Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Fishing 2014

No hybs, went looking for RES today. Found a few, too.

Had to dismantle the snake for removal.

What a great way to start the day!

Finally caught one of the all-elusive HSB (has been for me anyway) this morning and thrilled beyond words with the results after 2 years.

HSB and LMB were stocked 9-1-12 at 6"-7". This one this morning measured 17.5", weighing 2.82 lbs.



Then to add to the morning's excitement, pulled in this 18" 3.02 lb LMB.



2 1/2 years into trying to rehab this pond, maybe I AM doing something right?

So blessed and grateful, thank you Pond Boss!

Way to go LL looking good! My HSB got about the size yours is now and I haven't seen them since??? I am beginning to think I may have lost them all?? I only caught 1 this year.


RC

Beautiful fish, LL....

RC, thank you and I'm sure yours are still there. I don't fish for them during the summer but with the water temps cooling off I'll use a pellet-fly for sampling, which other than a pellet-fly I've caught only one fishing for them conventionally .

And the reason I knew mine were still there is by the way they hit the pellets (AM LMB food) at feeding time. They hammer them a lot different than the LMB.

And thank you as well, stickem'!

I have tried hard and long to get permission to post 2014 fish photos for my long time fried and sometimes lurker - but to no avail - well I finally succeeded.
He grows some really nice fish, especially SMB, as well as LMB, BG and RES.
He runs in stealth mode so he says - “just tell folks he is my “sons' brothers-in-law”.
Enjoy!

April 13
Caught the first Smallie of the year


July 5
Caught this nice (16 Inch, 3 Lbs 8 Oz) Largemouth


July 15


2013 Smallie


Oct 5
Got these last weekend - a 17 inch, 2 lbs 8 oz Smallie. Our farm's SMB record (4 lbs 15 oz).

George can we assume that these SMB were grown in a regular water temperature TX pond, i.e. not spring fed? Are the SMB and LMB together in the same pond/lake or separate ponds? We are always eager to learn more about growing SMB in southern ponds. We want to know how to do it successfully.

Not a southern pond Bill - a dug pond and IIRC two sepate ponds - not spring fed.
Don't know if LMB and SMB in same or different ponds.
He loves to fish and loves his fish.

I need to find someone with small hands to hold my fish for pictures.. Either that or feed them more..

Had lots of fun out at the ponds as the water is cooling and the fish bites are really aggressive. First catfish on fly rod

Think we took 30-40 crappie out of two ponds


Landed a few bass to cull out
Biggest was 4.8lb didn't have a picture for that one


Finally tried our bluegill ponds to get out catfish, didn't know someone had put flat heads in it, so I was quite shocked at sizes.

Wow....beautiful albino cat and crappie!

Looks like the flatheads didn't make it back into the drink!!

Nice report!

Snakebite,
Very nice looking dogs in that picture! They have white markings on the chest, Ours look about that size (height and build) and has the same markings, he is a black lab/Australian lab mix. Same with yours? How old are they? male/female?

Any advice on training ours? He is 6 mo now and doing better, but I know he is very smart and I worry maybe we just don't work him or run him hard enough. On a rainy day he gets restless living in the garage and staying dry and I think he drags tools out of the garage and chews on them (and bike helmets and anything else plastic) much more when he is restless than when he is running hard with the kids.

We worked hard to train him to do his 'duties' in the woods and he would just look at us and pee or poop whereever he felt like. He would check if we were looking first but if we tried to stop it or redirect him to the woods he just acted like, 'who me? you lookin at me?'

Then it just hit me that the last 2 weeks we have no, none, zippo poop piles in the yard anymore. It is as if he just figured it out and on is own decided to do his thing in the woods now. Go figure..

I did wonder if he had another dog to romp with all day he might be a lot happier. He LOVES kids, craves the attention and the scratching, can't seem to get enough.

