Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Pond and Wildlife management/ What's next? GATORS

Four years ago I dug a pond. I found Pond Boss, the Magazine, the Forum with all the good moderators and other pond owners, and the Pond Boss Conference's. I planned for big LMB. Then, influenced by George Glazner, I added plans for growing out some HSB. I had a plan. I would manage a pond along side of managing the deer, turkey etc on the land. So everting is good, Right? Wrong, one does not know what one does not know. So, I have gone through many lessons at the pond/pond management. I learned about having good water after having problems with excess nutrients/detritus/excess blooms. Then I learned about balance in fish numbers. And then I learned more about about water turkeys than what I wanted to learn. Great Blue Herons and the damage they can do. Along with the big white herons, Oh! the Black Herons too. I learned about what snakes liked to hang out around the pond. Turtles to. And I met up with this Hugh Beaver, followed a year later by a female and her pup. I also met 6 or 7 River otters over the past three years. So now I am thinking of the movie karate Kid where they spoke of balance. Balance, there is no Balance!!! I am setting in the boat yesterday along with my 10 month old Golden Retriever. We have been training at the pond for the past 6 to 7 months. We are setting there in the boat and after making a few casts, looking for some bass to weigh and measure. Up pops this GATOR. It's like he was investigating us. He is 10' away from us. Now this gator was a small one, maybe 2 and a half foot long. But, it was like he was checking us out to see if we were eatable. So, now I am thinking of ZEP and his artificial gator heads floating on his water. And I think of Frank(Anthropic) who seems to think he has a goose and cormorant problem. Frank, I may have found a solution for you Come get this gator. Ponds have been a learning experience and so I just thought I would pass this experience along.