ok...so if anyone was following in the corrective stocking forum, you all know the story. What i am looking for is a list of next steps. What would you do next?

for those of you who do not know the story, here goes....7.5 acre pond that certain homeowners in the community were saying had the symptoms of crowded bass. A large, 38" pike was introduced into the lake 2 years ago, and this past weekend, creel data showed a healthy population of pike between 15-21" long (by size should be 2 years old).

other species include BG's and LMB, Black crappie and at least a couple of walleye (one caught weighted in at 5lbs).

Crappie are enormous, bass are small, some very large bluegill as well. However, bass this winter seemed to be fattening up, even caught one at 19". Of the 40 bass caught, only 10 were kept because of their emaciated appearance, the rest were of size to put back in the lake. In previous years, including once this fall, all bass were skinny enough to want to keep out of the lake (10-12", less than 1lb).

Artificial cover is already in the works, however the extent of the addition might be an issue (but at least some will be added).

In the previous forum, a kind consultant pointed out that the pike are likely stunted as well, which is why there were none above the "2 year" size. Personally, i find this odd, i've been fishing this pond for 5 years, 2-5 times a year and never even seen a pike, but all of a sudden here they are...I don't know, you guys are the experts. It could easily be the case, I suppose, with enough bass, fishing could be overtaken with the bass catch, and the pike were just overlooked.

I have been considering improving forage. Although I don't know what i would add, Golden shiners, I guess. As of now i only know of a topminnow species, as well I will continue to cull the bass population, as they are in bad shape still (although improving). And I wonder if the healthy results i saw were only seasonal.

I'll use this post to put up pics of the BG species, as well as a topo map that6 i've been working on.

The goals that the HOA has for this lake is 2fold
1)fishery
a)largemouth
b)bluegill
c)crappie
d)walleye
e)pike
Pike and walleye would be tied. The reason they are last is because of the children who fish the lake, thier parents (the HOA) might be concerned about big, toothy monsters (:)).
2)a swimming, paddleboat lake
with the water as ridiculously clear as it is, and the springs at the bottom keeping it at a very cool temperature in the heat of summer, the swimming in the lake is a MUST. so no alligators
the HOA will call #1 & #2 equally important.

The goal is still improving the lmb population. Bigger, healthier fish. what the HOA will be scared of is raising the pike population. While a few, i doubt, would be an issue, it will still be scary to them. Case in point, the lake committee chairman came out while we were ice fishing this weekend, saw one of the pike and asked "what does that mean to the swimmers, are they in danger?" I don't think he was convinced that it would take a jaws-sized pike to not be scared off by a small child.

Thanks for any advice I can get. I hope to make a presentation to the HOA and the Lake Committee this spring.

In a lot of ways, Dwight a member on here and you have ponds with similar fish communities. I would contact him and see if he'll give you the ways he has managed his pond over the years. He is growing some very nice sized specimens of several species in his 10 acre lake. I don't know if he has walleye in his lake as I can't recall him mentioning them, but I do know he has all the other species.

I'd love to see pictures of the pond, different sunfish and the topminnow species you talk about being in the pond. I'd really like to see a picture or 2 of the stunted NP you're catching through the ice.

I think the addition of structure would be beneficial and a cheap project for interested members of the HOA. I agree that pike present little to any danger to swimmers, particularly in crystal clear water like your pond has where target identification is not an issue.

I have read the thread- one of the best. Your answers are there if you read through it. Additional advice would be to hire a professional to shock and provide a professional report. We can do it when we go to KY if not too far northin Ill. If interested give us a call or Nate is little north of you in Peoria. Much easier to present to a board the recommendaitons of professional vs. gathered information even though it might be right on point. Good luck semms with the right advice you can have a great fishery.

Unfortunately the lake isn't mine, it's my dad's and he's in the far northern reaches of IL. You can spit to wisconsin from his house.

Ok, i've looked everywhere online, and can't find an example of a "yellowfin topminnow"...dang fish ID book may have led me astray....although i can't ID it for certain, the tiny minnow looks like this:
http://pond.dnr.cornell.edu/nyfish/Cyprinidae/lake_chub.html

with one exception, the main tail fin (excuse the layman's terms) is broader than that, and extends around the tail, like a beta fish, connecting the Adipose fin and the anal fin. It honestly looks like a topminnow, but the only ones of those i find online are tropical, lol...and i don't think a beta fish would survive the winters.

edit-
this is fairly accurate, just more brightly yellow, and without the spots (that i can remember). http://www.bio.txstate.edu/~tbonner/txfishes/fundulus%20notatus.htm

Take a picture of one and I or another will get you a solid ID on it.

Ok, that will take a while, at least a month or 2 before I get back up there.

