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#500705 01/15/19 08:34 PM
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First post. I'm a retired IBEW electrician and have been living the dream since I retired in '16. My wife retired a few months after myself. We bought a home in northern central Michigan when we retired 3 years ago. The 1/2 acre pond is part of the homes geo-thermal heating and cooling. We have some hybrid bluegills, perch,and bass, and supplemental feed the hybrid gills for about 7 months out of the year. Looking forward to learning some things from the seasoned veterans here. Aerated 24/7, our pond is a little over a half acre and 14' deep.

We went from living in the Capital city our entire lives to a wonderful rural location with our nearest neighbors about
a half mile away. The wildlife the pond attracts is amazing.

j

Summer view


Winter view












This is the matriarch doe in our area. I believe she is six.
She had twins for three years in a row prior to this last year.
This last year she had triplets. This is a shot of her looking very pregnant last May on the backside of our pond. I have a progression of shots of
her and the triplets through the summer and fall as they use the food
plots I put in for them.
No mistaking her with any of the the other deer as she is a head taller then every deer she hangs with,
even the big bucks.


Early Jun we saw her for the first time with the triplets.


July


Nov


Backyard bucks


Wood ducks and squirrel


Turkey - Squirrel


Turkey - Deer



Last edited by corgi; 01/16/19 12:21 PM.
corgi #500706 01/15/19 08:47 PM
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Cont.


One of our corgis watching a squirkey sandwich
T



Two days before we closed on the home, I tried fishing the pond for the first time. I caught 2 hybrids both about
8 inches. The third fish I hooked hit like a ton of bricks and I thought it was one of the large bass in the pond
the prior owner had told me about. He used to have Boy Scouts that would have jamborees on the property where they would camp out. They would catch and release fish in the pond. The large bass that had been caught by them he told me was just shy of 7 lbs, which is huge for Mich.

I finally got the fish to the surface and was amazed at the size of the hybrid. I walked off the small dock to beach it, as my 2 lb leader would not endure lifting the fish. I measured it quickly with a dollar bill which
is 6 inches long and came up with about 13 inches of obscenely fat bluegill. Awesome fish. Probably weighed 2 lbs +. I released it of course. I then caught another smaller gill and a LMB that was very healthy. When he finished his sandwich and came out to join me, he asked if I had caught anything. When I told him, he smiled, a knowing smile.

He had built the home as a dream home for him and his wife in '98. His wife had passed suddenly earlier in the year so he decided to sell the home. I stumbled onto the Zillow listing just a few hours after it had been posted and it read like everything we had ever wanted in a country home. Some acreage, tons of wildlife, the pond, huge garden area. After catching that 13" hybrid, the house could have been a shack and I still would have wanted to buy it based on the size of that bluegill alone. lol

I replanted in spring of '17 with more hybrids, and some YBP, and 2 gallons of fatheads to compliment the perch. The last time he had planted was in '08 so it was time. The perch have grown very fast. Some of the females are now almost 12". I will at some point start to selectively harvest some of the perch, but with all of the abundant lakes in the area, I can get all of the bluegills I need for the freezer from local lakes and will probably catch and release the hybrids. I've not fished it for the last two years since restocking. I love watching the fish when I feed them. Very addicting to watch.

I could go into some detail about the blue heron that ate every hybrid it could stalk, but aside from decoys, what I ended up doing was using a bunch of green galvanized fence stakes and bird netting all the way around the 640' of shoreline and the same out in the pond at about thigh depth. This took the wife and I about 40 hours to do over a few weeks time, but we finally stopped that bastard. In one of the above shots with the turkeys, you can see the fence poles and the netting. It's hideous to look at but at least I thwarted his constant and efficient attack upon the hybrids. I took it all out for winter as the pond ices over around the edge in the winter so I get to do it all over again next year. The biologist at the hatchery has a federal permit to kill them as they are very detrimental to their business. I just wish us private pond owners had that option.

Wood duck female with her ducklings and my arch enemy


I even put in 2 wood duck nesting boxes in the swamp adjacent to the pond. I want to give them every opportunity for a successful brood. One of the prettiest ducks swimming imo.



As a side note, I love angling. I'm the only guy in my State of Michigan, that has two
state records. Both were caught accidentally while fishing for other species, but it put
me in the record books twice. No other angler in my state can say that. One was a whitefish caught
surf fishing Lake Michigan for steelhead, and the other was a black bullhead caught accidentally while
fishing for bluegills. I've since been de-throned on both of these records, but I'm still the only guy that
has 2 records on the books.
13 lbs 4 oz whitefish


25 lbs combined on these two nice eyes.


