Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction What did you do at your pond today?

FishinRod,
I don't think the poor recruitment is due to the eggs laying on the leaves. I see no problems with silting on the leaves although in theory the underside of the strand may not get as much water movement as when they were on the branches. In the past years we had great recruitment when laid everywhere but on the branches.

I think the poor recruitment is due to many of the eggs having white spots about a week after being laid. Bill C says these are unfertilized eggs. So it is the unmanly male YP that are not chasing down the females and using their shooter to shoot milt in all directions like they did before.
Either I have less males or my males ran out of male traits. I see about 50% of eggs showing white spots as a rough estimate.

It is interesting in my pond the YP can even appear to be 'cavity spawners' They have left egg strands in the cavity of the larger soft mesh minnow traps and some skeins where draped partially in and partially outside of the entrance hole. Some were in buckets that had blow in the pond, were on their side and half full of water. One was in a plastic folgers coffee can. Some are draped around the roots of my reeds and sedges. Some are in deeper water laying on the leaves. None were draped over my pallets.

Some years I do get algae issues on the eggs and no idea why.

The last few years I have removed the eggs as soon as I saw them to see if different water conditions or water chemistry would help them hatch better. I assume they are fertilized the same night they are laid so hopefully removing them promptly in the am is OK. I have never seen YP have sex during the day. IS that possible? Is it possible that no eggs get laid or fertilized in daytime hours?

Our YP and probably their ancestors for the past 10 or more generations came from a fish farm so they probably have no idea what a branch even looks like anymore.

I'd be very interested in including new genetics. I'll ask fellow YP pond meister and MI member Ron Crismon about the YP he uses, their genetic pedigree and where he tends to find his eggs.

Sounds like you have put in a lot of time and effort to resolve the YP recruitment issue - to no avail.

Good luck with some new YP in your pond! One of the many things I have learned on Pond Boss is that managing a pond is always aiming for a moving target.

Today was a GREAT day for the pond with the exception of a little cooler weather that rolled through. It started off with a delivery notice that the apple, peach, cherry, nectarine, and plum trees where going to be delivered and ended with planting them and adding in some yellow perch to the pond (Thanks snipe for the fish). We've been so looking forward to those coming in and hope to be good stewards of them as the years progress.

Good looking Yellow Perch!!

Boondoggle those are nice looking YP. Through the years I’ve seen the same things CC described. Ribbons laid in the oak leaves right next to branches. I’ve always thought that the low recruitment was due partially to my large golden shiner population. The golden shiners can sure out populate YP. I wonder if my SMB reduce my YP numbers? I would have thought they’d hit the golden shiners more than the YP though.
Seven grandkids will be up there this coming weekend. We will get a fish population survey done over three days of fishing.
This pic is from several years ago. I didn’t realize we were taking female YP at the time. I thought I had an infinite number of YP, as my original stocking was 1,150 in our 1 ac pond. Then 200 more were added in case of poor survival.

Better days..

SetterGuy, unless you're a diminutive and your feet were bound as a child, those are some nice Yellow Perch!!!!

Haha! I wear a size 14.

Nice look YP's you have there for sure SG! Really looking forward to seeing them hit the fish food. Perhaps they will start hitting it in the next few days.....for now, I'm just ear to ear smiles about the addition of them to the pond.

At the pond the last few days. Six grandkids had spring break vacations and decided to spend some time with grandma and myself. We caught several YP, released them all. A few SMB, also released. Had a blast. The kiddos caught a bunch of crawdads, glass shrimp, and about 10,000 BF tadpoles.

So glad your grandchildren got to enjoy the pond! Mine rarely did, one of the reasons I eventually sold.

I especially like how your granddaughters aren't scared to handle fish or even crawdads!

The one holding the YP was born about the time we were finishing the pond. She will be 10 in August. They visit the farm and pond about 5 or 6 times a year. Although I see that decreasing as they get more into kids sports. They like the farm, but love the pond.

Wife an I were out at the farm yesterday. Planted the last of our fruit trees (Rainier Cherry) and seeded the entire area. It was a ton of work, got home at around 10P after returning the County's see drill, and enjoyed every single second of our adventure. Sorry, no pics it was pitch black out there when we got done and the rain is supposed to roll in today.

Awesome to see those kiddos down at the pond SG. Those memories will be around for a long time to come.

Sounds like an excellent day, Boondoggle.

I think I can also rent a seed drill from my county. However, I am not enough of a farmer to know what range of seed types I can plant.

A few questions, if you come back to this thread (or others can answer).

I think you have a no-till seed drill in Franklin County.

What prep did you do to the soil?

That tractor HP requirement for that seed drill is 40 HP. I only have a 32 HP tractor. Can I do the work very slowly with an undersized tractor (and excellent prep) or will that chain-driven seed drill just fail to perform if underpowered?

What crops, food plots, and cover vegetation would you use that type of drill to plant on your property?

Thanks, FishinRod

About to have some fencing done/replaced on my place. It’s needed to be done for a long time. Having it done is because, at 81 yoa, I’ve outlived my usefulness. I have arthritis that limits the physical labor I can do. Bending from the waist gets really painful.

Dammit, this stuff was supposed to happen to others. Not me.

The only thing worse than getting old ... is NOT getting old.

