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I've spent the last 2 weeks working 60-75hrs and now have the flu - we have 9" of snow on the ground and another 1-3 forecast in the next 24 hours. I was hoping to make it down there sunday to do some ice fishing


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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I'm watching a river of rain water form in my yard now...temps have been 40+ degrees for almost 3 days and the rain is coming down in sheets. 99% of the snow melted yesterday and I wrapped up my ice fishing season on a semi-local lake. Hopefully the pond will be iced out soon so I can get back to work removing brush from the dam.


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: Dec 2017
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i love this thread I really enjoy watching the progress good luck with everythig

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I took my youngest down to the pond today to check on things - he's home with me this week recovering from having his tonsils removed last Friday. The runoff from snow melt and 2" of rain over a 24hr period ran over the south shoreline ice. I have 2-3" of base ice, 4" of runoff water and a skim of ice from today's cold front.

I need to clean out the upstream face of my feeder creek weir - its nearly topped with sticks, mud and leaves from fall.

These are the two feeders as they confluence just upstream of my primary feeder creek weir - I'm going to add some more low head weirs one of these days to catch heavy rain sediments before reaching the pond....I wish I could just build a small sediment pond in this valley lol




You can see where the runoff ran on top of the pond ice all along the south shore on the left in these pictures




Nasty stuff


There is likely 3-6" of honeycombed ice in all other areas of the pond. The 10 day forecast has a warming trend starting tomorrow that should really start knocking down the ice if it stays sunny.


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: Oct 2017
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Looking good Mat. I've been in Austin, TX this week. Can't wait to get back to Iowa to assess my own ice/pond.


J Waters
Dam'd Waters Farm
2/3 ac dam'd stream pond
BG, HBG, RES, LMB, YP
Joined: Oct 2013
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Quote: "...I wish I could just build a small sediment pond in this valley lol"

Nothing that a trackhoe couldn't fix in about a days work!


John

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John, I'm going to look into it and get some estimates this summer

J, get back home safe buddy...lots of crazy weather all over the central states lately!


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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Ice is coming off nicely! Another week or two and it will be completely open! I saw some YP swimming around today in the shallows and talked to the owner of the upstream pond. His is all catfish and bluegill with 4-6lb catfish and gills topping out at 7". I'm going to provide him with some of my bass once they're above 15"


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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The ice is gone and the water looks pretty decent, not as clear as this time last year but we've had much more rain this year.





perfect picture of how the outlet from the upper pond flows through a shallow wetland and braided creek into my pond. The peninsula on the left is all sedimentation from the primary feeder creek


I'm going to start fishing the pond this week and got permission to access the pond from the upper access road (upper pond is the landowner of the access) to start hauling materials down

Last edited by Matzilla; 03/13/18 08:50 AM.

Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: Aug 2016
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I spent over 8 hours at the pond with my two oldest sons Saturday clearing brush and trees from the face of the dam - it is looking much, much better but we still have a ways to go! I'm going to clear all trees 6" or less off the backside of the dam too. Most trees are honey locust and black locust...I had to drop the honey locust into the pond because it was too much of a burden to log out.







I caught a couple of bass yesterday but the bite is pretty slow. YP are cruising shallows and I had one follow the row boat for about 40'.



Last edited by Matzilla; 03/19/18 03:12 PM.

Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: Aug 2016
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Stopped by the pond yesterday and paddled my youngest boy around...spotted a few fish cruising shallows. We removed sticks and FA slowing water down at the mouth of the outlet. Pond was about 3" higher than full pool. I have a rocking nice algae bloom going right now and fish are surface feeding bugs like crazy. My curlyleaf is looking very nice, short, only in shallows, only thick in 1 small area - should be perfect this year. FA hasn't exploded yet.

We're going to get some rain mid week and I take off for a business trip to California Sunday - I'll start hand feeding pellets when I get back


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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I finally made it down to the pond to do some fishing - I had emergency surgery on the 8th and I'm slowly starting to get back in to the swing of things. To my surprise visibility is around 2-3' in spots not covered by curlyleaf and FA - the pond is in great shape! Perfect amount of plant cover, great water quality, good algae bloom while I was away - creek weirs are working excellent to knock down sediment, etc.