Lake Mi trout (steelhead) caught with 2 lb test leader and spawn fishing in the surf. The one I'm holding is my lifetime personal best for surf fishing with light leaders and noodle rods. It weighed 17 lbs 4 oz.

Last edited by corgi; 01/17/19 09:59 AM.
corgi #500707 01/15/19 09:22 PM
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Great Pictures and story.

This is what it is all about.


4 acre pond 32 ft deep within East Texas (Livingston) timber ranch. Filled (to the top of an almost finished dam) by Hurricane Harvey 9/17. Stocked with FHM, CNBG, RES 10/17. Added 35lbs RSC 3/18. 400 N LMB fingerlings 6/18
corgi #500708 01/15/19 09:28 PM
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Absolutely great post! My mouth won't stop watering after seeing those walleyes!


[Linked Image]
Be Brave Enough to Suck at Something New!
corgi #500711 01/15/19 10:57 PM
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Welcome to the forum.

Great pictures.

If you aerate 24/7 through the winter, might want to check out some of the old winter aeration threads concerning super cooling your pond. Some move the diffuser to shallow water in the winter to keep water open but to leave a warm water refuge in the deeper portion of the pond. You may already do that.


John

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snrub #500712 01/15/19 11:05 PM
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Welcome to the forum , great post

corgi #500713 01/15/19 11:19 PM
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Good to see another retired ibew electrician I am a member of ibew#180 I also got my property with pond as a place to enjoy our self. But my place is not quite as beautiful as yours. But I am working on it.

corgi #500714 01/16/19 12:27 AM
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Wonderful pics! I've got deer too and hopefully will get them in close by planting rye grass.

Have you had any issues with Canada Geese and/or cormorants?


7ac 2015 CNBG RES FHM 2016 TP FLMB 2017 NLMB GSH L 2018 TP & 70 HSB PK 2019 TP RBT 2020 TFS TP 25 HSB 250 F1,L,RBT -206 2021 TFS TP GSH L,-312 2022 GSH TP CR TFS RBT -234, 2023 BG TP TFS NLMB, -160




anthropic #500716 01/16/19 06:19 AM
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Corgi I’m a retired Pipefitter from 211, good to see a Brother from IBEW.
Anthropic in our area deer will hardly eat rye but will readily consume oats and winter wheat. We plant 4-5 Acres of it and sometimes there will be 20-45 deer in pasture . We have no geese but tons of cormorants........

Last edited by Pat Williamson; 01/16/19 06:21 AM.
corgi #500717 01/16/19 06:33 AM
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Nice story and fish. Welcome fellow Michigander...I'm in S.E Michigan. Were do you get your stocking fish from?

corgi #500724 01/16/19 08:28 AM
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Nice post with pics. Welcome to the Forum. And Frank, I agree with Pat. If you are wanting to plant something for your deer, use Elbon Rye and not rye grass. Rye Grass is not good and can become invasive and deer don't care much for rye grass and if you plant the elbon rye the deer will keep it trimmed down looking like a nice green yard smile

Last edited by TGW1; 01/16/19 08:29 AM.

Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.


Tracy
anthropic #500725 01/16/19 08:32 AM
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Originally Posted By: snrub
Welcome to the forum.

Great pictures.

If you aerate 24/7 through the winter, might want to check out some of the old winter aeration threads concerning super cooling your pond. Some move the diffuser to shallow water in the winter to keep water open but to leave a warm water refuge in the deeper portion of the pond. You may already do that.


Now that's what I'm talking about and something I would not have known about. Great point and very much appreciated. Thank you for the tip. I will definitely research this.



Originally Posted By: cb100
Good to see another retired ibew electrician I am a member of ibew#180 I also got my property with pond as a place to enjoy our self. But my place is not quite as beautiful as yours. But I am working on it.


I'm a member of local 665 and it served me well as I did it. A well paid job, with the added benefits of pensions and health care.

Food plots made a big difference on the numbers of deer we see. My neighbor has a hay field next door that he cuts 3 times a year for his beef cattle. In the winter months when they are "yarded" up, we have seen as many as 60 come out of our woods and gravitate toward the hay field every evening. The food plots I put in just slow them down a little on their way to the hay field. It lets me take some great photos of the deer, and decide all summer long which one I want to harvest once hunting season begins. I usually take my time and pass on many before I finally take one. I use to take two, but we do not eat enough to justify taking two, so one perfect sized doe without a fawn that is one and half years old. Finding one without a fawn is the tough part. It makes them tougher to see than nice bucks. I let bucks walk and passed on both of the bucks above, although my neighbor could not resist the 10 point who was 3 I believe. It would have been nice to see what he would have looked like at age 5 or 6. Oh well, I can't really blame him as it was a very nice buck.

