Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Your biggest mistake.

Hello.

The first time I make a pond the second year I put 100 Rainbow trout, I give them pellets all the summer, at the Autumn they were big and fat, but in Winter I let the ice cover all the pond with snow, I didn't put aerator and I didn't make a hole in the ice for the gaz to escape.

So in the spring, Surprise all the fish was dead.

After I bought some books and I find Pond Boss.

And you, what is your biggest mistake in your pond

A+

Ooh....that's a toughie.

1 - not doing enough research/reading/planning before I built mine
2 - ladder stocking expensive fish that were too small to escape predation - AKA 'expensive fish food'
3 - believing 'a fish kill' and 'a TOTAL fish kill' are one in the same when trying to kill off a pond for restocking.

Not necessarily in that order.

If I could have a "do over" it would be to take more time to establish a diverse forage base before stocking predators. I would have stocked SFS, BNM and PSC at the same time as I stocked the FHM. Adding diversity to the forage base after the predators are stocked is both difficult and expensive.

I haven't made my biggest mistake yet. I always make my wife leave T Overton's office when I write him checks. If I ever forget to do that, that would definitely be my biggest mistake.

2nd to that would just be general neglect of my pond, and the effort it takes to correct that. It's far easier and cheaper to keep up, than to catch up.

I have been wanting to post this somewhere for newcomers. When you design your pond and place structure in the bottom based on the pond at "full pool" you are overlooking one simple fact. The pond will rarely be at full pool!!!.I placed gobs of structure in mine before any water was in it but had the shore marked where full pool would be. Most would be in 5 foot water at full pool. Problem is... my pond stays about 2-3 ft low most all the time!!! one mistake I hope others realize before starting their projects.

1. Not being on PB before the pond was renovated, and not paying enough attention to compaction.

2. Same as above, placing a lot of the structure based on full pool, and most of the time it is a foot to 2.5 feet low, so some structure is exposed or shallow.

3. Not screening my FHM well enough, likely leading to stocking of a few 2-3 inch bass, that are now 10-12".

John,

I didn't check my FHM, I didn't even know I needed to. I hope I don't have any LMB, that's all I'd need. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'd prefer not to have any.

Farm
I bet a bunch of PBers like my self had a start of LMB from FHMs or bucket stocking from helpful neighbors..... not the end but they WILL eat everything up causing problems for a while. Make the best from the situation

My biggest mistake so far is not having a good forage base before the aforementioned unwanted stocking

I have made so many over the years hard to pin down one...

1) Thinking I can ever control mother nature. For example

Pond has become infested with bullheads.
Step 1) Take a class to get my RUP license.
Step 2) Buy Rotenone (spend money)
Step 3) Apply Rotenone and watch all my "good" fish parish with those bad whiskered fish
Step 4) Clean up mess
Step 5) Restock "good" fish (spend more money)
Step 6) Wait for growth
Step 7) The entire process, along with money and time, a waste. They came back.

Work with mother nature and understand if it happened once, it's most certainly going to happen again

Yes, it seems that in a batch of 500 FHM, about 3 to 5 of them might spontaneously turn into LMB. LOL

MNFISH, how did the bullhead get back in after rotenone?

Far and away, without question, my biggest pond management mistakes over the last 40+ years have been

1. not harvesting enough intermediate sized bass
2. not keeping records (i.e., numbers and relative weights)

both of these closely followed by

3. not replacing deteriorating cover and structure in my three 60+ year old ponds. Forage had no place to hide as all the woody/brushy cover rotted away.

Working hard (and hopefully smart) to correct all of these mistakes over the last 18 months....and making slow progress. BM61

I can't say it was MY biggest mistake, but as the muck was being pushed over the dam as my small pond was being renovated it was, of course, very soupy and it managed to continue to ooze down the backside until it overran on old hand dug well and filled in the rock lined catch basin that collects water and guides it into a culvert. I am now hand digging the dried muck out and reworking the rock lining as the operator tried to clean it out and managed to dislodge many of the rocks. I don't believe the operator realized that as he added muck to the top of the pile it was pushing more muck down the hill creating a lot of exercise for me. I guess it beats jogging and pushups.
My pond only has about 18" of water in at this point, so, I have plenty of opportunities for MY biggest mistakes ahead. I will use this thread to learn from others and add some more rock piles and such well below full pool and fine tune my patience when it comes to establishing my forage base.

My ponds are dug outs and surrounded by wetlands. These BOW's are filled with "trash" fish (BH,stickleback,mud minnows, darters, ect). I'm guessing a high water event(s) but truly unknown. LMB and WE have since mitigated the bullhead problem in my ponds.

Side note: In the spirit of the phrase lemons make lemonade, I have been using fish combinations in smaller ponds that utilize BH as forage.

MNFISH2 - Mudminnows are good food for bass - correct? Once predators are added don't the mudminnows become scarce? I tend to think mudminnows are a good forage fish?

