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#283425 03/09/12 03:11 PM
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A friend and I went to meet one of the Arkansas fish trucks this morning to get some fish. Just ahead of us was a guy who lives a couple of miles from us, and is a friend of friends. Not somebody we really knew.

As I walked up behind him I heard him ordering crappie. I kind of questioned him about why, and the fish truck driver wasn't too happy with me as I explained. He said he has about an acre pond that is about 15 years old with bass, bluegill, catfish, and crappie.

Then he finished his order. 200 2-3 inch bluegill, 100 3-4 inch catfish, and a pound of fatheads. I didn't say anything. The catfish he was buying were $0.45 each. He could have gotten 6-8 inch catfish for $0.65 each.

I didn't say anything. My friend and I looked at each other. We figure his investment of about $200-$250 was probably gobbled up by his resident bass and crappie within an hour of dumping the new fish in. We invited him to come visit to talk about pond management.


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Wow all that in a 1 acre pond? And he wanted to put more crappie in there?? I wonder how that's working for him? 3 predator fish in a 1 acre pond? Wow those fish must be hungry all the time!! smile


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This is just a rant.

As some of you may have seen, I recently put in a few new ponds. The biggest new pond, about 1/4 acre, is intended as a "put-and-take" pond that can easily be drained and seined. The other new ponds are "brood" or "grow-out" ponds, and are smaller. The fish should be easily be "netted" from these smaller ponds.

I wasn't ready for all of this. I hadn't planned on building these ponds until later in the summer, when it is usually extremely dry. Even when they got built, I didn't expect full pool until October.
But, here we are at the end of May. Since we started excavating about three weeks ago, we've gotten over five inches of rain. The prognosticators are calling for very heavy rain in the next couple of days. All of my ponds are currently well over full-pool.

As a consequence, because the new ponds have already started to clear, and are full of tadpoles, I decided I'd start stocking.

As of a couple of days ago, I started looking for fish for the new ponds. As an officer of our state's aquaculture association, it really gives me a major boost to want to push education of the pond-owning public. Every time I buy fish for my ponds, I get an education, and it isn't always positive. This week has been especially disappointing. Oh, how I wish all the pond owners from several states around could attend a Pond Boss conference.

Yesterday, I was horribly mis-charged by our state's biggest supplier -- by exactly three-to-one for what the fish should have cost. I bought a bunch of fish, so I didn't look closely at the invoice until after the fish were in my new pond. This place doesn't take credit cards, and I try not to use checks anymore. As with all of the fish dealers, this is a very friendly place. They loaded the fish in my truck, while the owner and I bantered about state and federal regulations, and as we discussed the merits of my educated aquaculture friends in state government. Because they've known me for a long time, they sent me on my way, with the expectation that I'd send them a check when I got home (which I did). It was noon-time, and it was hot. The fish were well packed in oxygenated double bags that were in boxes that had ice packs. I wanted to get these fish in my pond as soon as possible. The price seemed a little high, but, ... When I got home I looked at the invoice. Wow! When I called, they immediately took care of the problem. I believe it was an honest mistake, however, it just shouldn't have happened. The fish were of extremely good quality. Unfortunately, this hatchery just couldn't provide HBG or fatheads.

I dealt with a second and third dealer today. I got very large and healthy fatheads from a second dealer -- but they too couldn't provide the HBG I wanted. Another long and sad story.

However, just to get the fatheads, I had to go to an ATM to get cash! They don't take credit cards or checks. I had to fight rush hour traffic to get enough cash. All this added well over an hour to my trip to get several pounds of fatheads, when I was also expecting to also get 200 HBG, which they didn't have.

The third dealer ... I won't even go there!

Worse than all of that, as I was getting my fish at these places, I heard advice that just really disturbed me. Much of what I heard goes against everything that Pond Boss preaches, and what we advise through our state aquaculture extension service offices.

Like telling a customer -- as soon as you get to your pond, open the bag and make the fish swim out of the bag immediately so they don't get temperature stressed. (I'm fairly positive that our local pond waters are 15-20 degrees cooler than the fish truck water.)

Or, like a guy near me, buying almost $500 worth of 2-3 inch RES and mixed black and white crappies, for a mature one acre pond that he says has big LMB and channel cats. I talked to him briefly. I bit my tongue and shut my mouth. I know the pond. It is beautiful from the road. I'm guessing his $500 worth of fish will be in LMB and CC fish bellies within the next 12 hours.

Yeesh,
Ken


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Ken, sorry you had such a tough day. On another thread recently, I mentioned that I bought 100 2-3" CNBG and got 300+ (2" or less), plus two catfish. The 50 4-5" CNBG that I purchased were about 3-4" with one being 5". Those fish trucks are a crap shoot.


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What kills me are the fish farms that push fathead minnows on pond owners in MATURE ponds where the fatheads are quick slow moving snacks that don't add much growth to the fish.

I.e., it takes about 10 lbs. of fish to add one pound of growth to a fish. So you add 20 lbs. of fatheads and they add a piddly 2 lb.s of growth to your largemouth bass.

Conversely you can use roughly 2 lbs. of dry feed to 1 lb. of fish growth. Much cheaper and more effective.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 05/31/12 08:19 PM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Randy and Cecil --

It really is a crazy world in business, and certain businesses are worse than others.

