Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What does everyone Harvest for food at their pond?

Good idea or bad?

I didn't want to hi-jack a recent thread, but it gave me an idea. To start a new thread that would compile information about what everybody harvests from their pond. This might be a good place for those that are interested in having a pond for a food source to see what is going on in real-life scenarios. Yes, there is the pounds per acre formula, but instead we often relate to amounts per year in different ways. I would assume that most don't even keep track of pounds for a meal, just that a meal is meal. Obviously there are many variables to this, but I am thinking along basic info. like:

1) Size of pond/lake?
2) What fish do you eat from the pond? ---This does not have to include all the species present, just the ones you harvest for food.
3 The Amount? ---Just a aprox. number of some sort. For example: 5 meals a year for a family of three. -OR- One fish fry a year for the family re-union of 40 people -OR- one meal a week for a family of two. etc, etc, etc.......

Just keep it simple for overview purposes. Myself, along with hundreds of newbies out there would be curiuos and thankfull for it.

I'd say something like .02 meals per year.
Who wants to clean fish after a hard day fishing?
And actually the fish are kind of my pets. Did you ever see the episode of The Simpsons where Homer buys a small lobster, becomes attached to it while raising it and then cries while eating it? That kind of sums it up for me.

OK, 13-15 surface acres when full, 7-8 during a rough weather year.
LMB only.
Every 3rd Friday for 6 fireman, most of the year. Adding the stripers and whites I catch on big water, we eat fish at least once a month.

Also, 6 fireman = 9 normal people. We like to eat.

From my pond, enough for one person (I don't know if Kate, my Springer Spaniel would like fish for dinner). I have no problem with one meal per week, and recently I had a bunch of friends over. We pulled out enough fish to feed 20 people.

I normally take out LMB because I have to stay on top of the population or it'd overgrow the food chain. For the 20 people, it was LMB, BG and some YP.

I love to eat on the bone BG. My pond is 1.4 acres and im managing for big BG. I harvest 4 to 5 inch BG for frying whole. I can eat about a dozen in one sitting, but I dont want to remove larger gills that might make it to trophy size. I also harvest bass over 15 inches. Here are some pics of em in the pan.

pond 1 is 8 acres, pond 2 is 1.3 acres...I'd guess we average a meal a week during most of the year, feeding 5-7 people.

What do we eat? Whatever we catch. Not really - I'm trying to manage for trophy LMB so any bass over 16 or so goes back in. Slot limit on 12-15 bass come out, sometimes, as well as all the crappie we catch and some of the BG.

Last week we took out 17 crappie, 2 BG and no bass.

We clean and eat a lot of fish during the ice free months (april - Nov.). BG, BCP, YP. Two ponds 1 ac and 1/4 acre.

Clean all fish with the exception of 10" BCP or bigger which are released. We average 2 -3 fish meals every month. Family of 4 to groups of 10. My target is 400-500 fish cleaned per season.

Opener of MN 2012 fishing season with 8 guys

^ Wow. Thats a lot of fish. I wonder if my pond could handle that kind of harvest?

So did you clean all of these fish, if so do you filet them or cook them whole. If you do not mind cleaning these samller fish I think they taste better anyway.

My grandmother, who died when she way 98 years young, had me keep every panfish that I caught that was 5" or larger. She'd scale, de-head and gut them. Roll them in seasoned flour and pan fry them. If she found out that I tossed back 5"-6" BG I'd hear about it!!! She'd use a grapefruit spoon (the kind with the serrated tip) to scale the fish.

My family and friends with fish are like the Forest Gump movie and shrimp...pan fryed fish, pan fried skin on fish, grilled skin on fish, grilled fillet fish, tin foil wrapped fish, smoked fish, fish in red sauce, pickled fish, canned fish, dried fish....on and on.

Well this is my 3 in a half year mark and I have not kept any fish for eating just yet. I believe I will start this next spring though. My BG and CNBG are start to get decent size enough now to keep and eat. My LMB are just now hitting 100 percent RW so I am starting to look good there too. Should be fun this next spring for sure. If my pond don't dry up and float away!!

Not sure about my HSB as I have not caught any since July???

Excellent question ...

Yet, this is a very difficult question to answer. Our pond, and the ponds of many friends, are the centers of many community get-togethers. All include a lot of harvesting and good eating from non-commercial sources.

I was with several friends at breakfast this morning as we were joking about one of the latest "Preppers" shows. We were all laughing, scratching, and telling lies as we decided we must all be preppers, even though we don't really subscribe to their views. We just enjoy life as it has been for us, for many generations.

We grow big gardens. We preserve what we harvest. We shoot and harvest wild animals, meaning, that we hunt, and we have guns, but we aren't 2nd Amendment activists -- actually we like to "bare arms" during the summer gardening season, and we find it rather humorous to arm bears!.

We grow warm blooded animals like cattle, hogs, rabbits, and poultry. We grow the warm blooded animals for what they give us, like eggs and milk, plus meat. We grow cold blooded critters like the fish in our ponds. In our family and neighborhood group, we all have specialties. To us, a neighborhood covers at least a 25 mile radius -- maybe more.

Around the edges of my ponds, I grow horse radish, lettuce, spinach, onions, and cress. Just above the pond, in the wetland areas, I grow WV ramps, berries, and much more. In these areas I grow many of the gourd family, like cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins.

I guess we grow kids and grand kids at the edge of the pond too. They camp in tents at the pond. They learn to make s'mores and just enjoy a campfire, while they wait for a big old catfish to grab their line in the dark. In the morning, they are in the canoes and kayaks, making parents and grandparents nervous before we can start cooking pancakes and eggs.

My friends and I regularly renovate or replant fields around our ponds for the major critters, like deer and turkey. We carefully manage their numbers every season, which we can do with reasonable confidence, because friends and relatives own hundreds of acres around us.

Although my wife and I are "come heres" to where we now live, we are one of many local families who have multiple multi-family gatherings each year. A typical neighborhood gathering, whether just a party, a wedding reception, a baptism, or a funeral wake, they always include at least 30-40 people. Sometimes more. Nobody ever goes home hungry. We always have lots of fish and lots of good times.

Our 3/4 acre pond probably provides about 250-350 lbs., of fish per year. Mostly bluegill and catfish, with some LMB. I have no idea of how much venison the pond area produces, but, it too, is in the many hundreds of pounds per year.

Vegetables -- ?? Enjoyment for swimming, fishing, canoeing -- ??

It always involves at least three generations, and frequently four, of family and friends. In November and December, it includes a lot of butchering and a lot of good eating and fun. It is family inclusive, from infants too young to know how young they are, to those too old to remember how old they are.

As the weather gets too cold to gather outside, we congregate in neighborhood barns or big basements for country dancing, eating, and just plain family fun.

At least where I live, our ponds produce far more than what can ever be measured. It can't be measured in pounds, inches, whatever ...

Regards,
Ken

^ Wow, catmandoo. Thats a very thoughtfull post above. I didn't want to make this topic to be to time consuming for people to add their thoughts, but you sure did cover alot of areas that are dear to most people that have ponds. Thank you. And yes, it is a hard one to reply to because of the variables. That is why I tried to give a basic set of questions above. But more info is always appreciated.

I hope the replies keep coming. It is good to see the different ways people relate to what a meal is. If you compare the weight of steak to fish, fish takes up alot more volume than a steak so it may not take as much pounds of fish to make a meal as most might think. At least if we are sight orientated to our hunger.

Cat -Thats not a post to a question....that was a poem!

AWESOME!

For our family of four, we probably eat fresh fish 2-3 times a month. I find the lack of time to be the biggest hindrance to consuming more, as I am not able to fish as much as I would like. We eat more during the winter, as I am a devotee of cold water fishing, and have more free time.

Up to now BG have constituted the majority of our dinners, but the CC need to take on a more active role in this regard.

Cat I hope to have what you got someday.. That's a beautiful picture in my mind..

Cat, u da man! We too live off the land and have friends and family over literally all the time. I have a stinkin awesome big fryer and we cook for over 1500 people up at the lake every year. We harvest bout 200 hsb and 200 cc every year from our lake for eating fresh. We also eat fish caught from deep sea fishing trips too!

I just observe the nature in and around my pond, but eating vegan I occasional cut off the bottom stem of cattails, peel it down to the inner white portion and add that to salads. My experiment with the foam island showed me that not only flowers but also spinach mustered and probably many other vegetables can most likely be grown. You see at the ends of the island the spinach mustard is still going strong even though the flowers are done. No weeding or watering, just plant and forget.

Even when the flowers were beautiful you can see the spinach mustered was doing well.

Just a reminder to everyone to try and include the basic answers that is important for harvesting expectations. Say if there is 100 fish taken per year/month, it does matter what size the pond is too, etc. Newbie and future pond owners will then relate to this easily to the size pond they may/might have and what they may get.

Mike Almond--- How often do you have your meals?

Sprkplug ---- What size is your pond(s)?

n8ly ---- What size is your pond(s)? - or in your case, should I say lake.

We have 5 ponds, ranging from 1/2 acre up to 3.5 acres. As such, we could harvest much more, if time would permit.

Hank Williams Jr. would be proud. We're them old boys raised on shotgun. Homemade wine anyone?

Updating the thread, as now I can add my own fish harvest from the summer.

Pond is 1 acre
Stocked 50 RBT fall of 2012
Harvested 29 fish yielding 59.5 lbs

Also have LMB and BG in pond but to new to start harvesting any.

I heard you can harvest more than food at your pond in Colorado as of January 1.

Fish-n-chips, I am not familiar with how much production trout should yield, but that sounds pretty good to me. Were you satisfied with the results? Going to stock trout again?

On another thought, I know a lot of guys on here are also big time fishermen. But as far as harvesting fish for table fare from a private pond, I guess there would be numerous other options. When the time comes, I may experiment some with alternative methods, in case I don't catch the fishing bug bad enough.

What I have caught so far to put in my other pond and just to check some sizes of growth, it was pretty fun. But all I had to do was put a worm or a piece of table corn on a small hook and before it hit the bottom, there was a BG on.

I may be one of those that likes catching fish, but when they are not biting not having the patience to wait them out. So I think with me, it will depend on the fishes desire to be on a hook. If they got the desire, I'll probably harvest that way. If they are a little choosy, alternative methods may be exercised.