This pic shows 12 of 20 and was taken on Jan 2nd, one day after 3 months of hunting. The field the other side of the pine trees is the hay field they feed in. This spot in our yard is where I planted a bunch of different sweet clover and perennials they like. Almost as much fun watching as hybrids feeding.


The smaller food plot on the back side of the pond. This pic was from last year one day after hunting season closed.




Originally Posted By: anthropic
Wonderful pics! I've got deer too and hopefully will get them in close by planting rye grass.

Have you had any issues with Canada Geese and/or cormorants?


Yes on the geese, and no on the cormorants. I've had 2 varieties of mergansers I've chased off which also works on the geese. There are huge numbers of geese that winter on a nearby river/wetland area, and we have the occasional pair show up now and then in the spring. I nip it in the bud, by chasing them off as soon as they land. My constant view of the pond out the window of my man cave lets me see the entire pond and though the geese are fun to see. One pair, will lead to a few dozen making the shoreline a proverbial slip and slide. I just go out the door and holler at them a bit, and sometimes have to walk toward the other end of the pond, but they get the idea.

The prior owner had told me of an otter that he had, that took some patience before he was able to shoot it. I've not seen any or signs of any yet, but I'm aware of them and just like the blue heron, it will not be allowed to set up shop.

Muskrat were a making a mess of the pond and in 17', I trapped 15 of them out of the pond from late spring through fall using colony traps. I've caught bluegill, perch, and bass in these same traps and all are very happy when I release them when checking the traps. I even caught a 20 lb. + snapper out of the pond last year using a live trap. I did not want to see the baby wood ducks start disappearing. He got relocated to a wetland river system a few miles away.


This last spring we had a barred owl perched overlooking the pond. Normally nocturnal, she was abandoning her normal nocturnal instincts with mouths to feed back at the nest. I was taking a bunch of pics of her and watched her observing squirrels, rabbits, and other birds. After about 45 minutes perched, she finally made her choice and it pleased me no end. She flew down and landed on top of a muskrat and just held it submerged at the waters edge for a few seconds. I was amazed at how quickly she dispatched it, and then flew back with it to the hollowed out tree where she has her nest and waiting owlets. We avoided the area all summer to give her and her owlets some privacy. I did not catch nearly as many muskrat this last year as the prior year, and I'm assuming it was because of our friend, the owl. So cool to be able to take photos of her.
We will occasionally have a Bald Eagle grab bass from the pond and fly off. Very cool to see. I did not know that owls could do the same with their talons as eagles, but I watched that owl do just that in the deeper section of the pond. It was not as graceful as the Eagle, and it almost looked like she might go swimming, but she got a bass about a foot long. I think her technique for this type of grab with the talons needs perfecting.




She got the job done before the auto focus kicked in. Stupid auto focus.



Large snapper relocated to a river wetland area about 5 miles away. As a plus, these same two live traps for snappers were
used in the garden as the raccoons were decimating our sweet corn. They ruined 6 rows, 120' long. I used mini marsh mellows in a tuna tin and caught 8 of them over a two week period late August, early September last year. 8' fencing did not slow them down at all.


Hybrid bluegill bed made by male in spring of '17. No females came to join him. This is when I decided to restock.


Thanks everyone for the kind comments. I love the pond and like the line from "A River Runs Through It", "I am haunted by waters." I look forward to learning here, as well as seeing what others have done to improve their ponds. I was browsing a thread that mentioned perch in the 17" class. Let me tell you, that raised my eyebrows. As the new page in our life with the country home and pond opens, I find myself reborn and inspired. I play guitar, and although I gave up playing bars in the early 80's, it's still a huge part of my life. I cannot tell you how many times, while recording in my studio, I've looked over the top of my monitor and viewed another Marty Stauffer moment at the pond. I have to stop recording, put down the guitar, and start taking pics. I've taking pics of almost 70 different species of birds from inside my man cave. Mich has about 120 of which I've seen almost 70 without leaving the house. Love the pond.

Kingfisher


Speaking of threads, here is my "pond gun". An 1855 Harpers Ferry civil war musket that has been handed down in my family for generations. It was used by my great, great, grandfather in the Civil war.


Aside from fishing, another huge part of my life is playing guitar which I took up at age 11 afer seeing the Beatles on
the Ed Sullivan show. Here's a vid of a cover by one of my fave guitarists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW6UK7ofXiw&feature=email

more here: www.soundcloud.com/belleswell


Thanks everyone. Tite lines.
J

Last edited by corgi; 01/18/19 11:11 AM.
Mfitzs70 #500726 01/16/19 08:51 AM
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Originally Posted By: Mfitzs70
Nice story and fish. Welcome fellow Michigander...I'm in S.E Michigan. Were do you get your stocking fish from?


