Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction What did you do at your pond today?

After 10 years, I finally tried today to straighten out the path around my 2nd pond. I have a path all the way around it and when originally built, erosion caused a lot of gauges in the path that require me to mow it quite slowly and also made it "fun" to walk. Today, I rototilled it and planted a clover mix with chicory in it. I chose this seed mix because it was the closet to what I want even though it is a deer food plot mix. I have used it successfully in the past to vegetate pond spoils which gave me the confidence to use it here. Did not want to seed a mix with invasive perennial fescue. Will report back if I am successful. Weather prediction looks good for moderate rain, but we all know how that goes...

If you get this planting just right, then maybe the deer will keep it mowed for you!

We did get 0.4 inches of rain yesterday! We have a lot of deer, but also have a lot of food for them to eat, so nobody lacking for food.

I wish we could get some good rain haha. We've had one good rain since we finished digging the pond and then not much of anything for the next month.

Seems like boom or bust around the country right now on rain.

We have storms coming through today, but i'm sure they'll go right around us.

I hope you all get some helpful rain. We've been lucky with pop up showers, but I'm not sure they will continue until fall.

I had recent surgery which has dampened my ability to work at the pond, particularly handling food sacks. Our area has had several heavy rains the last six weeks, but along with rain the wind caused power outages four days and two days, so lost almost all refrigerated and frozen food twice. Had to scramble to protect insulin, too. Getting a whole house nat gas generator!

Sorry for your bad fortune recently. Wishing you a speedy recovery from surgery!

My little part of the middle of Misery has gone from tree-killing drought to monsoon in a period of two weeks.
We got 1.6", then 2.6", then 4.8", then another 1.6" last night. Had some bad winds along with the 4.8" rain.
That one destroyed the plastic film on my hoop house, flattened my sweet corn patch, broke one of my apple
trees off at the ground, and scattered tree limbs all over the place. On the bright side, the pond has over a
foot of new water in it. Still need another 2' or so to be full again.

anthropic, best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Ditto

Man Augie, I’m jealous. We are getting rain here in St Louis, but up at the farm we’ve received less than an inch from all these storms coming through. The radar shows nice big rain storms coming across Mark Twain Lake, then they all either evaporate or get diverted north or south as they get to the lake. We are behind the dam, and get zero…

Wow, I haven't got that much rain in that amount of time since my pond was built. I did get around 3" total over the last week, with one rain being about 1.5" and the rest at .5" or less at a time. I think it added about 6" inches to the pond.

Bobbss that storm we got here last Friday was El Loco!

Picture a triangle with 1/4 mile long sides... my house the southernmost point, Pops' place to the northeast, good neighbor Tom to the northwest.
4.8" in my gauge that night. 3.8" in the other two. Two miles due south at one of the university farms they got half an inch.

I got back on the HSB after work yesterday. Optimal Hand Throw wrapped in pantyhose did the trick again.
Relative weights are down a bit, and not for lack of groceries. Small pond, low water, maybe they've reached
their limit for the size of aquarium they're living in?

Front fish was 19.5" 3.7lb 92.6% wR
Back fish was 20.5 4.46lb 95.4% wR

I should have checked inside to see what they've been eating but it was so stinking hot and humid out I didn't bother.
Both fish were males, and are #6 and #7 harvested of the 20 that were stocked in September of 2020.

Augie,

Those HSB look pretty nice and fat to me!

I believe relative weight does vary over the course of the year. Those two fish might have been at 104% in May.

I suspect they may have restricted their consumption lately since your pond certainly has warm, low dissolved oxygen water right now. NOT the preferred conditions for your HSB.

Does one of the experts have a simple chart showing how relative weight varies over the course of the calendar year?

[If you post it here, I will make it into a new post so it will come up in people's searches.]

Surface temps are still in the mid 70°s here. Nice and cool down deeper. Aeration running midnight to 7:00am.

I think my HSB are lazy bums so I cut back their Optimal Hand Throw ration to a pint per day in hopes they
change their slothful ways and try to earn an honest living.

Finally getting rain at the farm! Wow, this has been a long drought. Pond was down close to 2’. As were all ponds around me. I looked at the forecast and decided to put in the food plots. So I spent all day Monday putting them (4) in. Missed the Monday evening rains, and yesterdays rains, despite both being over 90% chance of rain.. But it finally hit this morning. Weather app says 2-3” with more tonight and tomorrow.
Should get close to a foot back in the pond. I’ll know for sure in a few days. Last year when I planted the food plots, was the start of the drought. Very little rain since then.

I’ve kept the feeder going this summer hoping to get the YP I stocked, some growth. Despite what seems like weeks at extreme temps, and low water levels, no surface algae like I was seeing last year. Maybe since I switched to CRP in the fields (away from soybeans) with no fertilizer getting sprayed, is helping. No way to tell. We’ll see if this rain changes things. The CRP is a blend of grasses, lespedsia, and alfalfa. It’s about 4-6” tall from an April planting. I’ll see how it’s doing as far as holding soil in the fields, and still allowing runoff. Obviously we’ve had a little rain, enough to keep the CRP alive.

Last night while feeding the fish, I watched a Snapping Turtle slowly raise his head up and take one pellet at a time. I couldn't see how big his shell was but his neck was a good 2" across.

Males throw caution to the winds around alluring stuff wrapped in pantyhose....Uh, I've heard.

Umm, is that fishnet pantyhose or regular pantyhose?

We got almost 3” of rain. It brought up the pond almost 3”. Haha! Yep, every drop was soaked into our dry ground immediately. We sure needed it, but I was hoping for a little run off. My CRP is about 90% Korean Lespedesia, at least that’s all that’s come up at this point. The deer don’t seem nearly as attracted to it as they were to previous years soybeans..
No signs of any otters at the pond. Feeder goes off for a 10 second run (Texas feeder with I think a DuPont fish food). The fish clean it up in less that a minute. So my new YP appear to like it. It’s the same food they use at the hatchery. (NEMO)

Done nothing, and probably won't for a few months. Afternoon temp is sitting at 111, with a heat index of 130. Big pond surface temp is 96.8, and will rise around 5. Shoreline temp is 100.1. Luckily there are no fish there. I really need to treat coontail, but the small coves are starting to get covered with green algae, and killing off coontail could throw me back into a blue/green algae scenario again.

Despite our best efforts, our goats and chickens are really struggling right now.

Good times.

Hoping things improve in your neck of the woods!