For many years, my wife and I had a very successful company that essentially evaporated overnight, starting on November 9, 1989, due to international politics. Because we had some non-related equipment and experience, we started a revolutionary printing/graphics/bindery company almost immediately. If you were a small business customer of ours, you could sit at your computer, send us a file, and have business cards, invoices, envelopes, fliers, pamphlets, catalogs, books, etc., in a few hours later if you were local, or in less than a day if you paid a FEDEX or UPS charge. Remember -- this was a time before AOL, FaceBook, etc. I became the centerfold in hundreds of magazines. I believe I was the first company to accept print files electronically. I was 24-foot high at the Philadelphia Printing convention that year. I was featured on the Discovery Channel.

I had two types of major competitors. They both put me out of business, but for totally different reasons.

One competitor was the disgruntled printing press operator who set up shop in his basement or garage to prove that he was better than his employer. These guys would under bid us on jobs, where just their cost of paper exceeded the final product cost.

Then came Kinko, Office Depot, Staples, etc., They had a vision, and they were big enough to take big losses in the beginning, to put all of us smaller and early leaders out of the business. Where they seriously undercut me, and where they took major losses 15 years ago, they have since regained dollars at a very good profit margin -- and, now with minimal competition. All of the major box stores have done this, whether good or bad.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I see the same thing in the fisheries business. It might be good price-wise for Randy and me when we buy fish for our small ponds. Yet, are we going to get quality, non-inbred fish for that great price?

Cecil might survive because he combines unique trophy fish and taxidermy. n8ly will probably survive for a number more years.

At this time, I see that it will take some real "out of the box" thinking to outwit the guys with enough money to buy these markets.

I wish my crystal ball was just a little more clear.

Ken


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The more and more involved I get in this, the more bad information and practices I see. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

For instance. Before heading to Cecils, I stopped at a local campground that had about a weed problem in their ponds. It turns out they called someone in a month ago, and they are treating with copper sulphate every 2 weeks. There is still some FA in the one pond, but none of the other weeds are being affected. (suprise, suprise) I saw Eurasian Water Milfoil, Fragrant White Lily, Cattails, Eelgrass and what I believe is Alligator Weed (still researching).

Their fishing pond has a sign saying ALL LMB are strictly C&R. They also have a muskrat problem in the largest pond - they are tunneling into the banks and generally making a mess of the shoreline. I don't know what the liability would be for the campground if a camper broke thru a run and sprained an ankle, or worse yet, broke their leg. None of those things were addresed by the copper sulphate applicator; the campground seemed suprised when I mentioned the muskrats and the potental problems.

My partner was talking to a company in the business about some fish, and overheard advice given to someone on the phone who was in the process of filling their pond and had scum on the water. The list of chemicals that were mentioned that were needed for treatment was extensive. No mention of the high pollen count that day and for the past week.

Maybe I'm going about this wrong and instead of educating the customer I should just be selling....


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Ken, I had a background in the printing also. Started in 1970 making $2hr and delivering with my own car. Things worked out pretty good an eventually I was the GM of the company employing about 60 people, we had the 4c Heidelbergs, Polar cutters, Stahl folders and were really doing well. I was also in involved in real estate too and just decided to step down and accept a consulting job and spend more time with my second boy - this didn't last long and I bough one out the big companies smaller companies. Keep it about 4-5 years bur could see he drastic changes in orinting on that horizon so i sold this. I didn't stay in the printing business too long, just the real estate too business.....


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A friend of mine told me today that his neighbor recently stocked adult LMB's - 50 of 'em in the 12 - 15 inch raange - in his pond of about 1/2 acre. My friend says that since the bass have been installed, they have what's left of the ponds BG's rounded up and herded into a shallow area, and are keeping a close eye on them. That's the only food in the pond and the owner has no plans to feed pellets. Poor hungry bass frown
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Another thing that is killing the aquaculture business here in the Great Lakes states are overzealous costly health testing regulations.

A few years ago there were a few fish kills in the Great Lakes that tested positive for VHS (mostly rough fish like carp, drum, gobies) and APHIS decided we needed to be saved from this virus that was going to devistate fish all over and fish farmers. Of course nothing was done to address the suspected vector (balast water from International Ships). Never mind they were coaxed to do something about it by the NAA (National Aquaculture Association) which was also coaxed by southern bait producers that saw this as an opportunity to wipe out the wild caught bait industry competition by expensive health testing, which they have succeeded in doing. I have been told the NAA now regrets being pulled into this and realizes they made a big mistake.

At first APHIS just stopped all fish transport for almost a year without any regard to the livelyhood of those that put food on the table via the fish business. Typical sitting your hands government.

So now we are required to do expensive fish testing (I know fish farms that spend thousands annually on this) to move fish out of our state borders. Strangely inside it's not required as apparently the virus doesn't activate until it leaves state lines. LOL It's so costly I'm quite sure many are going under the radar which negates the whole purpose.

I lost a lucrative out of state market thanks to the fact that I can't compete with someone outside of the Great Lakes that doesn't have to do the testing.

Anyway what I'm getting at is many fish farms are afraid to bring in fish from other sources in fears of testing positive for the virus. It's just a matter of time before fish are so inbred they loose good performance in ponds are food fish systems.

BTW the virus has yet to show up on any fish farm and probably never will. No fish kills anywhere for several years as apparently fish have developed an immunity which is microbiology 101 (I guess the PHD's at APHIS tested out of that class). Fish in all the major Great Lakes test postive for the virus but don't show any clinical signs. What does that tell you?

Some of us in the aquaculture industry have hoped they'd drop the expensive testing but we doubt APHIS would want to admit they were wrong.



Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 06/01/12 09:59 AM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.







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