Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Need a fish trap??

If you do, I found a great deal on some on ebay. The seller is OROProducts--Aquatic Eco System's eBay division. They are selling them cheap.


I've read so many posts here suggesting that we use traps to get a good sampling of our fish, so I decided to get a few. It was such a good buy from a Pond Boss advertiser that I thought I would spread the word. Surely I can't be the only one on this forum without traps...


If you only need a couple, make an offer for $10. If you need more, make an offer of $5 and be sure to ask them to combine the shipping and be sure to tell them Rainman or Pond Boss sent you so they will accept the offer.

Here is a link to the auction...Fish Trap from Aquatic Eco

will a trap like that catch bass and crappie????

Welcome to Pond Boss, cd55.

Hang in there and someone might be able to give a good answer to your question.

I don't know cd55. I guess the proper bait would determine the catch. The traps I ordered from them have a funnel type sleeve that has a max opening diameter of about 3 inches and then closes after the fish enters.

Looks cool. How do I use the data gathered from one of these traps to evaluate my pond? Can a sample of fish caught from one of these traps give a good insight into the health of the entire fish population?

Bump

A couple answers needed.

Inquiring minds............

Brett, I would consider trap data one more source of information about the fish in a pond, that could be added to creel results, observation, seine data, electrofishing to be used as input to pond management. None of these methods alone will sample every species and size of fish in a pond accurately and without bias. But the more of them you can combine into a total information picture, the better that picture is.

When you see what all species you have in a pond, you know if there are any undesireable fish you want to remove indiscriminantly. When you have the numbers and sizes of the desirable species, you can see if the forage species are providing enough right-sized food for the predators (or, if you manage like me, if there are enough right-sized predators to thin smaller BG and allow bountiful food for the remaining BG to grow to large size. You also need to consider and answer questions like "Do I want to feed pelleted food, based on which species are present to utilize it?" and "Has my feeding program created bigger, well fed fish, or just a greater number of small hungry fish?"

I recently bought a really nice ph tester from them on ebay. Got it CHEAP too. Shipping was fast as well.

They have a lot of handy stuff.

cd55, I don't see why you can't catch bass, and crappie as long as the funnel opening is big enough, you would be surprised at the size fish that will squeeze into a trap. I have a homemade fish trap, and I catch all the different fish in my pond which includes golden shiners, pumpkinseeds, rainbow, brook, and tiger trout. I put trout feed in it, but I noticed better results when I added beef liver. Give it a try.