Yesterday Tracy came over and helped me survey and graph the pond. It was a bluebird day. His graph clearly showed the thermal cline, the structure, and the fish.

Our thermal cline was hard at 12 feet. It was impressive to see on the graph. As for our structure, it looks great. The man maid structure was still looking good. Our walls and humps were right where we put them and showed little sign of erosion or decay. The brush piles we put in the pond were also looking good. As for the 34 stumps we left in, over half had fish hanging on them. But, the deeper ones were not holding fish, the thermal cline was just too far above for them for the fish to use these stumps. Some of the trees that had fallen down were now on the bottom in several locations. These few logs wether pilled or singles were holding fish in water above the thermal cline.

As for the fish. We were trying to see if our crappie could be found. On occasion, we will catch one or two, but it is not very often, so we were on a mission to find them. The good news is we caught around 50 LMB and only two of them were culls. The RW of our LMB still remains high. The bad news, was that we did not catch a single crappie. I am unsure if they did not sustain from the original stocking, or if we just could not find them, but this data point does not look good.

As for our efforts, I enjoyed the day fishing and looking at the data. Tracy was a very informative fisherman showing me several new ways to rig up. We even had some time to talk about George. I got to tell on him a few times. We laughed and agreed George would have loved to have been there to see the results. Few know this, but our original stocking was not from the best stock. George gave me some FLA LMB from his pond after he got to know me. They were all in the one to three pound range. Yesterday, we landed fish up to six pounds. There were a few, and one in particular that were a lot bigger, but our tackle did not hold up in the brush. The biggest danced for us and she looked to be every bit eight pounds or more and around 24 inches long according to my guide. I really wish I could have gotten that one into the boat!

All in all, after three applications of sunscreen, five different riggings, several fish stories and lots of data the day ended. It was a memory I will not soon forget. I am now even more convinced I would like to add some solar powered aeration to the deepest water we have. The LMB are doing well, The BG are doing great. And our CC are also healthy. I do wish I could find a few Crappie as they are my favorite guest on the dinner table.

I also learned that I need to control some of the vegetation. Now I am off to learn about that.

Tracy, thank you for your help and your time, We will have to do that again!

Brian

The one thing is the one thing
A dry fly catches no fish
Try not to be THAT 10%