Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Beaver pond woes

Hey that sounds great! never heard of it before. Thats what makes this site so excellent im sure im gonna pick up alot of info from you guys its seems like you have been in the buisness of ponds for a long time . Knowledge....its a great thing!As far as the frogs...i have a huge population in the pond, along with newts some painted turtles ,lots of water bugs.........quite a few wild ducks every year there seems to be a little more and like i said , i have seen a few crayfish but not many....dont know how many exsist in the pond. As you can see by the pics i have some water plants but not to many with exception of cattails which seem to be abundant around perimeter of the pond.
I have been researching SMB , the more i read up on them ,the more i think they would be the best choice!

It's like a bull whip, only smaller

There are 404 species of cray fish in N. America. If you have water 3/4 of the year you have crayfish. With little or no fish predation you probably have alot of crayfish. Try a crayfish trap or looking for them at night with a flashlight. Anyplace I look for crawdads I find them, I wouldn't worry about how many you have.

TY , im bringing up some traps next spring. I planned on checking out the crayfish population. and doing a minnow exraction to see excactly whats going on with that. I think its impotrtant to positivly identify them,even though im99% sure i know what they are. As far as predators you were correct when suggested SMB thanks ! im pretty excited about starting that.taking my location into account do you have any idea what kind of growth i could expectwith the bass?

Well, Smb only live about 7 years, males have a shorter life expectancy and spawn at 3 or 4 years depending on thier size. Males spawn no more than two times and ussaly one. So most males do not survive to be 6.
Fishbase.org is the place I go when I need specifics on any given fish. Here is their site for SMB
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.cfm?genusname=Micropterus&speciesname=dolomieu

Notice they have a link to growth estimates and data. All thier graphs are in log scale and using complex formulas to estimate length, weight, and mortality. I didn't completly grasp it, but I'm working on it.

It seems to me , if i can get some nice smallies goin in this pond i might be able to set up a nice little "wilderness" fee fishing spot. i havnt reseached it at all and dont have any idea how to set something like this in motion. however, i have a notion that there might be people around that would jump at the chance to fish at a pond like mine and have a chance at catchin some smallmouth "bullies". What do you guys think?

mtnlobster: If I understand your situation, you don't live at you lake (an absentee land owner).

I wouldn't create a fee fishing site. I think the more people that know about your beautiful pond, the more people will try and fish it without permission. Also, those that do fish it w/ permission may end up doing damage to the fish: gullet hooking, foul hooking, hooks in the fishes eyes, etc. Plus you may get more litter, both intentional and unintentional.

For our lake, we de-barb all of our hooks. I mostly fish w/ live bait, and occasionally gullet hook some fish. I keep those de-hooking things on me, so that I can free up the hooks and release the fish.

When you think about the potential income from fee fishing, I wonder if it's really worth the few hundred buck you might take in.

I'm an absentee land owner. However, if you lived there, that may be a different situation. In my experience, most of the people who have trespassed at our lake and land have little to no respect for the property.

For a smallie to become a monster lunker, think of all the years of TLC you'll have to put in.

Sun sounds like you know what your takin about!Your points make alot of sense. Anybody else have a different point of view?