Fear and loathing in NE IN and central FL.

Update....

We are into May and I have seen a definite drop in geese on the pond. Still an occasional " drop in" during the day but no over night guests. Interestingly, no GBH on the pond at dawn this year as well. I have decided the generic solar flashing yellow lights definitely help. At $40 a light, money well spent, even if the batteries are not replaceable. I will spend the bucks every few years for replacements.

all batteries are replaceable... there are two wires... you know the rest.

Problem with these lights is the case is fabricated such that you can't access the battery without destroying the light.

Edit: I just realized I never posted a pic of the lights. I will post some in the next couple of days. Supposed to storm here for the next few days and I'm keeping my fingers crossed it is too wet to take pics for a while!

Here's a pic of one of the lights. Cast aluminum frame. They come with a detachable mount so I just stuck the hubs into some 2 foot sections of PVC I had around as the posts. This one has been out there thru the winter just to see how they would hold up. No problem. Still going strong.

Time to close the loop on my little experiment with the flashing lights. After having three different pairs of geese come wandering out of the brush herding their brood for this year to the pond....

My Conclusions:

My lights that flash at night did nothing to keep geese from showing up in the morning and spending the day.

They did not prevent geese from trying to raise their brood on my pond

Maybe the lights designed specifically as geese deterrents do better...not in my budget to find out but if anyone has tried them, please post your experience.

Thanks Bill. I’m not at my pond often enough to keep geese away. I’m just lucky so far, that they have decided to stay away.

I found that scare-eye balloons seemed to deter GBH, but not geese. Also, holographic bird scare tape put on favorite perches was useful against water turkeys, but again not geese.

The only thing that seemed to bother the geese was when the raccoons swam to the island and raided their nests. A couple of weeks after that they left.

Guys,

I've been pondering a question that has perhaps baffled pondmiesters for years...are geese so smart that they are not fooled by our feeble attempts to scare them away or are they...just too STUPID to be afraid!!

I have spent a lot of my life outdoors and have come to believe most all of Gods creatures are pretty smart. If they weren't man would have killed them all by now.

Man has actually done a pretty good job at causing widespread extinction of many species. I often consider the difference between survival instinct and intelligence. It does not take much intelligence to avoid places where you are shot at. As a biologist, I attribute a lot of survival skills among wildlife and people to basic instinct. Those with these inclinations tend to be the ones passing on their genes. Not to be political, but this selection pressure may no longer apply to humans in developed countries.

A couple of pics of CC we've caught this summer. The little guy is one size class of recruits we've seen. We've also caught smaller.


These two ladies, one 5 lb+ and 1 6 lb+, have an interesting color pattern that I don't ever recall seeing before. Anybody seen CC with this "camo" pattern?

Nice fish with rather unusual coloration.

Bill, how long does it take to grow a 4 to 6 inch CC into 18 - 21 inches, assuming they are fed adequately? I'm considering doing that in my 1/10 acre forage pond.

In my pond, 18 to 21 inch CC would weigh probably 2 to 3 lb+.

If I stocked 4 to 6 inch CC spring 2019, I would expect to harvest 18 to 21 inch fish fall of 2020. My growing season is shorter than yours though so I would expect yours to grow faster.

Although we never see egg ribbons in the spring, apparently, our YP do successfully spawn. We accidentally caught three this size and slightly smaller yesterday while fishing for BG. I hate catching this cool water species when it is this hot as they seem to easily stress. One of the ones we caught did not make it.

Nice pic. I’ve turned into a big YP fan in the last few years. I’ve caught a few smaller ones lately, but not many.

I am very pleased with the walleye fishing this year in our little puddle. The ones we caught/harvested were in the 20 to 21 inch range. If all that I stocked survived, there should still be 9 more in there. The plan is to ladder stock some more next spring. They seem to be really helping control the number of YOY LMB. Here is a typical WE from this year. (It is dead and a little stiff in the pic as it was in an ice water bath just prior to the photo.)

Bill D, I have only seen catfish look those colors after they had been dead for awhile. I'm being serious. I assume those fish are still alive in that photo? They look to be. I had a retail fish dealers license many years ago and bought catfish from huge lakes and private commercial ponds all over Texas.Don't recall ever seeing LIVE channel cats look exactly like that.

Yep, those girls are alive in the pic. That was their coloring as we pulled them from the pond. Only thing I can figure is that we had had quite a bit of rain that raised the pond 4 feet or so. Maybe they were changing color to adjust to the change in water color/visibility? They tasted great!

If we put CC in our holding pen and leave them a few days they will get that pale coloration I think from rubbing themselves on the plastic mesh and fighting. We have learned we can leave BG in the cage for quite some time with no ill effects but the CC over a couple days and they will get skin damage with eventual bacterial infection and die. We try not to leave CC longer than over night and clean them by no later than the next day because of this.

But to get to my point, by looking at the date posted, I wonder if the fish could have been nesting and getting the same type of skin coloration because of abrasion like I see when we have them in the cage. I do not know this to be the case, just an idea that might fit the time of year.

Thanks for the input John!

Interesting point. You may be on to something. One was full of eggs and the other had apparently just spawned (no eggs).

I have started reading through this thread about your "Mutt Pond" I also have a pond with just bucket stocked fish. It's all about the fun of fishing at your own fishing hole and see what you can catch.

Hope you enjoy the read Buddy. Sounds like we have similar goals. This year was our 5th summer since digging the pond. I am happy to report that it has exceeded our expectations. You never know what you might catch when fishing in our pond and we have feasted several times on nice size BG, HBG, PS, YP, LMB, SMB, WE and CC. I wish you similar or better results with your Mutt Pond!

Bill D.

Caught and released our one and only GSF tonight. Fat little fella. 7.5 inches. I stocked it a few years back to see if I could get a few HBG recruits. I don't know whether it is male or female but we do occasionally catch a HBG of various sizes so the plan is apparently working at least to some extent.

Just realized I did not post a pic of a typical YP that we harvested this year so I snapped this shot a couple days ago. This one was 11+ inches. There is a also a 8.5 inch BG in the shot.