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

Dave,

Sounds like a really good time to make some memories out there with the kids and grandkids. My dad passed in the fall of 2023 after we had purchased our forever land outside of town. Part of our goals involved getting a chance to work with him on the pond construction, habitat, structure...

He was called home before we were able to get much done but many of the things, we are planning are a tribute to him and his love of farm ponds. Even without lots of input from dad, he will be everpresent in the pond with our memories of fishing as kids and him introducing us to the great outdoors.

Make those memories. 2024 is going to be a great year.

One grandson was raised hunting, fishing and 4wheelering there. I’m hanging on and don’t financially need to sell it. Wife will inherit and that grandsons mom, my daughter, has been successful enough to buy the place out of pocket change. About a million bucks. Texas rural, recreational property, close to Dallas/Fort Worth, has gone crazy expensive. I certainly could not afford to buy it today. She can so wife will give her a break and still be able to live well after I’m gone. I paid $56,000 for the place about 40 years ago. It’s 133 acres of trees and rocks.

Taxes are comparatively low due to exemptions. We can either raise live stock or support wildlife. When the wildlife exemption was enacted, I sold cows and horses. Now, I feed and promote the well being of wildlife year around. Of course, wildlife need water to drink so I have ponds. Yeah, we hunt.

I furnish food blocks and native grasses year around. I have three big blackberry patches that were started years ago by a bird excreting a seed. They keep expanding by dropping the fruit. And water for wildlife in 3 ponds. I have to do an annual report to the County or couldn’t afford the taxes with no income from the place. Blackberry patches, ponds and winter wheat patches to feed wildlife are also exemption items for wildlife. This year, the drought kept me from planting wheat.

I have the same issue when the water is warm. It's a little easier to target the YP once the bluegill get cold.

I had a few minutes to fiddle yesterday so I went to the pond with a spin rod rigged with a small piece of nightcrawler on a floating jig head
and 1/4oz weight pegged about 18" up the line.
Caught one YP ~10" long before my hands got too cold to continue. Had to clear ice from the tip-top guide about every other cast.
Got up this morning to find the pond surface completely iced over on the opposite side of the dock from where the aeration diffuser is now located.

Cody's suggestion to use minnows/small BG this time of year is a good one. I generally catch more fish on live minnows than nightcrawlers
during winter. Not always, but probably 8 of 10 times that's how it will go for me.

Tombstone doesn't have FHM in stock right now. NEMO has them for $11/lb. with a three pound minimum order. So far I haven't put a lot of
effort into catching my YP during the winter, but it's time to change that. I'm going to slap a bait tank together this week then run up there and
buy a sackful so I have them on hand when I'm ready to wet a line.

I've caught YP on a 4" soft plastic jerk bait& a 2/0 hook........ Any small artificial crank bait will work, or use a 1/8" or smaller jig head and 1.5"-2" white curly tail grub with the tail up. No bobber, light line, cast out until it hits bottom, slowly retrieve it back.

I literally watched as the line to my aeration diffuser froze up Sunday morning.

Part of my morning routine is to open the chicken house, feed the birds and check their water, then check
the horse water. The pump house sets very close to the chicken house so I'm able to clearly hear the pump
running, and I know what it sounds like when it's running right, but it didn't sound like that. Opened the
pump house to check the line pressure - 30psi gauge - normally runs 11psi - needle was pegged. Walked
out to the pond and could tell the output wasn't anywhere close to what it should be. Walked to the shop,
grabbed a quart of 91% isopropyl and a wrench, went back to the pump house, shut off the pump, opened
the line, added the alcohol, closed the line, restarted pump. Less than 5 minutes later there was zero output
from the diffuser and the pump sounded like it was about to explode so I shut it down.

These past few days have been the coldest weather we've had since February of '21 so it's not a big
surprise that the line froze. I'm just glad I caught it before the pump expired.

It will thaw eventually, probably later this week when we're supposed to see temps get into the 40s.
With any good luck this will be the last winter I have an overland airline so hopefully will also be the last freeze-up.

We have been in the low teens here for 3 days. Rare for the Sun Belt.

Making them 100 plus degree days last summer not seem so bad afterall, huh?
I know I"m looking forward to a little more global warming.

Jake, it’s been cold enough to make a boy pee indoors.

Augie:

What diameter is the line, and do you have a over-pressure pop off valve on the aeration system?

There's 100' of 3/4" black poly reduced down to 5/8" weighted line at water's edge.
I don't have an OPV plumbed in, but I like the idea and will see what I can find for parts to make it happen.