We were life long residents of Lansing until we both retired in '16. Living the dream. To answer your question, I use Stoney Creek hatchery over by Newago. Very helpful, and only about an hours drive. All of the fish survived the trip in oxg infused bags. Dave is the biologist there and he has been very helpful, as well as the guy that does the in house shop repairs on pumps. He fixed mine for peanuts compared to what a new pump would have cost. They've got my business.

They send me their catalogs which have a great selection of pond related items. Here is their number for getting on their mailing list.

800-448-3873

or their web address:

www.stoneycreekequip.com

J

Last edited by corgi; 01/18/19 06:28 PM.
corgi #500727 01/16/19 09:07 AM
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The only thing I have found effective to keep the coons out of the sweet corn patch is an electric fence. A low powered solar one will suffice. One strand about a foot off the ground for the coons and one about 3' high for the deer. Sometimes the squirrels will get past it and the blackbirds may get into a few shucks but generally the two wires will take care of the majority of corn thieving varmints.

Best to put it up early as if you wait till you already have a problem they are a little more persistent. But if you install it after the coons have already been into it, then hear a gawdawful scream in the middle of the night, just smile and roll over going back to sleep knowing it is working. grin

Last edited by snrub; 01/16/19 09:12 AM.

John

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snrub #500728 01/16/19 09:17 AM
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Originally Posted By: snrub
The only thing I have found effective to keep the coons out of the sweet corn patch is an electric fence. A low powered solar one will suffice. One strand about a foot off the ground for the coons and one about 3' high for the deer. Sometimes the squirrels will get past it and the blackbirds may get into a few shucks but generally the two wires will take care of the majority of corn thieving varmints.

Best to put it up early as if you wait till you already have a problem they are a little more persistent. But if you install it after the coons have already been into it, then hear a gawdawful scream in the middle of the night, just smile and roll over going back to sleep knowing it is working. grin


Great tip. I'll research that. Our garden area is 60' x 120' which gives the entire garden a 360' perimeter. It may require more than one of the fence kits to do that much perimeter, or I could just do the corn area within the 8 foot deer fencing we have for the entire garden .
Thanks, J

Last edited by corgi; 01/17/19 03:03 AM.
corgi #500733 01/16/19 10:47 AM
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Welcome to the forum Corgi and thanks for the awesome pictures and sharing your story. It is also so good to hear that there are other fellow MI pond owners and lovers.

I'm in the suburb of GR, MI and am envious of your rural setting and beautiful pond. I love your pictures and hearing about your struggles and successes.

I'm curious. Is the pond a natural ground water pond? DO you know who built it or if they had a good compacted clay liner? Does the water level fluctuate and how do you deal with that? Can you add water at will?

I would second the concern about 24/7 aeration and there are a lot of good articles about that topic here and you can ask questions if you would like.

What failed on your aeration pumps and how was it fixed? I'm told I have to fix my pumps after only a few years of low hour use so it sounds like some repairs are inevitable on these machines.

My brother in law has a nice small pond and for a few years he had issues with cloudy, muddy water, winter kill, stagnant water issues, algae etc despite a surface fountain. I tried to encourage him to read about bottom aeration and try it and finally last year he did. The smell was awful at startup but now he has very clear healthy water and no winter kill.

So you have HBG and YP, with LMB as your predator? What forage species do you have? Crayfish? shiners? I'm wondering how you keep your YP fed maybe you pellet feed?

I'd prefer to have a lot less deer around only because by us they are 'city dwelling' deer and become nuisance in a hurry.

I love your owl pictures. We have a resident barred owl pair in the middle of a fairly suburban area. I'm convinced they stay put because there is so much food in the pond for them. They gorge on American toads in the spring when the toads come to swim in the pond and lay eggs. They clean up fish and frogs in the summer, and we love to hear them. We rarely see them though.

Hope you continue to share your stories with us. For you and other MI pond owners who might be reading this, I may be asking to share a larger (minimum size order) package of stocker walleye or SMB (haven't decided yet) this spring or summer.

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Originally Posted By: snrub
The only thing I have found effective to keep the coons out of the sweet corn patch is an electric fence. A low powered solar one will suffice. One strand about a foot off the ground for the coons and one about 3' high for the deer. Sometimes the squirrels will get past it and the blackbirds may get into a few shucks but generally the two wires will take care of the majority of corn thieving varmints.

