Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Bob is going to electrofish our pond next week

Anyone in North Texas (or surrounding areas) who subscribes to pondboss magazine and wants to come out and see Bob Lusk electrofish our pond is welcome.

A bit of the history:
Our pond is only a year old but I got my fish from Rex Allen Curtis. Mr Curtis has a reputation here on Pondboss and with the Pulaski County Court system, but unfortunately I did not find Pondboss before I got my fish.
As many of you may know, I have been posting pictures of our fish every since I stocked the pond. Well I caught my first LMB right after Christmas and it was almost 2 Lbs and my son caught a bigger one the next day it was 2Lbs 2 Oz. In talking to Bob and others, there was a concern that the fish I was sold might not have faired well and only a very few survived and that was why I caught the two big LMB.
I have caught one other LMB since, it carries tag number 1.

Here is the deal, bob is coming out to our farm on the 12th of March around 2PM to electro-fish. We will be tagging the LMB and surveying the rest of the population. Bob will be telling me what if anything needs to be done to correct our fish population to bring it into balance.

I have LMB, Crappie, HBG, RES, CNBG, CC, FHM, native BG lots of frogs, a few snakes and a few turtles.

Our pond is in East Texas north of Tyler about 45 minutes.

It would be interesting to see the results.

Any RFID tagging going on? That would be really cool

NO RFID yet, but if I could find some, I would be tempted at the right price!!

Are there any FHM left in your pond? If there are, that would be a good indication you don't have many bass... Especially if you also have crappies.

Don't forget to have someone along to take a LOT of pictures!

CJ, we do have FHM in our pond. Remember that I could not afford to stock the pond fully last year and the minnows were there naturally because of the little pond which is just down stream from the big pond. I also have a lot of shallow areas where the minnows can hide. As the pond fills, new areas are opened to both the predators and the prey. Also, the FHM's were in the pond for five months by themselves and I saw a lot of minnow activity before I added the other fish.
I suspect that after our pond reaches full pool(remember Texas' drought), we will have far less minnows around, but that is one of the things Bob should be able to help us with.

Esshup, I have two HD camcorders (one for underwater) and I am bringing two still cameras ( again, one for underwater) to document the whole day. Sometime after monday, I'll post the pictures and video links on Pondboss. My only concern is that Texas is going to get some rain this week and maybe this weekend so the water might be a litte cloudy, but I'll do my best! It should be interesting for sure and I am very interested to see the results!

Is there anything else I need to focus on that you guys would like to see? I will do my best to document everything, but if there are things of interest, let me know and I will try to give extra time to those areas.

Thanks for the thoughts, please keep them coming. It will be years before I do this again, I hope!

Can't wait to see what your results are.

If you shock up any unusual species, take pics of them. That is one of my favorite parts of being there when shocking is going on. Especially in an open body of water like a large lake or river, you just never know what's gonna come up!

CJ, I am going to take pictures of everything we find! Like I said earlier, I have 2 camcorders and 2 cameras ready to take pictures and video! Two for underwater and two for above water! I can hardly wait! I can't stop thinking about getting in the pond.

I post it all on Pondboss as soon as possible! Stay tuned!