Augie, that's the first time that I have heard of a 3/4" or 5/8" line freezing up. Send me a PM with your mailing addy and I'll send you price on a pop off valve. When I DIY a system I put it on the PVC manifold that has the ball valves/gauge on it. I just glue a threaded adapter in the "T" that is at one side of the manifold to put the valve in.

The lowest place in the line is underneath the pump house where the sun never shines.

I could probably thaw it out with a salamander heater but it's a lot easier to just wait on the weather.

We're supposed to have another cold snap over the next couple days then start warming up.
We're looking at upper 40s next week with nighttime lows well above freezing.
I've got a feeling the problem is going to fix itself.

If the line is freezing off there, you probably have a dip in the line that collects fluid.

Does the line ever come back up the surface before entering the pond? If so, you might be able to install a "blow off" valve.

You turn your air pump to max rate and then open the blow off valve. The theory is that the air velocity is much higher through the full-opening valve than through the membrane bubblers. If the sizing is right, the extra flow velocity will entrain the fluid in the low spot in the line and you should either see a mist or slug flow through the valve.

The other option is to fill up an air tank with your shop compressor. Connect it to your line and give it a few shots of high pressure gas. Obviously, you must do this with the blow off valve fully open so you do NOT blow a hole in your line in an inconvenient spot underground. (Pipelines are devious that way!)

With the supply line size and pump, he won't generate enough air volume/velocity to do what you are thinking it will do on the compressor alone.

If using a portable tank, he'd have to shut off the diffuser before he tried it and it'd only work if the water was liquid, not solid.

Yup. I totally agree with esshup's additional parameters.

I was trying to get you to blow out the liquid BEFORE freezing temperatures hit your pond.

The line is 100% exposed to the atmosphere until it enters the water. It just needs a few days of above-freezing temps to open up.

It's my intention to complete the finish grade on the west end of the pond dam this summer. Part of that project involves moving
the pump house. Once those two things have been completed I'll bury the air line and that will be the end of the freeze-ups.

Well that makes more sense!

Still might want to place a tee in the line near the pond. Can add a blow off and/or access valve and a gauge.

If air volume at the bubblers decreases but your gauge pressure is the same, trouble is downstream of the gauge.

If air volume at the bubblers decreases and your gauge pressure is lower, perhaps time to rebuild your compressor.

Troubleshooting pipelines is much easier with more info! esshup, may chime in if adding a tee is a bad idea. (I work on much different pipeline systems.)

"T"'s are fine. If I do a DIY system that has a remote valve box, I will typically have a 4-way at the pump with a gauge and pop-off valve there, and at the pond at the manifold I'll have a "T" on one side of the manifold.

So we are supposed to have a major thaw this week so I took the opportunity to clean out my wood duck boxes slash starling nest sites. five out of the six showed signs of duck activity, two still had an egg in them.
I lowered the stand on them so that they are closer to the water and I will be able to check them better.
The one box, which consists of a hollow piece of log, set upright on a stump with the bottom and top capped of with treated plywood, had claw marks up the stump where a coon or something recently tried to get up the tree to it but I have a metal skirt around the bottom so there is no way he could have made it to the opening.

Wow.

Looking at the tracks in the snow, it appears that it was so cold at your place, that the coons have started wearing boots with vibram soles!

I look forward to your wood duck pics this spring.

Finally made it to the pond today with a hatchet in hand. I was rejected last week when I tried to go out there and only had a 4lb sledge in the truck. Turned out we had nearly 8" of ice on the pond. Water sample finally taken today which will be shipped off tomorrow to see what we see.

Never would have guessed that there was that much ice on the pond but that cold air that rolled through the midwest was amazing. Don't normally get those kind of flash freezes around here.

Never seen 8 inches of ice. Every year we get skim ice but it is gone in a couple of days.

The weather warmed up and the airline has thawed. Pump is running again at its normal 11psi.

Went by the pond this morning and tossed some feed in and had a bunch of takers, mostly BG but also CC, and caught a couple BC in a half dozen casts.
I think this is about as early as Ive had them take feed here in Central MO, they also fed way late into the fall, almost till Thanksgiving, usually they don't feed much after 1st of Oct.
The pond is looking as clean and clear as Ive seen it, but of course we havent had a lot of runoff rain this spring, just 1 or 2, and those were on top of ice and snow, I had 4" of water on top of ice that was still thick enough to walk on. pond is full and had a little overflow already this spring.
Spring is just around the corner!

Were you catching blue catfish already, or black crappie?

If blues, do you also observe them taking feed among the CC?