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I have a few friends that used to hunt Kansas just a few yrs back until they recently changed the laws for non resident deer hunters. Since then they no longer hunt in Kansas because of the new system. I was told the state residents were not happy about all the non residents hunting the big bucks, not sure this is the true story. I believe Kansas is known for some really nice buck hunting, most likely due to all the corn and soy beans that grow there. It's all about the food and not so much about genetics from all I read. I have hunted Kansas several times but it was always for Pheasant and duck. We would hunt the duck early morn and then afternoon hunt the upland birds. Sometime the snow would make for tough walking the fields. But still have some great memories of those Kansas hunts.

Tracy


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We just got missed by a big rain that passed about 15 miles north of here. Got 1/4 inch here. Things are getting very worrisome for the pond.....

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Missed again. Significant rainfall just to the N and S last night. Only about 0.3 inches here. I am wondering if it could be terrain, but that seems implausible. We are still in the summer pattern, with potential rains coming from the SW.

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If you are like us John the averages will catch up with one or two big rains. It will be ark building consideration time. smirk


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I'm right there with you John. I watch it split and go north and south of me. Got a trace last night, but not even enough to make mud. I wished it would stop in the spring. and now want it to start, but sure hope we don't have many more of those 10-15" / week rains like in the spring though....


1.8 acre pond with CNBG, RES, HSB, and LMB
Trophy Hunter feeder.
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Missed again. Substantial rains to the N and E. Only a few drops here. I am expecting a major fish kill if no rain soon. Now 32-1/4 inches low.
Did you guys in Texas ever get to total despair about the possibility of rainfall?
There is an old drilled well on my property about 600' from the pond. What's the cheapest way of telling if it would supply substantial water?

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John, I/we went through 5 years of drought.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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John, locate a local water well company and work something out with them. I have a good working relationship with my water well company and I am sure u can do the same. Maybe they will run a used pump down the hole if elec is close by. Used, rebuilt pumps are available here. the key, is available elec. And like u, I have not seen fall rains at my place. Rained all around, but has missed me frown

Last edited by TGW1; 10/27/16 06:51 AM.

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Yeah, we've had rain but I now need RAIN. About 2 weeks ago, I got 2.5 inches but it fell; softly over 2 days.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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Dave, I have not had even a 1/2" of rain this fall or late summer. I have had to irrigate some of my wildlife food plots and my pond is down at least a foot and that is with adding some well water, I still add the well water but have slowed down the additions due to me killing some fish off this past Sept due to low Do. I think I now have that West Texas drought in E Texas. This is the driest fall I have seen in many years frown

Last edited by TGW1; 10/28/16 07:17 AM.

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What does the very beginning of a fish kill due to drought look like? I would like to harvest as much as possible beforehand, as I have a lot of feed tied up in the catfish. Advance forecast predicts no rain for at least a month (if you can believe advance forecast).

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I'm looking at a similar forecast. We received 1/10" a few days ago. That's pretty much it for October. I'm down close to 3', but still have 12-13' depth. We've been taking a lot of YP out this fall, but I do not anticipate a fish kill.
John, I sure hope you get a big rain soon. I keep thinking I'll get rain one of these days, but it isn't happening.
The well idea is interesting, but I don't know if I can produce enough water to impact a 3/4 acre pond that's losing 1/4" day. No Elec near the pond either. I'm going to wait it out. Not much else I can do.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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John even if you can get some of the fish out, it should help a lot. As the water gets lower the fish concentration in pounds of fish per gallon of water gets higher. Removing any amount of fish has to help reduce that concentration level. That should help the remaining fish and help with water quality.

I've been removing lots of GS and some RES from my tiny 1/20th acre forage pond for just that reason. Reduce the fish concentration for the winter months on such a small pond to help prevent any problems.

I would think the smaller the BOW in my case(or the amount of water in the BOW in your case) everything becomes more critical a lot more quickly if things start to go bad. It just seems logical to me that a larger BOW would have more buffering capacity for problems. Thus a person would need to manage the smaller BOW's (or reduced water levels in BOW's) more carefully.

Last edited by snrub; 10/28/16 11:06 AM.

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SetterGuy:
Your 1/4 inch a day losses are most likely due to nothing but evaporation, with the high water temp compared to the dewpoints, and the sunny, windy days we are having. My losses are now from 1/16 to 1/4 inch per day depending on temp, sunshine, wind, and humidity.

TGW1:
After researching the subject:
There are not any water well companies nearby that do tests that I can find. There has been a huge proliferation of rural water lines around here in the past 25 years, making well usage limited to the most remote areas.
It would cost me minimum $500 to even run a test, with the cost of a pump, pipe, and wiring. It's about 200 ft from the house to the well. Most wells historically used around here only produced about 5 gallons/minute or so, some much more, and some much less, it varies widely. Many wells had very high iron and sulfur content, which gets worse with extensive pumping. There aren't any cheap used pumps even on CL. I guess it's not worth the risk to me at this point. If I knew the well would produce over 10 gallons/minute of decent water long term, I would do it. To only have a few hundred gallons of water a day into the pond wouldn't help a whole lot, and sulfur water could be toxic. If the creek would start up again, I can get about 3,500 gallons/hr of pre-aerated water into the pond.