Best to put it up early as if you wait till you already have a problem they are a little more persistent. But if you install it after the coons have already been into it, then hear a gawdawful scream in the middle of the night, just smile and roll over going back to sleep knowing it is working. grin


I second that. An electric fence keeps the sweet corn safe. They learn quickly to stay away. We use electric netting as we have it already for the sheep. It's low but the deer don't like it either.

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Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
Welcome to the forum Corgi and thanks for the awesome pictures and sharing your story. It is also so good to hear that there are other fellow MI pond owners and lovers.....



The name of excavator that dug the pond is RG Torpey Excavating , and even though he had dug the pond for the prior owner of the property back in '98, I still found it necessary to contact him this last summer. The reason was that the pond was down a little more than it was the summer before. It went down by almost a foot in the summer months the first year we were here. I thought I might have caused leaks in the clay liner by beating in all of the fence stakes I put in the pond for the netting I put in to deter blue herons.

The pond has an overflow that runs out and joins a small creek that has water flowing in it about 9 months out of the year. It dries up in the summer as does the level of the pond which keeps it from flowing into the creek for those 3 months. The house uses geo thermal heating and cooling and the well water used for this is sent into the pond. That is one of the reasons for the overflow. When I talked to the excavator about the lowered water levels in the pond, (it was down a about 15 inches according to a yard stick gauge I have by the dock), and thought I might be the reason because of the fence stakes. He remembered digging our pond and told me that he hit a few springs while digging. It made digging it a little more difficult for him because it was filling in while he did it. He told me that others had their pond levels down much more than I because of a lack of rainfall this last summer. He told me the stakes should not be of concern because of the soil type, the amount of clay, and the springs that feed the pond. This fall it came back to its normal levels.

The pump is a Easy Pro Rocking Piston Compressor that is oil less. A rebuild kit is available which I had to order and put in the original 15 year old motor. I did this the first winter I was here as it just quit working. The kit cost around $50 dollars and was easy to install. It took about 10 minutes and fixed the problem. The latest fix I had them do at Stoney Creek hatchery involved the same motor, but this time, the attached capacitor overheated, and all the insulation leaked out which killed it. He installed a new one on the pump while I watched and charged me $38. The root cause was because of the air filter. It got clogged up from living on a dirt road and overheated the motor and this in turn melted the potted insulation in the capacitor. I now have a spare filter and clean the one on the pump regularly. Lesson learned.

I will definitely be researching the diffuser placement in the pond based on what has been mentioned, or put in another in a shallower part of the pond and rotate seasonally between them.

As far as feed for the pond. I do not need to feed, but do anyway, as I enjoy watching them. The pond has many different insect hatches that occur throughout the year, including a mayfly, (hexagenia limbata), hatch that occurs nightly for about a week at the end of May, first part of July. We also have a ton of peepers, a load of toads, and some crayfish.

The feed I use from April through the end of Oct., is made by Ziegler. The smaller sized floating pellets. Other than the hybrids who love it, the smaller bass up to about 12 inches will also feed on it. The pond has many different year classes of bass up to some that are 6 or 7 lbs. I did not re-stock bass as they seem to be doing fine on their own. When I restocked in spring of '17, I put in 2 gallons of fathead minnows to compliment the YBP. I put in an additional 2 gallons this last spring as well.

Should I be feeding the perch something other than the fathead minnows I've been putting in? Sinking pellets ? Emerald shiners? Educate me on this. I would love to have an easy time catching 14 inch + perch. I'm hoping that I can get a self sustaining population of them, like the bass, and they will also help keep HBG numbers in check. They are my fave fish to eat. The prior gent that owned the property had stocked twice since the pond was dug in '98. Once that year, and again in '08. When he replanted in '08, he put in some perch but thought that the bass in the pond had ate them all. This last spring, I caught an 11 inch female in a colony muskrat trap that had 3 smaller males with her. The males were able to swim out of the trap before I could lift it out of the water, but the female I had to open the door for. She had a belly full of eggs and was laying them when she swam into the colony trap. I was happy to see a belly full of eggs and she was happy to continue on her mission.

Thanks, J

Last edited by corgi; 01/18/19 11:44 AM.
corgi #500746 01/16/19 01:55 PM
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Thanks for the reply!
1. If your pond is fed by springs or goes up and down with the water table then it sounds like some fluctuation is normal and not a concern. You add pond from your geothermal in the winter and naturally use your overflow then.

2. If the creek and the pond connect then you face possibility of wanted and maybe unwanted fish coming in from the creek? Have you considered a barrier for that or are you OK with that?

