Fishing, pumping down three feet for seining, and finally a complete pump down will lead to the complete removal of unwanted fish, and the temporary holding of large female yellow perch, male bluegill, and smallmouth bass in a smaller holding pond until the pond is filled back up.
The pond is supposed to be an all female yellow perch and male bluegill pond to concentrate biomass in trophy size fish, which I sell to the taxidermy market. Unfortunately three years ago a floating cage that held both male and female bluegill was pushed under the surface by ice during a thaw. That quickly started the game plan unraveling. I also was sorting male and female perch near the pond water and had two male perch flop out of my hand into the pond.
To show you how strong the will to reproduce is I once had male only yellow perch in a floating cage. On one bottom corner of the cage there was a piece of zip tie sticking out. Came out to the cage one day and couldn't believe my eyes. A female had draped her eggs on the zip tie! How much you wanna bet the males in the cage fertilized them? I ran to the house to get a dip net and by the time I got back there the eggs had fallen off!
We've moved close to three hundred female yellow perch via fishing and seining. Esshup has been a big help and is always available if I need him. It works the other way too if he needs me.
The anglers that moved a serious amount of fish ice fishing and open water were Bill LaVigne, Norm Ramsey, Gary LaRue, Gary Hudson, and Bill's son-in-law whose name escapes me.
Anyway here are pictures Norm Ramsey took the other day:
The seine in the water along one side of the pier looking south:
The seine in the water next to the pier looking north:
Bringing the seine around on the south side of the pond:
