Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Help me adopt my fish family

10/4/08 SAMPLING
My pal Phil and his wife Donna are avid fisher-folk. They have not yet visited the LNP project, so I felt this gorgeous October day would be a good time to talk them into bringing down their fishing boat and gear and help me do a sampling.
We picked up a couple dozen nightcrawlers on the way and dropped his boat in at the launch around 11 a.m., bright sunny day. His wife Donna caught 2 YP on crawlers and Phil pulled in a SMB casting a jig.
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Some comparative history...
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YP May '07

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YP Oct '08 (17 months later)


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...and


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SMB May '08 (about 5" long)

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SMB Oct '08 (5 months later)


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SMB caught on

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Phil had a scale, but it wasn't much for minimum incremental accuracy. The divisions were in 1/4# increments. The YP checked at 1/4# and SMB checked at 3/4#. I wouldn't hang my hat on these figures.

But, how did YOU do???

zip

The ole Mr. Twister beetle spin in chartreuse and or black w/ chartreuse. It will be a killer on all species. Man, those are some thick fish!

That is fantastic! Great growth on the smallies.

Way to go Brettski!

You're gonna have a smallie spawn next year I bet.

Those are really beautiful fish. Nice job.

one lil fishy,
two lil fishy,
three lil fishy four,
once you catch one
you gonna watch catch more.


beautiful fish b'ski.

edit.......oh yes, i almost forgot to ask........were you and yer buddy fishing blind, or did you throw around at all that beautiful structure......the trench? sunil's mound?

some more details my man...
where were they hangin out?

Great job B'ski !!!! Those are good looking fish - just like the rest of LNP - well done.

Do you still see any FH around ?

It will be babies next spring/summer. Get ready to take some spawning/yoy pics so we can join in as proud vicarious parents.

...glad ya asked, Dave
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His boat is a nice little package. We tooled around with the trolling motor; no petrol intervention.


He has 2 separate depth finders/transponders; one fore, one aft. As we slowly moved about, I sat aft and was able to watch both screens and see the changes as they occurred from 2 different points of measure. It was very rewarding to watch the subtle and significant changes as a result of our attention to bottomscaping when we excavated. This reward goes directly back to the PB forum for guidance during construction. My pal, Phil, does a fair amount of fishing in the nort' woods of Minnesota + other various midwest locations. He was VERY impressed by the constantly changing depths, ditches, mounds, and holes. He often referred to marking fish with the depth finder. After showing me what to look for, I will agree.
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Although we marked fish in numerous places, he kept coming back to the monster holes in the foreground of the above pic as holding the highest inventory. The pond is down about 18"; the deepest depth reading we got was 16'. When we built it, the laser-shot elevations peg the monster holes at 18' - 20', so we were pretty close to hovering over the deepest points. We worked them with no results.
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Now...let's talk PVC trees.
Phil is sold. This is where the action was. I can already foresee him loading up his boat with PVC pipe on his next run up to Minny.
All 3 fish were caught within the PVC reef (the line of 6 PVC trees, flanked by a tire pyramid at each end).

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Phil did most of the casting. He noted hits fairly often and became very focused on pulling the lure thru the reef. Both YP were caught directly adjacent to a PVC tree there, also.
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Dski and I did nothing more than to re-acquaint ourselves by fishing with worm and bobber. Neither of us got action, but that's OK. The fact that we picked up and used open face reel equipment after so many years was documented as a successful day for us. Dski picked up handling the reel and bail thing v quickly.

Yep, FH are still happening (or maybe we're seeing offspring of the 20# of G shiners stocked 5 months ago...?). We see small packs (all the way down to fry-size) all the time.
We have also seen substantial packs of YOY YP.

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Great, great, great results.

Me too Sunil. Great post Brettski. Interesting observations about your various types of structure and cover. Between your PVC reef and the the Porquipine Fish Attractor video that Nate posted it seems like that type of structure is great to add to a pond.

Keep fishing Brettski. The first time you hook and land one of your own fish you'll be amazed at how rewarding it is.

Good stuff.

FANTASTIC!!!

Great to see the YP have already spawned.

Fishing will be much, much better once the pond has filled up with offspring SMB/YP/RES. Right now, you've got slim pickings, just the original stockers. Imagine 10 to 100 times as many fish to catch - that's how the action will be a 1-2 years.

BTW GREAT looking Perch and Smallie.

Thank you, gents. I really enjoy taking you guys there with me, if only as a cyber-visit. It's been a collective mind operation, implemented thru my back and credit line. D-ski's also. I really hope that Cody will be able to download this page (potential difficulty = pics divided by dial-up). His thought process and endless giving of time and guidance was a leader on this project.
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Phil and Donna were simply amazed at how "clean and healthy" the specimens were. When I told him that I was counting on them to help me "manage the pond" by fishing it, I could see the wheels turning.
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I wonder what these same fish will look like next year?
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...JHAP notes

Absolutely affirmative, Jeff. Our clarity continues to be good; about 3 feet. Remembering that the pond is down by about 18" right now, the tops of the PVC trees were still about 12" - 18" below the surface and easily seen, even from 8-10 feet away. Even the tops of the black tires could be seen when up close, appearing as a dark shadow of their outline under the surface. Cool!