Totally agree. Bait guys around here call them trash minnows. Probably because there is no market for them?

I like mud minnows and really like sticklebacks. We are going to shoot a little film this summer showing how the pond fish around here respond to different kinds of bait. IME- BCP's prefer BG yoy first, sticklebacks second, and everything else, including fatheads, a distant third

My ponds and the ones I work with are very small and have well established fish populations.(less than 2 acres with most around 1/2 acre). Minnows don't have much of a chance to establish.

Being honest or fescltious ? They lime stickler back? Or just when they are young?

My biggest mistake this year!! Is saving fish under 22" of ice in only 6" of water and not getting it on film.. but the year is young... last year was a great drought year, had to watch a few trout ponds go belly up, some other good ponds winter killed, great minnows and all. Stocked /bought some RES and there happened to be lmb and bg I noted after 3/4 of the tank was empty. Went to fish "catfish" at a pond a guy said had tons of them, we'll they did have whiskers.......

Not getting involved In pond management earlier

MNFish2 says: "My ponds and the ones I work with are very small and have well established fish populations.(less than 2 acres with most around 1/2 acre). Minnows don't have much of a chance to establish."
You already know this but for others, Almost always for minnows to stay established it takes LOTS of good habitat or a noticeably low number of predators. As the amount of habitat increases the predator number can increase. Minnows and small fish need 'dense' rather than 'fluffy' refuge areas to survive a specific amount of predation. Some small fish are better at escaping predation than other species.

I once saw a 0.25 ac pond where they were growing lots of mosquito fish for use by the metroparks for restocking the mosquito fish for mosquito control in wetland areas. There was one bass, healthy and fat in the pond.

First, I have to applaud you for speaking two languages.

Second, my only mistake I wish I could change was to like many others pay close attention to the minnows stocked. A few white suckers made it into the pond some how.

fish_mn- IME, with dugout ponds, in wetlands type areas, here in mn, sticklebacks are the number two bait behind BG yoy..straight up.

To Bill's point of the difficulty to establish a forage fish food chain in the types of water I see. Please do not do this in your pond. Please do not do this in your pond...Going into our second year testing the use of BH yoy for forage. 5 year old,1/2 acre pond, with BCP and LMB. Trying to find a more economical way to feed small established ponds with live food

Two biggest mistakes:

1) Not enough lime. Originally put 2 tons per acre, then added 2 more, but that wasn't enough given heavy rains on acidic watershed last year. Pond too acidic for fertilization, which meant newly hatched CNBG starved.

2) Put in FHM, then added 3 to 5 inch tilapia months later. Tilapia found little algae, so they dined on FHM. When 3 - 4 inch LMB stocked a month after TP, the FHM were gone, small BG were scarce, and TP were too big to eat. The only LMB that grew were cannibals.

Azteca,

IMO starting this thread was a great idea! If folks continue to contribute, it will be an awesome resource for newbies as well veteran pond meisters! We very often learn more when things go wrong than when they go right.

Bill D.

Bill, I agree 100%.

My biggest mistake? That seems to change daily.

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!

Hell no Bill, keeps all the young tight bodies away. They are too much maintenance and don't buy me things.
Blueies are trueies plus they keep forgetting. Ahhhh, life is grand in the sand!!

HA! Chainsaw? What's that? Who needs noisy chainsaws when Rainman is around to help hand saw?!?!?!

Handsaws are great - super quiet, less mess, and a nice workout. Rex and I actually had a little bit of work getting through this one though.

Rex has had more trees jump in front of his fish truck than anyone I know.

Almost like there is a Spirit saying "Don't let him near your pond. Danger! Danger!"

I recall I broke a rib when the trunk suddenly shifted off the stump and I landed on another log after a 4 foot drop...lol Still, it was worth it to see such a gorgeous pond and setting!

Rex, after seeing the downed trees you drove over at my place, I can't believe you didn't just drive right over that log. Just would have needed a bit of a running start.

My biggest mistake was being too nice to my neighbor who was building my pond. I insisted he get a sheepsfoot roller, but it broke down during the final phase of the dam completion. I should have shut it down right then, until he got the roller fixed. He didn't believe in it, so he just kept on going. I've got the leak to prove it..

Yeah, I remember you walking around opposite of the side shown in the pic, and the darn leaf litter hiding the hole / drop down. And when the log shifted down you went, your rib cage broke your fall ...

What an adventure ...

One the advantages I gained from having Rex deliver fish to my pond was starting a relationship with a local wrecker service.......to haul his truck out.

My biggest mistake was waiting so long to get grass growing around the pond. Next time I will focus on the grass and then on the fish.

Only one...A Tennessee Walker, and I saw it again yesterday....it tried grabbing 300# of trout....Yolksac scared it back to standing still

Here I thought Rex was cutting it to use as an anchor for his winch!

