Corgi, awesome perch!! quite impressive. Where abouts are you in MI again? I'm envious that you have ice safe enough to ice fish on. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving dry roads and no snow shoveling, but our ice is pretty slushy with temps barely getting below 30 at night and day times in mid 30s. We hit 50 something on Sunday, a beautiful day in SW GR.
Did your perch come from Stoney Creek? They are great people. I wonder where they get the perch from? I wonder what the genetics are from? I was told my perch came from original Lake Erie stock.
I agree, it would be awesome to see if you can get RES and see if they survive. I stocked about 25 and need fish traps or an underwater camera to see if any survived since I can't catch them. But they are very hard to catch and my kids do the fishing, they use corn and worms and usually target the shiners, goldfish and perch which are more aggressive. They are not fishing slow on the bottom which is what the RES need.
I haven't found a pumpkinseed source. Let me know if stoneycreek can order some, I'm interested. I do know of lakes where they can be caught and not sure how effective it will be to try to move them.
Interesting to hear you had a fish kill? If you have time start a thread and fill us in!
Thanks. We're in Mecosta county. Stoney Creek Fisheries & Equipment is correct.
Dave LaBomascus is the biologist there and he has been very helpful.
I would not want to try any from local lakes as that may introduce something other than the fish.
Where did you get your RES?
When we fished muddy bay in Houghten Lake a few years ago, SW corner of the lake , we use to use tip ups with 2 lb test, very small hooks, with one very small shot, half the size of a bb, with mayfly larva, "wigglers". We would then slide a piece of cardboard that had a slit for the line over the hole covering it. This kept the light from giving it away as these fish are smart. We were also only fishing in about 4 feet of water.
We use to regularly catch RES in the 12 to 13 inch size. We would only catch a few any given outing, but they were dandy's. They're still there and just as hard to catch, but "wigglers" are the bait worked best for us ice fishing, and there are always the YP. We caught more of them than we did the RES but nothing wrong with that.
The ice on Chippewa lake a few miles away is around 10/11 inches. I have a good 8 to 9 where I drilled in the pond, and I checked a few spots. Everywhere except where the diffusers are keeping the pond open.
Unlike the turkeys that like to walk to the edge to get a drink, break through, and then fly off in embarrassment, I stay away from the edge where I know it's not safe.
I've tried fishing the open water from shore in the pond with the same small jig and a bobber/spinning rod set at about the same depth, and can hardly buy a bite, and yet I drilled 3 holes through the ice the other day and all of them were producing. Go figure. Might of been the time of day, the hat I was wearing, or the way I was holding my mouth.
Long short story on the fish kill is the adjacent swamp flooded out the pond when the road commission busted up the ice dam at the culvert on the road. Swamp flooded and overflowed into pond.
Lost 117 HB, 15 YP, and 3 LMB. All had red soars or gray fungus. The stressors were the spike in phosphates and ammonia. Some of the HB were over a foot long. The pain is still with me.
The cure is about 1K for the excavator who dug the pond 20 years ago, and lives close, to bring in about 35 yards of clay/dirt and build up the area separating the swamp from the pond, as well as dredging out the drain that empties the swamp and skirts the pond.
Also I have been taking an ice spud when I walk down the road to check the culvert myself. Just to make sure an ice dam doesn't form again. When THEY open it, it is already a problem. I get the run off when they fix it. This winter I'm trying to keep it open myself. It's been a mild winter so I've not seen it backing up and only used the spud once to see how thick the ice was. About 4 inches. No problem yet. However winter in Michigan can be fickle. I hoping to have him do the landscaping next summer as the ground was too wet this last fall to get started.