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John, you are correct when it comes to water wells and the water supply. And that is why I suggested getting with a water well company. Many people don't understand that a water well drilled does not always mean there is going to be water or if there is water, it will be good water. There are areas here that a water well might be a dry hole. Even after spending thousands of bucks, it's a dry hole.


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Hopefully the change in seasons will kick this weather pattern in the family jewels and you will see improvement. The way the climate is going, it is getting harder to get cold air incursions low enough in latitude to tap into Gulf moisture down your way. As the seasons progress, the cold air gets further south.

Don't pray too hard though, it can easily and too quickly go the other way. IMHO drought is better than flood!

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Originally Posted By: liquidsquid
Hopefully the change in seasons will kick this weather pattern in the family jewels and you will see improvement. The way the climate is going, it is getting harder to get cold air incursions low enough in latitude to tap into Gulf moisture down your way. As the seasons progress, the cold air gets further south.

Don't pray too hard though, it can easily and too quickly go the other way. IMHO drought is better than flood!


Definitely getting hard to get those fronts through. A/C running on 3rd of Nov. We were supposed to get a cold front through yesterday but it didn't make it. Temp in the mid 70's now. We did not get ice cover at all on the pond last winter.
It's been over ten months since we received a single rain of over 3 inches. Got 10.45 inches of relatively warm rain last December 27-28. The aftermath of that kept the ponds near full for several months, or it would be a super drought now.

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John, I almost hate to say this. I've had 2.02 inches since midnight and 3.03 for the week. Pond is/was down about 2.5 ft.

I'll get up there(70 miles) hopefully later in the week.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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Dang! Rub it in! We have only received a trace. A big storm that dumped over an inch passed about 30 miles east of us. We might get a couple tenths tonight.

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John, I've owned my land for about 30 years. With the exception of the last 3 years, rain always fell "over there". When I bought the place it had a 1/4 acre, 7 ft deep, pond that dried up multiple times. The spring fed creek finally dried up about 6 years ago. Even with the plentiful rains of recent years, the spring is still not recharged.

I once mentioned it to Lusk and he said that he had noticed that my area seemed to be the area that rains came close to but skipped. And yet, he generally got pretty good rains at his place.

Prior to the Texas floods, my 1.5 acre pond that started out as 17 ft deep, became a 2 ft deep, 1/3 acre mud hole. I certainly understand your feelings. Been there; done that. This was a serious 5 year drought that followed a lot of dry years.

Prior to the rains, Wichita Falls that is about 60 miles North, was recycling potty water for household use. Several North Texas towns had their lakes go dry and had to pipe water from a pretty good distance or shut the town down. Ranchers sold their cattle because there was nothing to eat or drink. By the time it started raining there was a beef shortage in America with the resulting high prices at the grocery store.

I know a whole bunch about it raining elsewhere. A good book about Texas droughts is Elmer Keltons "The time it never rained".

Last edited by Dave Davidson1; 11/08/16 07:17 AM.

It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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We got about 0.3 inches total yesterday through last night. Not nearly enough.

We didn't experience much drought here during the Texas dry years, except for summer of 2012. A lot of shallow ponds dried up that year.

I wanted my pond to be deeper than the 11 feet we dug, but my pond builder said we might hit rock or gravel if we went much deeper, and have leaks in the basin. He said he dug one pond 45 feet deep at the insistence of the owner and it is a dry hole. Oh well, I still have eight feet of water in the deep side and seven in the other side, but my surface area is way down. I have only lost 4-1/8 inches in the past thirty days.

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Thats .1375" per day!! I wish I was somewhere close to that! Is that with no rain at all?? Or lost with the little spits of rain? I'm losing .50-.57 per day. It has not slowed or sped up...so I'm assuming its in the basin. I'm WAY down. I was at full pool during the spring...first time ever, now during this drought its really been hit hard. My thing is the loss has not changed at all. I'm like you, and have lost ALOT of surface area. I'm between 5-6' down from full. I keep thinking maybe it will stop or slow so I can narrow down where it is going. Glad you got something though. Maybe it will get your winter grasses going.


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We got a whopping .08" the other day. Another front went thru this morning. I'm hoping for a bit more. I'm still losing .25" a day.. It has been almost a year since I had any water going out the overflow pipe. Wonder how it's affecting water quality?


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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peachgrower: That's the total losses with the little spits of rain. Losses since last good rain July 26-27 are 29-3/8 inches including the little spits of rain. It's 34-3/4 inches below the overflow.

SetterGuy: I am also worried about water quality. The water has cooled some and I have cut food back to a calculated maintenance amount, so fish don't lose weight, but probably won't gain either. You have far more water quantity than I do, and are further north. I think you will be OK for this year, just don't over feed, and catch a few eaters when you can.

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I'll be checking temps again this weekend. The pond was at 60 degrees last weekend, and the fish were feeding pretty aggressively. I've kept about 60 YP so far this fall. That's about all I've caught. I'll keep some more this weekend.
Got some rain today, not much, and very little in the forecast for the next two weeks.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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