Conratulations, BSki! It sure is rewarding to finally see the fruits of your labor. If you get a chance, try to fish with a golden shiner instead of a nightcrawler, with your rig. I've been having excellent luck, out my way ,with that set up in the last couple of weeks. If you can cast net them out your pond, then you don't have to worry about introducing any unwanted species (which may happen if bought from a bait shop). If you try fishing with minnows, just make sure you are using circle hooks. I made the mistake yesterday of using a straight shank worm hook with a shiner, and ended up having a SMB mort due to a swallowed hook . It was a very sad day for me.

...btw, there is a dark cloud on this sampling procedure.
The first YP inhaled the hook and worm. Even tho the barb was crushed and Phil has good experience with removal, it was buried. He asked me if I wanted to cut the hook and leave it or try for a v low percentage of survival. I told him to pull it out. Floater. The silver lining is that both Dski and I needed to have this happen to bolster the deliniation between sport/food and pets. I think I felt worse knowing what I put into getting it to that point, as opposed to killing a pet. We're good with it, particularly knowing it will provide another link in the food cycle. Yeah, I know...kinda dopey, but it's just the way it is.
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Would it have been better, in the big picture, to have cut the hook and let it go?

It could have gone either way, Bski.

I am always pulling some fish out to eat; conversely, there are some that I want to see get as big as possible. Unless a foul-hooked fish that might have a chance is in the latter category, I go ahead and pull it out.

If there is a lot of bleeding, especially from the gills, the fish is a goner and might as well come out.

You will get experience watching "probably not gonna make its" that you release float up afterwards, and maybe even get to see some ones you cut the line on and released with the hook still in get recaught later and be AOK (I have had this happen 2-3 times). It gives you a better feel for which way to go in these situations.

BTW, that's really good growth on the new fish - I just had to say it (again).

That happens regularly to us at my Dad's pond.

YP are probably quicker to swallow the hook than any other fish I'm aware of.

My Dad and I think YP is the best eating of all, so we keep a five gallon bucket handy. If we take out a hook on a questionable fish he goes in the bucket. You'll know generally in 15 minutes if the fish has any chance of survival, i.e., he's still swimming in the bucket.

YP tolerate low O2 extremely well, in particular if the water isn't too hot, so if a "to be released" fish spends some time in a five gallon bucket with two gallons of water they're not the worse for wear.

It they start floating or struggling, it's straight to the frying pan.

Bski - I saw the before and after photos, your stocking and pond experiences show what can be done in growing YP and SMB when it is done correctly. Good job.

As far as sampling goes, I have found that if swallowing the hook is a problem one can switch to a larger hook No 4 or even a No 2 or switch to minnows for bait for YP and SMB. However the larger hooks do bias the catch results toward larger fish if records are being kept. When these fish (YP-SMB) take a minnow there is a little more handling time involved before swallowing compared to worms. I caught 11 perch yesterday for removal and transfer using minnows under a bobber - none swallowed the hook.

Since you under stocked the pond regarding numbers, catching will improve greatly in a couple years as the new recruits grow to fill the carrying capacity of the new pond. New recruits should also grow well since lots of forage items are present. Once carrying capacity is reached expect growth rates to be somewhat reduced due to a limiting or availability of forage foods.

Again good job, your pond seems to be doing well so far. Did you get a chance to set a fish trap while at the pond?

Thank you, Maestro Cody (Sunil; if you please). Any successes achieved are the results of heeding the guidance of my teachers.
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I did not throw out the minnow trap this time. The events of the day were timed tight and designed to provide other entertainment functions. The trap will see action during another near-future day trip to LNP.
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A little side note, speaking of entertainment. As we broke for a late lunch at the picnic table inside the screen tent in the woods at pond-side, we watched a half dozen wild turkeys work across the building pad, foraging thru the grasses. A nice natural bonus for the day.

I have read most of the posts on your pond journey Brettski, this is my favorite update. Congrats on your success and I hope the future holds even more of it for you, very nice lake and very nice fish. This is the kind of stuff that keeps the rest of us motivated. Thanks for the pictures.

Joe

I think more people feel this way than will admit to it Brettski. I know JWHAP and I sure do. (pssst don't tell anyone but so does DIED). To this day everything that I have caught on my pond I have released. Next year we will begin culling fish and part of me does not look forward to it. We found a large bullhead floating in our pond this past year and were kinda bummed. It's all part of the cycle of owning a pond. JWHAP was fairly opposed to culling fish until we went to the Pond Boss Conference and she learned the benefit and necessity of fish culling. She freely admits that this was a huge benefit of attending the conference.

Congratulations on the experience. It sounds like you had a great day on your property.

The next additions should be HSB and Walleye.

They will coexist very nicely with everything you've got going on right now.

Bump - great thread to review. BTW B'ski its time to get ready to get us some pics of those SMB spawning.