My biggest mistake was not searching harder in this area for someone that wanted to trade sand for clay. Found him 3 years after the renovation was completed, and we both were building ponds at the same time. He had an excess of clay and needed sand, I had the opposite. Could have had full trucks going each way.

I completely agree with what Bob said. There is so much to know about a new pond that the new owners don't know enough to know what questions to ask.

Like a lot of folks, I have made my share of mistakes.
I am a "do it yourself" kind of guy, so I have made mistakes doing a lot of different things, and building a pond started a whole new list. For starters, I was told after I dug my pond for the first time, a half acre would cost so much, not sure how much, but lets say $5,000. So I built it myself, remember I said first time, and only spent about $7,000. Felt like it was too small, so I enlarged it, another $7,000. Now I got my wife to agree, we need to enlarge it again, and make it deeper, so I rented a bigger excavator, and a larger bulldozer. Not going to say how much this time, but I CAN say, I did it MYSELF, every dollars worth. Lesson 1, doing it yourself can get costly.
Then I planted trees so close to the shore, that I could not get my mower safely between the tree and the water. Lesson 2, plant anything close to the water far enough to give your mower at least two passes.
Thought I would raise some tilapia over one winter. Built a greenhouse out of plastic, bought some 300 gallon tanks, several pumps and aerators, and added 4 females and 2 males. Babies came in quick, had to add more aeration and pumps. Added 60 gallon electric water heater and 1000 watt lights to keep water and air warm, maybe too warm. Then electric bills started coming in. Normal for this time of year was about $300-$400 for property. Dec $900, Jan $1200, Feb $2500. Wife called and said I was going to have to sell my new boat. Me, the boat, and the tilapia made it to spring, but not by much. Lesson 3, visit Todd Overton in the spring for Tilapia, a lot cheaper then raising them myself, at least for now, or until she forgets how much I spent.
PS when the power goes out, and you have two tanks full of tilapia, you PANIC, especially when you are at work. Good reason for a big generator.
Loved every minute of it!!

BillyE, my biggest mistakes are when I try to DIY. I am the worst handyman you might ever meet. I always tell my family, if I don't mess up, it means I am not doing anything.

My biggest mistakes have been hiring "professionals" to do what I can do myself but am not motivated to do. I have spent 10-fold redoing such contracted work compared with what it would have taken me to do it myself in the first place. That said, I have also had much better experiences with contracted work. I just seem to be a poor judge of contractors.

He he he Tracy I use that line myself

I'm like Red/Green. If women don't find ya handsome they better find ya handy. LMAO!

Hello.

If you dig a pond, take someone with experience.

When I dug my first pond, it appeared a beautiful vein of water in the rock with lots of pressure, but the operator continued to work around the veine, we lost it completely.

After talking with a well driller, he told me that the operator should not have insisted and should have left the veine quiet, by working around he move some rocks (the machinery it's strong), and the water change the direction.

A+

Using Photo Bucket to host my pictures... LMAO.... sorry just had to throw that in there...

RC

Here's a few...

I put 9 acres of stocking fish into a 17 plus acre pond. Probably should have had it measured before ordering fish...

Never put a big siphon in to start with. Did wind up putting 8" over the dam (below frost line) with valve at top and near bottom). That big valve at bottom was expensive, but it is wonderful to go there and turn it on without having to waste time priming, etc. Saves hauling pump other gear and hours.

Didnt leave enough soil mounded up over siphon trench so it did have valley where settled.

Relied upon spillway too much. Water going over spillway can allow trash fish in (think that may be how i got bullheads and green sunfish). I should have had a vertical drop so fish couldnt swim up water flow into pond. Also, even clay will eventually erode when enough water flows over it and under that clay can be bunch of sand!

Worried too much about having green sunfish and bullheads in pond. I wasted a lot of time and energy fretting about it.
I think it was probably Bill Cody who assurred me the LMB would eventually resolve the situation and he was right.

I didnt put structure in when it was built.

I havent maintained or managed the pond.

Been inconsistent with fish feeding.

And probably the worst thing of all...

I havent made time to really enjoy it nor have had other family members / trusted friends enjoy it.

Im sure there are more i'll think of after i hit submit.

Is there a thread for what we did right?

IN MY SHORT TIME, MY BIGGEST MISTAKE IS NOT REMOVING ENOUGH FISH EACH YEAR. IM ALLERGIC TO FISH SO MY POND IS STRICTLY FOR GROWING TROPHIES BUT I HAVE YET TO HIT THE RIGHT REMOVAL NUMBERS TO GROW MY LMB TO THOSE STANDARDS. FOR SOME REASON MY BRAIN THINKS I SHOULD SPEND MONEY AND ADD FORAGE WHEN ALL I REALLY NEED TO DO IS GO FISHING!