3. Thanks for info about your aerator. I check my air filter all the time and it always stays clean, I have no idea why as it is out in the open but we do not have a local gravel road or open fields to create dust. My rebuild kit is needed because of wear parts and also some design flaw that made parts 'stick' with age and create excess wear at startup. My capacitor boot is cracked a bit so I'll keep an eye on that as well.

4. I would say your YP have plenty of options for food but it would be a bonus if they could BE pellet trained before stocking or if you could train them somehow to be pellet trained. I stocked pellet trained YP and I see the smaller ones continue to grab pellets. They rocket up from the bottom and disappear very quickly so it is hard to know for sure, but by the splash and style it is very different than the other fish. The larger YP I suspect wait for pellets to hit the bottom or, they ambush the minnows that are schooled up above them feeding at the surface.

See if you can get Stony Creek to habituate the YP (Not sure if when you say YBP you mean something different than Yellow Perch YP?) to pellets when young. Hopefully some learn from the HBG that are pellet feeders.

5. If you wanted bonus forage diversity you could add golden shiners or common shiners, whatever are in your creek, or even try to source spotfin shiners. The problem is that your LMB may keep them from reaching a self-sustaining population. To do this you would have to use a 'blocking net' across part of the pond for them to grow in and release batches at a time. Or dig a small forage pond, or sink a 500 gallon poly water tank partway in the ground and use that as a forage 'tank'.

I'm trying to get a sustaining population of spotfin shiners (SFS) in my pond and last summer they used my specialized spawning structures quite readily. I'm eager to see how many will survive the hungry mouths of the YP over the winter. My crayfish (presumably) keep the pond free of weeds, we have had zero snow, clear ice, and lots of sun shining through the ice so I'm sure the fish have had no problems seeing their prey this winter.

You might want to look into that. Otherwise put a blocking net across the creek by you and go upstream and wade and make a ruckus towards the net. See what species you find. They are native already and would be good forage options if you could put them in the pond in sufficient numbers.

6. One last thing, We had a thread going last year where YP owners from all over the US recorded what date they saw their first YP ribbon, what weather or water conditions were like, what structure the eggs were laid on, and what coordinate of the pond (SW, NW) it was seen in. It was amazing that almost to the day YP were laying eggs at the same time across the US. It seemed that they preferred the sunny side of the pond and daylight hours might have been a stronger trigger than for example pond water temperature. I also found it interesting that YP are described as egg 'drapers' looking for structure to attach or drape their eggs over.

But several noticed that when they set out branches for them to drape it over that the eggs instead went on a bed of leaves, or somewhere next to the branches but not draped in them. I noticed in my pond that they like quite shallow water (even 6") and usually go to the sunny side of the pond and pick a bed of oak leaves to lay them on. I also noted that when I left a 'cavity' or pocket they could swim in that the female WOULD swim in the cavity, and for you got stuck in the cavity. I also had a female swim into a larger opening of one of my pyramid style minnow nets that I had left out a bit too long, laid eggs in the minnow net and swam back out.

So maybe if given a choice the YP momma really does like some privacy and given a cavity would choose it over a tree branch? I think we should set out some old 5 gal buckets with 4" round hole in the side and a lid on top and some other 'cavity' options and see what YP really like best this spring!

Your spawning bed picture makes it look as if you use some pond dye to control algae as well? It looks good!

Would love to know what kind of crayfish you have in your pond too, so this spring hopefully you can post some close up top/bottom view pictures of your crayfish!

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Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
Thanks for the reply!
1. If your pond is fed by springs or goes up and down with the water table then it sounds like some fluctuation is normal and not a concern. You add pond from your geothermal in the winter and naturally use your overflow then....




The outflow from the pond has a small wooden bridge over it and it is just a trickle flowing out. It meets up with another small trickle of a creek that winds through the property. I have some culverts under some of the trails and even during high water, (if you can call it that),in the spring, I don't think much could swim upstream to get to the pond.Because the culverts and the flow of water through them has a drop at the downstream end of the culvert not allowing the small minnows I've seen in the creek to get past the culverts.

I use Aqua-shade pond dye, and for filamentous algae, I use Cutrine + along with some activator. I use this in a sprayer for the algae. The first year, all I needed to do was the Cutrine treatment twice. This last year, I had to do it 4 times as there was much more of it.(It was a long dry summer)

This increase in algae could directly relate to my 36" lake rake I used to remove debris and leaves from a few areas of the pond. This rake disturbed the algae which then starts a bloom.


As well, this year I had a duckweed explosion in the dry summer months along with some sago grass showing up where I had not noticed it the year prior. In hindsight,this may have been the result of overfeeding. In our first year here, we had a successful brood of 5 ducklings and the wood duck female. They would visit the pond a few times a day and clean up any uneaten floating pellets they could find. This last year, shortly after starting the feeding regime, I found what appeared to be broken eggs from the wood ducks. We had 4 mating pairs this last spring and we had high hopes for a repeat performance this year, but a predator got to their nest and eggs. Probably raccoons, but coyote,fox, and even some birds are suspect.

Regardless, we did not have a family of wood ducks to act as the clean up crew for the stupid human that was throwing too much food into the pond. When these floating pellets sink to the bottom along the shoreline, it causes huge increase in nitrogen and kick starts conditions for weeds, including the duck weed and sago. Although the pond excavator told me that everyone he had talked to were having problems to one degree or another with the duckweed. Very little rainfall for over a two month period and higher than normal temps.


I bought a treatment for the duckweed and sago grass. A product named Clipper. It was not cheap and requires activator and water in the mix, and then spraying. When I read further into Clipper, after having bought it, I decided not to use it as I did not want any fish kills from it. I used instead a lake rake for the sago grass, and a pond skimmer for the duck weed. It was a constant battle to keep the duckweed away. Impossible to get all of it without treating the pond, but it was good exercise and I didn't have to harm the fish. I was able to keep most of it at bay.

When I said YBP, I was referring to yellow bellied perch. We have white bellied perch in Lake Michigan, and connecting lakes to Lake Michigan. I've notice many abbreviations here for the many species of fish. Some are obvious, and some are not. For example is HSB short for hybrid silver bass? IDK.lol Is there a list of these abbreviations?

I put some branches in the pond down at the far end where the cattails are. There were already some in the water from a shoreline tree, but I added a couple more for the fatheads to have somewhere to spawn. The perch may use it as well. The spot I caught the female in the trap that had been spawning was caught on a south shore in about a foot of water with little or no vegetation to speak of. Just some leaves. The north shore warms first in the spring and I would think that it would be the better choice. I just happened to catch one in a colony trap on the south side of the pond. It does not mean that they are not using the north side which warms first.

I also threw in the pond about a yards worth of washed p stone sized gravel to give the HBG a few places to do their thing.
I threw in a few shovel fulls in a few spots around the pond and it took them no time at all to turn it into beds. The first year before I planted I had about a dozen beds I could see. Some were bass. After planting in '17, I had about 30 beds I could see, and others that were just deep enough to where they couldn't be seen from shore. I found them while wading and putting in the fence stakes for the attaching the bird netting to. Some of these beds I found while wading were huge. I also noticed what the bottom was like wading it in waist deep water. Mostly, marl/clay with a few spots that had a mat of leafy matter. These areas I spent considable time with the lake rake remove one plastic sled toboggan load at a time. Each time, I removed a bunch of the leafy matter, I was also disturbing the filamentous algae, and that is why I had to use Cutrine + 4 times this year and opposed to two times the first year. By distubing the bottom debris, I increase the algae. Now that I've cleaned up what had not been done since the pond was dug, I should not have to work as hard on keeping the away the leafy matter. Some is good, but not too much, and with woods surrounding the pond, it needs a little clean up now and then.

I was surprised that the pond is still 14 feet deep for most of it, as I would assume sediments would have filled it in a little. It is still the same depth he told me he dug it to 20 years ago.

I've seen the crayfish we have in the pond darting off as I walk the perimeter, and I've also seen the 1" dia holes they've crawled out of along the shore, but I've yet to have one to get close up shot of.

By the way, the rebuild kit came with some simple instructions and all it took was a screw driver, allen wrench, and a small knife to pry out the old gasket. 10 minutes tops. Now that I watched the guy repair/replace the capacitor, I would feel very comfortable doing that as well.

Cheers, J

Last edited by corgi; 01/17/19 07:02 PM.
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Here are the acronyms:

Pond Boss Acronyms

but you make a good point, we do not have White Perch on the list. White perch are not a perch at all and are invasive in the great lakes system, but it makes sense to have an entry on the acronym list for them.

I would say we keep YP as Yellow Perch and add a WP for White Perch but I do not know who the 'Big KOTA' is on the forum (KOTA is Keeper OF THE Acronyms)

Thanks for your replies and helpful advice about your struggles with duckweed and aerators.

Usually a pond that starts having more problems with weeds and especially duckweed or watermeal means a pond that is starting to 'age' or build a nutrient load (eutrophic conditions). The nutrients can be loaded up on the bottom which the only solution that is immediately effective and long term effective is to dig out years of muck and refill. You are aerating which should help. You can research muck reducing tablets too.

If the bottom isn't too loaded up then it could be heavy runoff or run-in to the pond of nutrients. That is harder to control but there are topics on here about nutrient fences, and chains of smaller 'silt ponds' to capture nutrients.




