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Joined: Apr 2006
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Hello fellow pond junkies! I have not posted in a while but I have lurked and learned a lot! My last post was about my Giant MEGA bull frog that I ………acquired through less than admirable methods. Well the God @#$#%#^#$&^ blue heron killed him and has decimated my larger bass population. He does not eat what he kills but he loves to poke holes in anything that moves. The mega major frog was the final straw…shoot shovel, and shut up.

I have been lurking on the aeration side of this great forum and have ordered my GAST pump and should have it in ten days. Although the East coast has had major amounts of rain we have been missed by the deluge here along the coast. Our pond is down 10 foot and its leaking (blow outs through the clay due to BG bedding some of the beds are 16 inches deep),we added a drain into the waterfowl impound to the fish pond to have additional rain collection and run off catch basin to provide water to the fish pond.

Last year we stocked 25 CC and again this spring we added 25 more and they have completely disappeared. I have yet to find a dead one but they do not feed with the BG nor have I been able to catch one in the cast net nor on hook and line. We have added so much more cover to protect the fish and FROGS from the herons and ospreys that seining has not been an option. Could the CC be lying in the deep end and only feeding on the bottom?

We have had a fantastic BG spawn and in fact we captured 200 BG fry about an inch long and traded them for 5 LM bass up to 3 lbs. (%#%^#^#$& blue heron has killed two this week………before he went to the BIG pond in the sky) we also caught 40 BG up to ¾ pound and put them in a bass heavy pond for a friend. I had bass up to 3 pounds in the pond from last year but have yet to see any sign of a successful spawn.

The pond is a year old this month and I skipped many steps by being impatient. By and large we have been lucky as our fish are thriving (except the CC mystery) and we have dodged the bullet on low oxygen thus far despite huge filamitoses algae blooms and die off and over fertilization from agriculture .I allowed a few kids to fish in the pond and they had a blast catching BG and LM although in the future I will use circle hooks only for LMB as we lost a large female due to deep J-hook damage.

I am hooked on ponds and love this forum. I have helped with my end by ordering my pond boss magazine and have told every farmer in my area about this great bunch of pond junkies. I have a chicken farmer friend down the road that has had ponds for 50 years and he could share a lot of practical knowledge if I could just teach him to type. I hope all is well in your pond and keep the great information flowing!


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Hey Salt, glad you've been well.

Sorry to hear about the damage the heron was causing. I have at least one blue heron that "lives" at my pond, and I can't say that I've ever seen any wounded fish, however, I know that it does happen to a lot of us. I simply may never see the damaged (or dead) fish.

On the channel cat end, I've only ever stocked maybe (30) CC in total over the past few years, and I have never seen or caught one. I don't feed regularly and my pond is 6-7 acres. So I'm not shocked that I've never seen them considering the low stocking numbers, although I would have expected to hook into one every now and again which was my whole reason for stocking them. I even put in (3) albino CC that were about 26-27" long and about 6-7lbs each just because I thought they would be easy to spot! That was last fall, and I haven't seen them yet. These things looked like friggin' Moby Dick in the water.

I don't recall the size of your pond, so I don't know the per acre number for your overall stocking of (50) CC. I would think they would come to feed if you fed on a routine basis. Just FYI, I know squat about CC, so others can give better input.

I hope you had a nice ceremony for the frog's passing, may he rest in peace. I'm toasting to his memory right now, with a frog-green colored bottle of beer.


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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Good evening and thanks for the response. Our pond is small by most standards it is right at a half acre, although we are down to about a ¼ AC due to low water levels. So 50 plus CC should be visible to some degree.

I am a merchant marine and I am off for 14 days each month and I walk down to my pond every morning for coffee and them again in the evening to feed my BG so I keep a close eye on the pond. The blue heron drives a hole deep into the LMB head or just behind the pectoral fin and they swim off and get sick or come to the surface and become prey to both the osprey and the 2 bald eagles that frequent our farm. I watched him nail one LMB about 2 pounds and drag him on shore; he picked and poked and then discarded the fish for smaller prey his eye’s are bigger than his stomach or HIS THROAT. I live very close to the coast and large salt water marshes so blue herons are always going to be a problem. They are very patient and will hold in the fire position for hours waiting on the opportunity to eat, and they use the very cover that I have installed(shore line brush piles) to ambush the fish and frogs. We recently planted more aquatic vegetation and installed below water structure for the fish in hopes that we can save our adult populations from further predation.

Where did you get albino CC? They must be cool looking! I aquired a large CC when I was home from a neighbors Koi pond. It was a small 12X 16 X4 pond that was full of KOI. When the lady called and asked if I wanted a giant cat fish I laughed. Well the Cat fish was 27 in long and very thick. I figured he was around 7 pounds! He was well fed and beautiful. I have yet to see him eat and I know he is feed trained.


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Salt, Yes, I would think that you would have seen some CC by now. I wonder what the size of a LMB would have to be to consume a 10-12" CC? It may be possible that your (and my) CC were eaten by LMB.

I enjoy watching the heron or herons at my pond, but rest assured that if I saw them pulling that kind of stuff, it would be war. I wonder if the coastal blue herons are more aggressive by nature. Does this blue heron take flight at your presence? Or did he used to take flight at your presence, I should say.

My fish guy has been offering albino CC's to me for a few years now. I've always turned him down because I prefer a natural look to my pond and it's inhabitants. However, when the fish truck shows up, I frequently make shotgun decisions. For this particular time, he had these really big albino CCs, and I was feeling a little dismayed at not having ever seen any of the channel cats that I'd previously stocked (ps: this is great self-rationalization on my part). I only saw them the day of the stocking, but they did look pretty cool.

My fish guy is from near Harrisburg, PA, so I'm sure you could connect with him if you need something. I can PM you his contact info.


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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BTW, Salt, that 16" deep BG spawning bed sounds pretty deep. I kept forgetting to ask about that in the earlier posts.


Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:"
"She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."

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 Quote:
Originally posted by Sunil:
BTW, Salt, that 16" deep BG spawning bed sounds pretty deep. I kept forgetting to ask about that in the earlier posts.
Sunil,

I thought so too but then I got to thinking that maybe he meant in 16 inches of water?


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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When we had our pond built, the contractor installed a ledge around the pond for fish to spawn on. Last summer and fall the BG spawned near the shallow end of the pond in about 12 inches of water. But this year ALL of the BG spawned at the deep end of the pond on the ledge, still in about 1 foot of water but just a few feet from a deep drop off. The BG started spawning in early April and some are still at it. The beds cover about 30 foot of the ledge and many are at least 10 inches deep with a few over 16 inches. In the process of building beds they have cut through a layer of rolled clay and I think this is where a lot of my water has gone. I will try to post a pre-fill pic of the pond ledge and clay layer. The big deference from last summer to this spring is the ledge was less than 7 foot of water last year and this year it isn’t due to the low pond level.
[url= http://"http://www.hunt101.com/?p=396700&c=500&z=1"] [/url]


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I think 50 CC in 1/2 (currently 1/4) acre would surely make themselves known during feeding or angling. I think you need to consider restocking CC, as large as is available, when you water levels are back to normal (if you want to continue having them).


"Live like you'll die tomorrow, but manage your grass like you'll live forever."
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