Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Seining pictures of my pond I'm draining down

Did you ever find that 15" YP?

Don't think there is one. It's possible they are all under 14 inches because there are too many, and many have been feeding on the natural feed in the pond. For 300 yellow perch in the 1.5 pound range I haven't been feeding that much.

Two perch spit up 4 inch bluegills when I moved them.

The bluegill and perch in the holding pond are feeding pretty well once a day even in this cold of water.

Update:

These pictures were taken this morning. Pond is even lower this evening with max depth in the center around 3 feet. Pond is receding fast. I can see the bottom everywhere by standing on top of the pier.

Scott, not may large fish left and what there are, are hiding under the two tanks I set up. I do have several thousand 1 to 4 inch bluegills though hanging around the tanks, which I will try to scoop into the white tank once the water level goes down to almost nothing, and they are trapped in a hole.







Two tanks now ready for fish once I can walk around the bottom in waders and pitch them in. The larger one will be for larger fish and the white smaller one will be for 1 to 4 inch bluegills. It's amazing they won't sink even when full.





The end of the intake tied inside a bucket to keep from sucking in the bottom. I will switch this to a fine mesh cage soon to keep out small fish from plugging the intake.

Surprisingly there is not much muck on the bottom as I've been testing it with a pole in the center off the pier. I can only penetrate in inch or two until I hit solid clay. I attribute this to the two membrane diffusers and rotary vane compressor I run from spring to fall. Not bad for a pond that was built in 1994.

I would've expected their to be a lot more muck on the bottom than that. At a friends pond the muck has been building up for 50 years. The pond used to be 14 feet deep but now it's only 5-6 due to the muck.

Impressive at how little muck there is... What are you doing with all the tiny BG?

I'll bet he didn't use diffusers to mix the water column keeping the bottom aerobic, which allows aerobic bacteria to consume waste more efficiently than anaerobic bacteria.

Holding them in a cage for Scott for forage for his forage scant pond or a customer down the road that wants them. Even though they are of Condello stock X others, most of the small ones that are not on feed from the get go are inferior to the ones I hatch in a separate pond. Big eyes and narrower bodies. Another reason why I want to get back to male only gills and female only perch.

I like the idea of single sex small ponds. I am sure people would pay a bit more to buy single sex fish of different species to stock smaller ponds. If only sexing most fish species was easier. Crappies would be great that way... Just takes one oopsie though.

Cecil, let me know when your neighbor down the road has all that he needs. I'll come over with the trailer.

I'll bet you don't have a lot of muck because you don't have any leaves blowing into the pond either.

Scott,

I think the pond will be down enough on Sunday or Monday. I'll keep you posted. I've already got a cage full right now for you except for some select individuals.

Yeah not many leaves end up in this pond. Wish I could say the same for the trout pond!

Most farms either won't do it or aren't really well versed in sorting by sex. My trout supplier in Michigan will sort only males for me but he charges me extra and it ain't cheap. However I don't blame him. Not sure I can get him to do it anymore as he grumbled how much work it was to sort 125 male brook trout for me the last time.

Even then there still usually are a few females, but I'm counting on that this fall as I'm going to spawn my own as the hauling is getting to be a pain. I have all the respect in the world for hauler's like Rex (Rainman) as I loath hauling fish. And don't even get me started on the permits!

If anyone is interested in a single sex pond I would suggest either getting them during a time of year you can easily sex them or putting the fish in cages until you can. Mature yellow perch are very easy to sex in early spring as are bluegills during late spring. If in any doubt whatsoever don't put the fish in the pond.

What are the advantages of single sex ponds?

1.) All biomass is in catchable large fish and since your pond has limits on it's carrying capacity even with pellet fed fish, you can hold more larger fish in your pond.

2.) No tiny bait stealers.

3.) No reproduction means complete control of your fish pond population. If you know what's in your pond from the beginning and what you take out minus any observed morts you can keep a running inventory of the fish population.

4.) Fish are easier to catch since they depend on the pellet diet you feed them. All you have to do is withhold feed to increase the catch rate (especially predatory species).

5.) Fish primarily on pellet diets grow faster and have higher relative weights. That said I'm still not happy with the fatty deposits and shorter lifespans of fish fed exclusively pellets. I also think it affects winter survival. I have had luck establishing a fathead minnow population before planting yellow perch and bluegill, and the fatheads seemed to have hung on until I added smallmouth bass. That was also feeding pellets before I added the smallmouth. It may have been eventually the yellow perch would have decimated the fatheads. Just don't know.

My original yellow perch supplier says his broodstick yellow perch do best on fatheads and crayfish. Says they don't produce as good of eggs on exclusively pellets.

