Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Your biggest mistake.

Not going with my gut often enough.

When I enlarged the pond, I had a hard budget in place. There was a lot of infrastructure work to be done prior to pond enlargement and it ate up a good portion of my funds. I wish I'd gone larger on the expansion. In the end, the difference would not have made that much in dollar amount when it was all said and done.

Thought of another one ....when I put in the aeration, I opted to save a few bucks and went with the 3/8 weighted line. I wish I had spent the few extra bucks and gone with 5/8. The 5/8 will provide a lower back pressure which improves both efficiency (less electricity) and life of the compressor components.

Does befriending ol boys from Il, Tx, In and Oh count?
You know who you are!!

Aw you're back.... that's good we got someone to pick at

I'd have to say marrying my second wife was by far my biggest mistake!!

After that, a couple stocking deliveries to "Places no one else would go"...lol

Oh, and there was a delivery to Illinois once.......

Cody Note: Hopefully you learned well from each mistake.

LOL, Rainman. There's always a hook in the bait. Be a smart bluegill; take the bait but leave the hook.

Amen

So far my mistake is not building my pond. NRCS came out in 2013 and layed it out, but frankly it wasn't going to be enough water for me. Considering moving the dam 170 feet further down. The project would wipe out a valley of nice trees that provide screening. That and cost....maybe this year.

Consider that a larger pond takes longer to get problems but when those problems arise it takes a lot more money to fix those problems - sometimes it becomes cost prohibitive. Keep in mind that pond chemicals are expensive. It does not take big water to grow big fish. It takes better, wiser management to grow big fish, not big water.

Biggest mistake was laying the pond out running north to south. I should have run it east to west. I could have a larger pond that way, with a larger watershed and most likely not run out of clay like I did.
Now I am considering several options after things dry out a little. Not sure if I want to build one running east to west and tie the two together or just build another smaller pond?? Will see

I keep trying to think of a mistake that was my biggest that would benefit someone else by telling it (theres some best not be repeated ). I make so many it is just hard to choose or prioritize them!

I always figured if I wasn't making any mistakes it either meant I forgot to get out of bed that day or I was not trying to do anything. The biggest hold back in my life has been fear of making mistakes and I have fought that fear constantly, for many years, trying to overcome it.

Had a construction buddy many years ago, while we were talking about employees one day, told me when he seen his guys standing around trying to decide what to do he would always tell them "Well do something. If we mess it up we can fix it, but if we don't do anything we will never get anything accomplished". I'm not saying that is the right attitude for all situations (nuclear facilities come to mind ), but that saying has always stuck with me and sometimes gets me off center when I need to make a decision, and fear the decision might be wrong.

Hey, hey, hey!!!!!! That is it! That has been my biggest mistake! Letting the fear of making it often times cause me to not reach my potential.

snrub, it's funny, I work in the Nuclear industry and when I read the quote from your friend the thought went through my mind "Sometimes I wish we could do that here" but it would never work. A wrong decision here could mean disaster. Best to play it safe and second guess everything. However, on my pond, I totally agree. Go for it.

Yeah, that saying probably applies more to dirt work (he owned big Tonka Toys and moved dirt) than some other situations like your job. It does remind me though that at least for some situations, making mistakes may be preferable to doing nothing, because it gets you further down the road to getting something done. Or something learned.

Which reminds me, the universal Pond Boss Forum maxim applies in this situation. It all depends.

My biggest mistake in my infant pond management life I am sure is yet to come. However, one that I can think of is waiting until I finished building my house to start looking into managing the pond and finding Pond Boss. The reason for this is two fold. 1) I missed a whole growing season and 2) I hauled off a ton of scrap building materials (PVC, bricks, buckets, etc.) that I would now love to have to build structure with now. Waiting may have saved me from a nervous breakdown though. I am the type to go full bore on whatever I am doing. So, building a house and also renovating an old pond at the same time might have done me in. I probably won't have long before I post my next "Biggest Mistake"

As a lake management consultant, and owner of a lake management company, I get to see, first hand, many mistakes by pond owners. The biggest one, by far, is "You don't know what you don't know."
Every one has great intentions. Build the best lake on the planet, or have a nice pond, pristine water, and soothing. Whatever the mission. Mistakes are often made because that landowner hasn't completely thought through their goals, and then have a good enough understanding of their resources (money, dirt, knowledge), and then how to put those things together with a well-designed plan. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a leaky pond...because something wasn't taken care of during construction. People commonly go over-budget with construction and try to "make it up" by scrimping on their fish stocking plan. Habitat is a big one. People think about their top end fish, but not the forage fish which feed them. The majority of "mistakes" could be prevented with just a little bit more knowledge. But, the problem with that circles back to "we don't know what we don't know."
One thing I've learned during the last 4 decades of this stuff is that we never know enough (including me). But, with the resources available in today's world, knowledge should be the least of our worries.

I've been hanging around this pond off and on since the early 70's. I guess one of my regrets was not taking an interest in it sooner. When I was in my late teens, I wanted a house with a white picket fence built around this pond, but life took me in a different direction and I've just returned to this land for my retirement years. The pond sat here growing up without any maintenance. It's completely surrounded by trees, but I really look at the trees as a plus. I just wish there wasn't quite so many. I'll do as best as I can with the resources I have available, but mostly I'll just enjoy it for what it is.

just starting my pondmeistering. so the mistakes will start shortly. lol.

Oh boy! The fun begins and yes you will have those days like most of us have

I'm not sure if I'm making a mistake or not, but sometimes like this morning, they let me know they are hungry. Here lately, I've been giving them a few handfuls in between meals.

The infamous one...where you been Bob.....hibernatin'???

Biggest mistake? Lettin' this guy have access to the land ...



JUST KIDDING!!!! This guy is welcome any time! And probably one of the best things about PBF for us. I mean, heck, it took us both alternating back and forth to hand saw through that pain of a fallen tree!

Biggest mistake? Not stocking correctly the first go around, and paying for it with grow out ponds and expensive food.

Well, drew a couple out. Can't believe Bill d hasn't fronted an insult errr I mean assault. Probably too full of Tia goodies ta belly up to the keyboard.

Just waiting for you to post that maybe your choice of wearing a pink speedo on a beach full of blue hairs might have been a BIG mistake!

Followed by not bringing a chainsaw!