Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Ice status on your pond(s)

Me too. Hard to skin out a fathead minnow!

Hopefully, if it goes all wrong and is a FHM, it will be a big female! ...Not sure how you are going to make it look aggressive in a mount though!

Cecil will be raising them next and selling the biggest ones for people to make fiberglass molds.....

Oh great, now I need to find a FHM rod! ...and I thought trout hooks were small.

I wish my other species were as easy to produce as the fatheads!

IIRC some intelligent lady once pulled in Cecil's drive and told him she just wanted to see the "beautiful Stork" in his pond. If she had only known that at that time Cecil had a federal permit to blast that beautiful GBH and for the right price would have mounted it for her. I gotta wonder if it wasn't that same lady that "didn't remember it being so big"

3.5" off the dock in the HBG pond this morning. Made an inch in 24 hours.

FHM can be caught on hook and line. Picture below, caught in the mouth.

Tried to think of some clever line to add as a caption. Never came up with anything.

After doing some searches on the internet (back when I caught this last year) , learned there is a group of people that concentrate on micro fishing. Targeting very small varieties of fish.

Woke up to a completely covered pond again today...Grrrrr!!!





So you are going to be on it tomorrow?..

That's the plan. Reminds me, need to dig out the spud bar.

Was still at 3" last night, hoping for 4" this evening so I can get the ATV on the ice to plow off for skating. I would prefer 5", but the snow is slowing things down.

Always makes me nervous getting the ATV on the ice with me plus plow. I don't like the idea of it sitting on the bottom since I use it for maintaining my driveway too. However I am anxious to be working on my backwards skating for hockey, since I stink at it. I am being embarrassed by the ladies on the team.

Wow Bob! I've got to be careful what I tell ya! You've got a memory like an elephant. Very true story! But just to keep me legal the birds I was allowed to kill could not be mounted. They had to be destroyed.

Yeah the lady thought GBH's were "storks" and were wonderful!

Had a tad over 3 yesterday around noon....it hasn't gotten above 15 degrees since then so I'm hoping for 4 or a bit better by tomorrow AM when we break out the auger and tip-ups.

Most important thing is the rod you choose if you are going to go after FHM. I use an old Lunker Stik. I find it gives that back bone I need from a rod when horsing a big FHM out of the weeds.

Cecil, my memory isn't the only thing that I have that's like an elephants!!!!! I've got unusually large ears. They got all stretched when I was a teenager.

6" was the thinnest I measured today.. Spent several hours on the pond this afternoon scooping, playing and fishing.. Caught 15 BG in probably 30 minutes after boys got cold and went in house.. Was a good day..

Sounds good Sean. I found 3.5" of grey ice on the big pond, so stepped lightly. Very tough bite, could mark fish on the bottom but they would not rise to the bait. I did manage a few that came in 3-4' off the bottom, and those fish were willing to participate. But they were traveling and tough to pin down...especially when my movements topside were limited.

Probably hit it again tomorrow.

Broke through with the ATV this morning. Luckily I was moving at a good clip and popped back out. I was trying to plow off the 7 inches of snow we had last night and apparently the ice thinned up under the snow.

Extratopia had a thin crust of ice yesterday. I was scared. How will I feed my fish?



Good thing the other Topias and the big pond were clear and 42.3F

Not cool. You be more careful up there, hear?

Not cool for sure !! You may be a hard ask but if yer gone being a macho man, ALL yer family will have to deal with it forever.

Went out to the the trophy pond for a about an hour and half this evening. Ice is 4 inches. As cold as it's been I thought it would be thicker. I'm sure it's due to the 3 inches of snow that was on the ice, which has now partly blown off.



Here's my 2 man pop up with the top down.



Here it is with the top up. A lantern keeps it really cozy inside!



Caught and released 5 perch up to 13 inches and one bluegill that was about 9 3/4 inches. Egg development isn't very significant yet with the perch, which is par for the course in my pond.





If I didn't know better I'd swear this one is a male. I did add about 20 yellow perch late spring and went by the urogential orifices. Really looked textbook. May have been a mistake! I had another 80 that put in another pond as they didn't look textbook.



Here's the bluegill. I had the flash on with this one which washed it out. Not this light at all.

All 4 of your YP were I think noticeably more plump than the 14"er posted a week ago by TJ.

I think you're right. They look bigger on the web than in person though.

You don't think that last one looks like a male?

Fabulous fish Cecil! Three to three and a half inches down here today. Sketchy too. Fish tight to the bottom, reluctant to rise. Managed a few anyway.