pond.
Given that you are in SD, I'd like to hear some feedback from Dr. Dave, Wild Bill and any other experts.
Spurts?
his 6 and 4 year old boys like the varieties.
did I ask too many questions at once and scare everybody opinion off??
Re: bullhead. Yes, catfish love them. They can generally be easily controlled if you have a nice population of predators, be it LMB or CC.
So your walleye spawned huh? Can you tell us more about that?
Thanks for the feed back guys, really apprittiate it!!
The walleye were livewell stocked from a local lake that has naturally producing walleye. about ten of them over 18 inches and five or so at 10 inches.
The walleye where put in the summer the dam was finished with the bottom being red clay and some rock, and there being large rock on the face. Not much moss or pond weed grew for the first few years and the water was very very clear. Now the pond has a lot more growth and only has a visiability of four foot or so instead of 10 +.
Last summer, I caught 2 walleye at 8 inches, perfect specamens no flaws or missshape at all, and no one has caught a small one since. But the dam is only 3 or 4 summers old.
Ill let you know on how the attempting to breed them goes, and about the bull head anialation.
going to make some traps, big traps.