Got home from the farm yesterday after about a 1/2 day's work, after only a 45 minute drive I had to limp into the house. At least my wife slapped a plate of hot dinner into my hands to make me feel better!

We used a L3902 (37ish HP) for the work and used a box blade to smooth out the surface before planting. There were some spots that were a little on the "concrete" side of clay loam due to a lack of rain and recent travel from the heavier machinery building the pond. The Kubota pulled it just fine. Where the soil was hard, the front blades scratched the surface vs actually cutting a small V in the soil but that has nothing to due with the tractor itself.....all about the weight of the drill.

Franklin County has the 606NT (hydraulic) from Great Plains.

Our seeding adventure didn't go off super smoothly but for a rookie doing it the first time it was a great experience overall.

Our first challenge was the tractor didn't have rear hydraulic ports. We had to get the tractor back to the dealer for installation.
We then moved on to picking up the drill itself which uses a 1" hitch pin instead of a standard ball type mount. This wasn't bad as the drill came is a 1" pin that mounts into a standard receiver for a hitch. However, the tractor had a 7/8" max pin size. Off to tractor supply I go. Found a 7/8" x 6-1/4" on the second store and it worked just fine as well.
I had never done this type of work before so I did a little reading on the 606NT as it has three boxes for seed and all can be used at the same time with varying rates for each box. Talked to a local farmer and asked for some mentoring on site just to make sure I was covered. There is only so much one man can learn from youtube :P
Saturday at 1PM we started loading the seeder. The county provided a couple of pages on how to set it up for various seeds and we matched the setting on lbs per acre to the seed. As is turned out the seed we were using in the second box was a little small and it was bypassing the cups in the seeder. We managed to do with it what we could and made a run back to town to get some additional seed.
Our only other hiccup was making sure to watch the tubes on the back box as they tended to plug up and stop putting seeds out through the tubes. It was easy to clear, just had to be mindful of it.

We used erosion control grasses with a hint of Alfalfa and Clover on and around the pond dam. 75' on the slope in the pic to the water will be grass this same grass mix. Moving up the hill there's a center section that we changed to pollinator mix which was heavy on clover, and then blended in some wildflower and alfalfa. Our mini orchard reverted back to the grass, clover and alfalfa mix. Ultimately we should have a bit of flowering throughout the pond area with a central section dedicated to those wonderful pollinators.

We wrapped up seeding pretty close to dark. Got the seeder back to the county and as forecasted it rained a little today. Looking forward to the coming weeks to see how we did on the combination of a grass border with a pollinator/wildflower mix next to the small orchard.

Fingers crossed we have decent coverage and germination. It's 100% in mother natures hands now. May be a little over seeding in the fall if we need it but I hear it takes a 2-3 years to really get a good stand of grass going.

Personally, I think a 33hp would likely be more than enough with 4WD. I think the seeder weighs approx 2,700 lbs. Gradual slopes were pretty easy. The pond dam gave me a little of the pucker factor but I just went slow and worked through what I felt like I could and hand threw anything I was uncomfortable with.

One other item to note that I didn't know until I picked up the seeder was that the county sells seed as well. May be worth checking with them to see what straight seed or blend they can offer. We will likely look into this with fall seeding if needed.

Boondoggle, thanks for taking the time to make your comprehensive report!

A laundry list of small problems was exactly what I was expecting if I tried to operate the seeder. Glad to hear that you had enough available support to get the job done.

It really wasn't bad at all. First time doing it and using somebody else's equipment always requires more time to make sure things line up and can get it done. We picked up the Seeder on Friday to make sure we could work through some of the challenges ahead of our scheduled seeding on Saturday. Saturday still had a few challenges to work through but I would do it again for sure and it would probably be smoother now that I have a little experience with both the equipment and what to keep an eye on.

I'm sure I could have hired this out. Would not have been nearly as enjoyable to watch somebody else do it though.

If you decide to take it on. Find out about the connections and give yourself an extra day. It would also likely help to have a little more seed that you plan to use. Load some of the seed and run a small test path or row.....adjust and when you get it where you want.....load her up and get'r done.

The only purpose of the tractor is to pull the seeder and raise/lower the seeder with hydraulics on turns. No idea why it has a 40HP requirement.

Absolutely worth the effort and time spent though!

Feed was back on in Western PA with ambient temps at 62/63 F.

The Bluegill were waiting, but fed with some reservation. The Golden Shiner Brigade was right along side feeding too, and sometimes not moving too fast which always surprises me considering what all can eat them in the pond.

I saw a lazy CC taking some feed here and there, and a larger HSB cruising and taking the occasional pellet.

Stinkin' beavers. Power washing 4 new and 4 veteran 330 Conibears. They will be dipped, and then go back into service PDQ. All my H supports are power washed then sprayed with grey self etching primer, and then spot sprayed with flat olive spray paint.

The racoon traps are soaked in Ospho. It eats rust like candy, and keeps them from re-rusting.

The beavers just want to be your friends, Al.

PM me your address and I'll FedEx you a couple of very friendly slightly bloated beavers, and one 3 legged raccoon.

That's very gracious of you.

I'd prefer a mix of bloated and un-bloated beaver, if at all possible.

Cowboy, you're a true player.