Anyhow, beautiful fish and nice looking dogs

What did you use to catch those flatheads? Those fish were reducing the fish numbers in the BG pond. It would be very interesting to hear how many fish and what sizes each of smaller fish those flatheads were eating each year. Also if you catch more, please measure the mouth width and length of each new one you catch. Thanks.

There should be some sort of conversion factor for how many pounds of fish need to be eaten per pound of predator for that predator to grow normally. It would take a better 'bean counter' than me to figure that one out.

I do know that many LMB can grow 1 lb per year (maybe more weight gain in the south with a longer growing season). This equates to about 10 lbs of live meat (bugs, crayfish, fish, amphibians and birds) of some sort per year per fish. If we use a 16" lmb (2.25 lb std wt) as an example this means it could eat around 226 to 453 four inch BG (10-20g ea) to get 10 lbs of BG. More individuals would be consumed if BG were smaller and if the BG were 5" fewer (66). If we had 30 16" lmb in an acre and each was eating 350 BG per year this means they are consuming around 10,000 4" BG per year. If that 10 lbs consumed fish were 2.7" FHM this would for 30 LMB consumers equate to around 44,100 FHM. See now why LMB ponds are often low on forage fish????

The example above of 30 16" LMB has 67.5 bass pounds per acre - reasonable amount. If each of those bass ate 10 lbs of all fish this is 300 lbs of forage, about all the forage fish weight that would normally live in one acre. Normally I think one would want the predators to eat no more than 60-72% of the existing forage fish stock each year. In reality there are rarely 30 16"+ bass per acre. Fish ponds are communities comprised of fish of various sizes. I don't think all of those 30 16" bass will eat 10 lbs of forage. Some of the bass may just maintain or slightly increase their weight whereas the most aggressive ones may eat a few more fish than 10 lbs and the majority consume weight somewhere in between 2 to 10 lbs. We should probably cull those slow growing bass. In addition a certain percent of the annual diet will be items other than BG such as other bass, and various meat items that live in or around the pond.

Thank you. @ Canyoncreek these two are my uncles dogs, ones a black lab and the other most likely a mutt. Great dogs, but not the best fishing partners as they prefer to wade in the shallows or swim out to greet you in the boat. But are good dogs non the less.

@ Bill I sure will next time get the flat head information gape/weight/length, I was being terrorized by mosquito`s that particular evening. I normally wait until about 1 hour before dark, if you already have bait ( 4-7" HBG) caught and noodle jugs setup. Most of my noodle jugs are short 80lb lines no longer than leg length with two hooks one 2ft down from the noodle and another a few inches from bottom of line with weight 2 ounce at the bottom. Circle hooks work best 6/0 to 8/0.
Don`t be afraid to toss in shallows from the bank. Two of these were caught 2 minutes after being tossed out in less than 4 feet of water, so have a boat handy or a heavy duty rod with a treble hook to grab hold of the noodle float.
On the conversion factor the other thing that would come into play would be competing species of fish. Flatheads in the pond may grow faster with limited competition other than a few LMB, against our other pond which has FHC,CC, BLC, LMB, BCP

Ain't she purty....she??

I'm guessing female but wouldn't bet on it this time of year.

Had a fantastic fishing trip to Jeff’s ponds last couple of days.
Jeff is culling bass but so far no Camelot Bell characteristics have shown up.




Caught 8 - 10 inch CNBG on every cast and a few nice HSB to boot.
Lost all our big ones fish kill 2011.

2 years of misery is starting to pay off.

Dr Dave Dos with a healthy LMB at my puddle today. She was a smidge under 8#.


2 more pics of CNBG. Both right at 9". Top CNBG is OTS strain, and bottom CNBG is Florida strain. The OTS is taller and wider, and carries more weight.

Oh my.....



ps: what was it caught on?

Outstanding!

wow. look at the back height difference. Amazing.

OTS CNBG seldom grow longer than 10 inches as they get wider and thicker.
This has been apparent to many of us for some time but FireIsHot is fist to document comparison of two entirely different strains of pure CNBG.
G/

GSF and an octopus hook. The more fusiform shape seems to make them really attractive to LMB.