Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Nowhere to run, swim or hop.

I have shown some photos of an old beaver pond that I use for black bottom clay that goes dry seasonally. But that entire creek has gone bad, county installed some weird cistern diversion and beavers that were there for my hole life left. Now something that has never happened before has happened. All the ponds upstream are either dried up or are drying up, including a the new parrotfeather covered beaver pond.

All sorts of things have got stuck in the pond which is losing a foot of water a week and is probably done in two-three weeks. I saw adult bullfrogs literally shoulder to shoulder, maybe 20 in a 10 foot section of shoreline. All the big crawdads were coon food. They got dug out of thier holes and eaten. At least 12 if not way more turtles, the inexperience ones 6" and smaller down to ones that won't fit in a frog's mouth. I estimate over 2 dozen. The bigger experienced turtles are staying upstream in the deep pond. But they are sereval hundred yards apart, and nothing downstream left for a mile. A guy told me he saw a real nice koi in there, I was skeptical, but saw it today while picking a quart of wild blackberries for the family. Looked like a Ogon, real nice.

I think I should adjust this population by rescuing it and donating the survivors to my other don't go dry ponds. I have customers who want frogs, several and one who want turtles I am building a turtle island for. I'm thinking I should seine it but it is shallow, maybe 2-3 feet, but close to 2 and barely 50 feet across at it's widest. And the frogs are all in this old dead stick and branch area, the only cover in the entire pond. There were 4 huge adults sitting on the shore less than 5 feet from me in one square yard. I wish I had a camera. The only net I have that small is a minnow net, and I think it may get ripped to shreds by turtles and that carp. Plus it could have other weird suprises I am not even seeing, but it is a smooth bottom, I have a photo showing that. I'm thinking instead of a net, maybe dragging a 50 foot long two feet roll of chicken wire weighted and floated through it. Or maybe ask a fish farm guy for a heavy duty shallow short seine. Not something I want to buy, because I think this is the only pond I could ever use it in. But I fell compelled to save the remaining critters. Time is not on thier side. Any suggestions?

The seine would be better for the fish - less injury. Could you use a barbless hook and something & catch the adult frogs (use a long pole)?

The chickenwire would be my last resort due to the abrasive nature. I think it wouldn't conform to the bottom as easily as a seine; if there were any depressions the fish would squirt out the bottom to the backside of the seine.

I have a fine meshed minnow net that has an extendable handle - it'll get to roughly 10' long.

How about a cast net. They're about $25 and there's lots of videos on youtube on how to throw them if you don't already know how.

I already have a cast net. Would work but take forever catching one thing at a time, this pond is at least 400 feet long, barely 50 feet wide and I doubt it is over 3 feet deep anywhere. I have a photo of it dried out somewhere here. I bought these $8 plastic poultry fences, 1" square, 40" tall and 25' wide. I bought two. I will zip tie two together, end to end, zip tie a bunch of unused salmon and rockfish weights I have been melting to make decoy weights and some milk jugs and orange juice gallon jugs for floats. Talk about a hillbilly rig. Water dropped another 2-3 inches, in about 24 hours. The frogs are mostly full sized adults, some monsters. This pond is within a week of a total fish crash. I don't want to be there then. I'll get my boys out there within a few days and we drag this hillbilly rig end to end. Good photo op. Should be a lot of laughs either way.

Well, Murphy's Law special on this boondoggle. I felt like a government worker, except not being overpaid for incompetent results. First, a day or so too late. Koi is gone, 90% of frogs are gone. Larger turtles gone.

Bottom of this pond makes it close to impossible to seine. Too many 3-4" deep cracks, everywhere. Just like the photo of it dry showed. They fill with some soft muck, but even with a bunch of lead on the bottom, you just drag right over the cracks. I saw frogs in the shallows go right for them. Dragged net right over three baby turtles, caught none. A for effort, D- for results. Kids had fun, picked lots of blackberries.

I did manage to catch 3 large bullfrogs, and 1 10" Red Eared Slider. This stretch of the creek has always had a lot of those, from the old days when they became illegal to sell little ones because of salmonella. Regular pond turtles are native. These are not. The large parrotfeather pond was even way down in numbers. They were shell to shell in the few remaining basking areas. Yesterday I saw two, caught the one. They are fleeing up in peoples backyards. A lady caught a baby and put it back in the pond. Baitfish net is the old reliable here. In a couple of days the water will clear and I'll just walk out and net whatever is left. Maybe I should have been a census taker?