Down to 30.5 inches in the deepest hole near the pier. Almost time to move the trash pump to the exposed pond bottom on top of a skid to get the intake closer to the deepest water.

Cecil,
First of all your perch are mind blowing, before seeing some of your pictures I had no idea yellow perch could reach 15" as I had only caught up to 11 or 12" before. Looking at your seining pictures reminded me of doing it as a kid at our cabin and catching all sorts of interesting fish. Pretty cool experience for kids, except the one who lost rock paper scissors and had to walk through the pickeral weed! My grandfather's uncles had always told him, and therefore he told us, to make sure and keep the bottom of the net as the lead edge. After trying our way and losing a lot of good bait along the way we finally listened to grandpa and sure enough it was much more efficient. Is this something you have noticed as well? As you bring the nets together towards shore(and it begins to bend in the middle) we learned this is crucial to make sure that the bottom of the net is ahead of the top. It's because at the point when the two people on either end have pulled it to shore and are joining the ends together the bottoms will line up first and trap the fish in the MIDDLE of the net and not allow them to swim up and down in the water column. Clear as mud? I'm the type that learns from being shown something not telling it so excuse me if that's confusing. I just thought it might be beneficial to some people reading to know that this is a lot harder than it looks and there are ways to increase the catch rate while working your butt off! I've learned a lot from reading your posts over the years so thank you for your contributions to the forum

You're right on the money and my dad who did a lot of seiniing for a bait store as a kid, and Scott (Esshup), who is a better seiner than I, have reminded me of this.

It appears so far heavily fishing the pond and seining it has done a good job of moving the larger fish as I'm not seeing many large fish in the shallow gin clear water. That makes me happy as moving fish out of the pond bottom isn't much fun.

Oh and thank you for the kind words.

Cecil, is it windy by you today? I went and shot Sporting Clays with the guys at the place in Bourbon and the birds were really dancing.

I'll bet that you could get FHM to stick around in the pond longer if you had spawning habitat for them. Removable of course to make seining the pond easier.

Sure is windy here too!



My thinking is the significant Sago Pond weed I had at the time may have been spawning habitat?

I don't plan on seining anymore unless I increase the depth of this seine about 4 feet to preclude any draining down. Or I get a whole new deeper seine, which considering the price is not likely. All harvest from now on in the big pond will most likely be by hook and line.

If you do get a new seine, a bit larger mesh size would make it easier pulling thru the water. Maybe 3/8"??

The step that is in the pond from having it dipped also makes seining it harder. Harder for the seine to stay stuck to the bottom.

Seining looks like way too much work!

We had a wind gust come thru a couple hours ago and I just noticed that 2 strips of my vertical blinds in the spare room were blown off and the attaching tabs are broken. I'll bet they charge me for them when I move.

Awesome pictures and info Cecil... I probably missed it but where is the pond water being drained? My overflow drain goes into field tile that goes back approx 1000ft into a creek.

New seine is doubtful unless I win the lottery or once the house is paid off in a handful of years. I priced them at the size I need even with larger mesh starting at 2 grand. Just not in my budget right now. And it's more fun harvesting by hook and line.

Yeah definitely not set up for seining.

I also have lots of responsible friends that will help me harvest by hook and line if I'm busy in the shop. Several of them have told me the fishing is so good I could probably charge for the experience, but I'm not interested in going that route.

They might have kept your deposit anyway. I've seen where lots of landlords come up with every excuse in the book to do so. On the other hand I know landlords that have had renters destroy property.

Highway drainage ditch with more than enough capacity. Highway department doesn't like it but I'm not breaking any laws or ordinances. As my dad puts it, "You pay drainage ditch taxes. Might as well get something out of it."

Well I ran out of intake hose to reach the waterline so I moved the pump down close to the waterline for the final drain out. Only problem is, now the pump has to push up hill a considerable amount which has increased the head considerably, and it shows with decreased pumping rate.

I may have to move the pump to the other side of the pond birm adjacent to the drainage ditch of which the intake hose can reach the deepest water. Or I do have 3 inch corrugated hose the intake hose will fit inside. I may experiment with that as in increasing the length of the intake. I'm just not sure the corrugated pipe will stay on the bottom.

Although I'm not doing anything wrong I don't like to draw attention to my pumping, which is why I was hesitant to move the pump to the highway side. It would also be a good way to get the pump stolen after dark. On top of that I want to drain this pond completely today as I notice my power company put in markers next to the ditch. Either they are marking buried power and the highway department is coming to dig the ditch or they are working on overhead powerlines. Either way I don't want to be pumping water while their here.

The pump moved down to the waterline and attached to a skid.



The end of the intake hose is inside this cage to keep fish out that would block the intake. Been there done that!

Cecil, I believe you will see more flow the less head your pump has to suck. Pumps are designed to push water.