Some forage fish I have been trapping out of this sediment pond and moving to my main pond. Notice the one nice RES. Fortunately I have been trapping lots of fish and moving them and also have caught out a lot of the larger fish and transferred.
I say lucky because this sediment pond is in the process of having a massive fish kill. I suspect some of the smaller ones will make it but still lots of fish piping at the top. Right after a big (around 4" total) rain event this pond was flooded with new, cold water. The other bad thing adding to the problem is we had spread chicken litter (manure plus wood shavings) on the field where the terrace directs water into this pond. We always disc this organic fertilizer in (to incorporate it into the soil) as soon as we apply but this time got caught and did not get this five or so acres done. This particular litter was very dry and dusty when we spread it so the very fine dust washed right into this sediment pond. Plus the stock pile was located in this watershed. At only 1/10th acre and multiple water exchanges it was just too much for the fish.
When I saw them piping at the top, there happened to be a strong wind that blew a lot of them to one end. Using a dip net I netted the larger ones and what was probably a thousand or maybe several thousand small ones from an inch to three inches. I got quite a lot in the day time but after dark where they could not see me I would get up to a gallon of fish per dip net full. So quite a few fish got moved to the main pond.
The main pond got some also, enough to change the water color slightly. But it being 3 acres and the sediment pond being 1/10th no comparison. The sediment pond looked like chocolate milk. The fish are still hitting feed there and seem to not be affected. I definitely am not going to need to add fertilizer though.
The good news is it is on my own land, we did the application ourselves and it is my pond. I'm just glad it was not adjacent to someone else pond. Lesson learned. We always incorporate this litter when we use it, but in the future even more attention will be paid to rain forecast and any fields near BOW's. My bad. At least it was on me and not someone else. On me is bad, on someone else would be terrible.
Another good news is I got to clean out some freeloaders in this pond. Everything of any size was floating to the top and it included 3 CC with one of them being a couple pounds. They got transferred to the main pond. A half dozen 6" GSF. A couple went to the main pond then I decided that was enough and the others were dispatched. One very fat 1.5# bullhead............. have no idea where it came from, but glad it was the only one I found.
So that is my experience on "how to kill fish unintentionally".
Edit: Yes I know, several GSF along with the BG and one either RES or RES hybrid. Probably some other hybrids in there too. Have got a lot of hybrids out of this pond.
