Zep I like your bridge. I know myself I would try to see how fast I could do it. We all know how that ends up ( on youtube fails).
Anthropic that's a lesson nobody every taught me. I can do it know bout it would have been nice to learn when I was little. Mine still end up as fish nuggets.
The cnbg have left the feeders after a couple weeks of cold nights and wet colder days. Or they have moved to spawning mode as the water temps are moving up. I am not sure what is going on with the cnbg? I remember only once before in the past 5 yrs that I have seen where the cnbg were not at the feeders. Water is clear with 6' of visibility, Ph 7.5 late afternoon. Surface water temps in the low 60's. And I watched two lmb going through the spawning ritual. I would feel better about it all if the cnbg would return to the feeders.
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
Been storing these in the shop all winter. I'm hoping they made it alive. Changed the water a few times for them. I let them go back into the pond last night.
RS You will be lucky if they regrow. Any idea what the lowest temperature was where they were stored? Lack of sunlight may have been just as or more important than cool temps. Let us know the results so others can benefit from your experiment.
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I will plan on keeping everyone posts win or lose. I put them out in my shop its insulted but only lit the fireplace a few times. Prolly got in the upper 40's at the lowest. I figured I would be lucky if they made it but worth a try. I put them ose to a window so they would get some sunlight but still wasnt much. These are water hyacinth. Theybdont look near as good as they did then they were removed for sure.
We have had a couple of real nice, if a bit windy, days here in central MO, water temperature was up to 46 degrees, I went out in a boat and installed four wood duck boxes, two manufactured ones and two home made ones, after putting the first two up I heard a duck and looking up seen a male wood duck making a big circle around the pond, talk about timing, hope I am not too late, does anyone know what is a good time to have them out in this area?
All the really good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.
That's in my "forage" Pond. That bass will be relocated to my main Pond once I get a line wet. Unfortunately bass will never be eliminated as they get washed in from the Pond up stream. Also saw some sunfish and a few perch but no pictures.
Partial ice coverage limited the light as it is only open near the shore line. The water is cloudy from all the rain. Hopefully it clears up.
Romance is in the air -- literally -- at my pond. Pair of eagles, pair of Canada geese, two pairs of wood ducks, one pair of an unknown brownish duck. Sadly, coromorants are also on site.
Still not a lot of feeding other than rainbow trout. Not sure if cormorants inhibit fish, or if cormorants have done such a number already that there aren't that many CNBG left.
Frank, I am not seeing much activity at the feeders either. CNBG has for the most part shut down for the last 3 or 4 weeks. I did pick up the 3wt fly rod and caught two really nice sized female cnbg. One at the feeder area and one away from the feeder. Since I only caught the two and both were female makes me wonder if the males are setting on nest or did they just go deeper than I expected them to be? I also found an 11 or 12" cnbg dead and floating, it was maybe the largest I have seen come out of the pond. Not sure if it was due to age (maybe 6 yr old fish) or did spawning activity cause her to die?
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
Iv have been feeding small amounts with almost zero activity so far. Tonight I'm seeing some splashing at the pond right at dark. So hopefully it wont be to much longer before they start coming up for dinner time.
Fish are feeding at feeder well and hitting on the surface all around. Caught a hog yesterday that was 8-9# that really put up a good fight, thought it was a big catfish but was a big bucket mouth. Transferred her to my neighbors pond
Looks to me Pats CP pond has turned into a trophy lmb pond Pat, that's not all bad.
And I did see quite a few cnbg around the feeding area yesterday but was not there when the feeders went off so not sure if they have started back to feeding at the feeder. But I did see some which is more than I have seen in the past few weeks.
Last edited by TGW1; 03/11/2004:58 AM.
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
I took my 2 year old grandaughter to the pond the other day with a decent sized dip net. She wore me out..."Catch another one Grandad!"...repeat...repeat...repeat. I couldn't get her to touch any of the many tadpoles, HBG young, frogs or crawdads...almost but not quite. She's "skeered". Too cute too!
I did happen to net a handsized HBG by surprise right up against the bank nestled in some land grasses that where under a bit of water due to the recent rains. Kinda odd...I didn't see it before I netted. I was just mildling scoping tadpoles up and caught the fish. I was alos suprised to catch so many 3/4 to 1-1/2" young HBG. Last years late season young I supose...I wonder why they were not foraged upon by the HSB over the winter.
It was the first time for her and I at the pond alone... I hope I created a habit for us.
But I want BCP! Anybody want any LMB come get all you want! Sometimes they not that easy though. Anything over three pounds goes to neighbor anything under gets eaten or thrown up on bank till the BCP recover some
Threw out 15 to 20 pounds of pond fertilizer, hopefully will green up the water and make cormorants unhappy. Tons of small bass near cover, which doesn't make me happy.
Pat, we really need to not only get depredation licenses to eliminate cormorants, but also figure out what can be done legally NOW to deal with the issue. Extra cover? If so, what kind of cover? Reduced visibility? Are some kinds of fish, such as shad, attractive to cormorants?
What types of fish are they most likely to eat? Small LMB might be a blessing in disguise, but what about larger LMB? What about BG?
What tactics seem to work best to discourage them? Fake alligator heads? Big eye balloons? Fake human dummies? (Or in my case, maybe a real dummy) Nets?
I just think this has become such an issue that we need to focus on it.
From my experience I have not seen where fertile waters with 18" of green visibility made any difference in discouraging the cormorants. This year my water is at 6' of clarity and I have seen fewer or maybe the same numbers of the dam birds. I'm leaning toward clear water might be better than fertile waters. If fish see the bird or the birds shadow they most likely will dart away like they do when a human approaches them.
Shad are a fish that they will attack, I've seen it at my pond where they drove the shad back into a corner. They killed off a lot (hundreds) of the 4" TFS and did not even eat them.
Right now, I have an Osprey that loves my pond and feeds there daily I don't deter him but I see him fly off most everyday with a 5 to 7" cnbg. Now, multiply that by the number of days he has been there. He has been there for several months now.
Last edited by TGW1; 03/13/2007:57 AM.
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
I’ve only seen two cormorants this season and one got lead poisoning from some where..... seems like the clearer water does deter them or word gets around about lead poisoning . I’ve watched them eat mostly BG and BCP