Last edited by canyoncreek; 01/16/19 03:53 PM.
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WP as white perch added to acronyms list.
Very good self introduction to the forum - WELCOME. I went to grad school at CMU Mt.Pleasant. Good times in Mid-Michigan.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 01/16/19 08:19 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
WP as white perch added to acronyms list.
Very good self introduction to the forum - WELCOME. I went to grad school at CMU Mt.Pleasant. Good times in Mid-Michigan.


Thanks so much Bill. We are now about 30 minutes north west of Mt Pleasant. The nearest town is Barryton. Beautiful country. The problem with moving from our life long home and friends in the Lansing area is the lack of fishing buds. I fish,.... a lot. I even have a t-shirt somewhere that says , "Fishing is not just a matter of life or death, It's much more important than that".

And now that I'm retired, I can hit any boat ramp I want to any day of the week and avoid the weekend warriors. I can chase my faves which are BG, YP and WE . I'm also pretty efficient at catching salmon and trout on Lake Michigan, as I've been chasing them with a boat since they were re-introduced in the late 60's.

Lately I've been in full ice fishing mode. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. While ice fishing in a small portable pull over shanty, I sometimes ran out of room for a good hookset when starting a jigging cadence that started with my spring bobber down close to the hole. As I swim the jig slowly upward, sometimes for a few feet with a slab following *(I can see them on the Vexilar). Finally after much coaxing and swimming upward, I finally get a bite, but have run out of hook setting room. I made the worlds smallest ice fishing rod. Note the "spring bobber" on the end of the rod. These can be bought commercially for a few dollars, but they keep getting more and more expensive. I started making them from broken strings on my guitar. High E or B (.009 or .011) work great along with some craft store beads and tubing, I can make them, with the shrink wrap to secure them to the rod for about 20 cents, half of which is for the shrink wrap. Much cheaper. Works great, and I don't feel so bad when one gets messed up and needs replacing.

Lately the rule of the day has been limits of gills with some bonus YP thrown in. Spikes and Mousies (mousies were not easy to get this year as I like to get 1000 of each at the beginning of the ice fishing season.) I had to order them from a guy in NY.

I am haunted by waters.

J

Worlds smallest rod I cobbled together for fishing in pull over shanties. Works great. Note the guitar string spring bobber on the end. Also the short length allows me to precisely control the jigging cadence. Small movements. Sometimes with a normal length rod and trying to impart a very small jigging action, a longer rod will sometimes move too much at the end where the spring bobber is at, and this I've noticed will sometimes send a following fish back to the bottom. I can control the cadence with the short rod. I like to pulse the jig about 1/4" pulsing and slowly swimming upward. Sometimes in a hard fished spot on a lake where everyone is using an up swimming cadence, I'll do the opposite and slowly swim down to them.

There is of course a very small window or two of opportunity to get the easy bite any given day, but there is also a much larger portion of the day when they are not actively biting, but neutral, and with some effort, can be coaxed into biting. This is the part of the day when the jigging cadence pays big dividends.


Wolfram tungsten jigs and lake map book.


More jigs


Do I need 10 rigged rods when I go, even though I'm usually just fishing with one, sometimes two ? Nope, but it sure looks like I know what I'm doing.


I bought this FL 8 in '92, and the motor finally started giving out last year. Vexilar had a new motor in it and back to me in less than a week, good as new.


Never leave home without them


Chippewa lake Eagles eating left over pan fish on the lake.


Slabs in this lake which is very secluded and small. Occasional 12" BG, with 9 and 10s fairly common. I let the big ones go and keep the eaters. Most of us die hard bluegill anglers keep our gems secret. It's too easy for a lake like this to get over fished.


9 to 10 inch average gills with a few crappie. The large gill was 10 1/2 and the large crappie was 13 1/2. We let two larger ones go. The largest one we released was a 15 1/2". Too big for table fare. These came from a public fished lake in our area.



Last edited by corgi; 01/18/19 02:51 PM.
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You have a beautiful place. I love all the wildlife pictures. You can tell a pretty good story. Just guessing that you are a hellofa good joke teller. Keep it all coming please and thank you. Welcome to the gathering place as well.


The people who say I can't do it can just sit the @^#% down and watch me. Friends call me Rusto I also subscribe to pond boss mag. http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504716#Post504716
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Corgi ,

Welcome aboard form an IBEW member Local 369 out of Louisville Ky.Congrats on your Retirement and recent move. Pond Boss is the place for Pond Management for sure. Lots of great people willing to share their knowledge here.


"If you aim at nothing you'll hit it every time"

Zig Ziglar
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