I caught 1 bluegill, 6 walleye, 5 bass, and 20+ crappie - silly me forgot a bucket to cull the crappie and I'm still hurting a bit too much to throw them up on bank from the row boat lol - next time I'll bring the bucket

This is one of the few female BG I stocked almost 2 years ago at 6-8" - she's grown VERY well and is still extremely aggressive!




Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: Oct 2017
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Hi Mat - sorry to hear you've been slowed down a bit. Pond looks good. You must have some aggrasive BG. Not sure how that one thought it was going to get that lure into it's mouth. LOL!


J Waters
Dam'd Waters Farm
2/3 ac dam'd stream pond
BG, HBG, RES, LMB, YP
Joined: Oct 2013
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Looks great!

Glad you are recovering nicely.

I am constantly amazed at the size bait even small BG will strike at. I have caught a lot of them with crank baits similar to yours in previous years.


John

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haha thanks guys, I pitched that crappie crank on a small FA mat just on the weed edge, twitched it off the mat and that hen just exploded on it - she meant business for sure!

I need to do some top water fly fishing asap


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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Matt glad you are recovering
If you just twitch that crappie crank right at dark along the bank I’ve caught lots of crappie.... twitch and stop.... repeat

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Thanks Pat! That's the plan, thin out as many of these crappie as I can this spring while they're easy to catch along the weed edge!


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: Aug 2016
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In just under 2hrs last evening I removed 40 BCP between 5 and 7" and 10 BG between 4-5". I'd like to remove 200 BCP / 50 BG before fall.



There were 2-3 crappie in this size range that were in much better physical shape than those in the bucket - I released those back to the pond. These were both tall and very thickly built fish. I figured keeping a few good ones in the population can't hurt too bad.

Bad news: my BG are busy building nests. Good news: the curlyleaf is so thick in the shallows that the BG have very little suitable nesting areas compared to the last 2 springs

No sign of my YP or HSB

Last edited by Matzilla; 05/22/18 10:18 AM.

Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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The bluegill here completed their first nesting cycle a couple of days ago. Sounds about right for your area. Good luck!

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I baited the cloverleaf trap and set it in 10 fow tonight after a few buddies asked for bullheads to use as flathead bait.

I also hand fed about a lb of left over sportsmans choice feed...surprisingly my new stocked bass went to town and ate darn near all of it. I need tonget some more feed and start feeding the fish nightly again


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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Only 9 bullheads so far, over 75 bcp and 25 bg removed from the pond

While feeding tonight I spotted a monster lmb (20+”) cruisimg the weed esge along with a giant cloud of tiny fry. LMB are feeding very well, BG are taking pellets off the surface...male bg are mudding up the shoreline water as they make beds, lmb are eating them, still no signs of my yp or hsb


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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nice Matzilla i wish the ponds i had had a better crappie population crappies are my favorite fish to catch and eat and I would be positive that if there where crappies in the the pond i could keep them managed just a minnow and slip bobber.

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Matzilla That is some fast pace fishing! I have a pond of similar size as yours with Walleye, Perch, and Blue Gill. I have considered adding another species but I'm afraid it will make management a nightmare. If you had it to do over again would you go with as many species or limit it to 2 or 3 ?

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If i had to do it over again and i was the sole owner of the pond, no hoa, i would have drained it and started over lol

I would have done smb, yp, res, and we and hsb. I love catching giant bluegill so this will work for now haha


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
Joined: Aug 2016
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Yesterday was my first time being at the pond in 6 weeks due to medical reasons. It felt great to finally get down there!

I caught and removed 6 BCP, 7 BH, and a 4" LMB (guess they got a spawn off)

I cruised around and checked out BG on beds - it looks like the average size is 1-3" larger than last year with a majority of male fish on beds in the 5-7" range!

Daily feeding will resume tonight.

The bad: someone walked off with my cloverleaf BH trap. The 14' jon boat that has been on the pond for 10+ years wasn't pulled up on to shore after use, blew across the pond and filled with rain water...I'm just going to let it sink next to the deadfall it is hung up in. The heavy rains have blocked off the mouths of my creeks to the pond with sediment - not good


Mat Peirce
1.25 acre southeast Iowa pond
LMB, BG, YP, WE, HSB, RES, BCP
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