I'll be putting my Ice-fishing pics online sometime this week, and hopefully will mkae progress on that topo map too. Maybe I could get some help as to good places to put the structure i build.

skinnybass that makes more sense now with the lake in norhtern ILL when talking about ice fishing. I wondered how that was consistent in S. Ill. Good luck sorry I did not pickup on that. I do have a company I can refer though in northern Ill as well if interested but they ain't cheap.

i'd call this the first year in 5 years that i ahve felt safe on the ice in st louis.

good fishing too, the fish aren't used to it, and not only that, but it's not quite so cold. I actually stopped by my lake of choice this morning and checked it, we're still @ 5 inches of ice here.

It sounds like the Lake is balancing itself out. I would just continue to do what you are doing. Remove skinny bass when caught, remove all crappie and pike when caught. Add forage cover. I think you have to weigh out how close you are to your goals vs. possibly going sideways or even South by adding another species. I figured the HA would be alarmed with the pike, especially in a swimming/recreational lake. Ignorant or not, people have prejudices. That's human nature. Not a lot of warm and fuzzy thoughts thinking about little kids in thier inflatable ducks with toothy pike eyeing thier toes. HA people think liability, lawsuit. I'd get them out and crappie can sometimes adversely affect LMB by interupting food chain. I might consider adding a catfish. But I would not add or even consider adding forage until I had adequate forage cover and a lot of those top predators removed.

Might I ask what info makes it sound like it was ballancing out?

I understand that initially i was all doom and gloom, and after the creel data showed some growing bass it is more optimistic...is that the biggest indicator? the growing bass?

I guess what confuses me now is the existence of the pike. even if they were always there, they never were in numbers like this. If i deplete the bass population, won't it just give the pike room to grow? aren't the pike going to continue to devour the bass minnows? aren't the bass the biggest control on the pike?

I guess what i am concerned about is coming back in 3 years and saying, ok, revered pond-masters, help me out with this...solved the skinny bass problem, but now i just have thousands of tiny, angry, starving pike and one 12 lb bass, and the crappie packed up their bags and left for the chain of lakes 2 years ago.

It sounded like you only had 25% skinny bass instead of all of them. That is making progress. The ones you cull are not doing much anyway, I'd take the skinny ones out. They are not helping at all. Just surplus slot bass.

I'd catch and keep every Pike, muskie, pickerel, and crappie. All of them. You will at least slow them down, and not much is going to eat them. If they have lots of babies how many will survive to become breeders? Guess time will tell.

Mainly I would remove the most competition for the forage, of undesirable species. If that is what they are. I think that is what you state on your priorities, fishery and bass. On a body of water that size it is going to be tough and a ongoing effort. No overnight fixes here. But only 25% skinny bass vs 100% seems like progress towards your goals to me.

Without good data we are all just guessing. We need detailed info and pics with times , weights , lengths , species and ages would help. Catch data does not tell a lot about reproduction and yoy survival and small fish (minnows and forage) status so seine data would help. Visual info which we also don't have can add critical parts to the puzzle. Fertility is an open issue as is harvest data and its effects on total mortalities.

Adding structure is probably good but even that depends.

Best step is to get a pro to electrofish the pond and report. If that is not possible then develop the data and report back.

I guess with what we have all we can do is guess. I guess. But it depends on if the guessing is right or not? Without true 100% scientifically gathered data to examine we guess. I have made a career of guessing what will work. Sometimes those guesses blow up in my frog face like a trick cartoon cigar. You try to refine it the best you can, but with an ecosystem underwater, what can you really know for certain? At best you can get a hopeful representive sampling and guess from there. I guess it depends.

Yes but you have to have "a ... representative sampling " to make that guess. IMO we do not come close to that representative sampling here. Just some inconsistent catch info and observations.

I have to agree with ewest in this situation. Although the reports from residents are all consistent...none of them ever saw a baby pike or walleye before, and my dad, even, has never caught a crappie.

So as informed as it might seem, we are really uninformed.

I will be building structure and installing it. there is dreadfully little besides plant cover. I don't really see how it could hurt. (feel free to let me know how it could hurt...you're the experts).


I don't think that the homeowners are really going to go for killing fish, especially in the numbers required. It's a shame, sure, but it is reality. I do, of course, and I have my dad convinced to. But the rest? maybe not so much. It's too "icky" for most of them.

So until i can get more solid evidence together, there really isn't much else i can do, i suppose.

One thing to keep in mind is that if these are pike you are catching and they all of a sudden appeared to be very common out of nowhere is this... Northern pike are VERY spotty spawners in pond and even most man made lakes. They have very specific requirements for a successful spawn and these are rarely met in man made ponds and lakes. Here is a good example of pike spawning in a man made lake from a lake I am very familiar with:

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/fisheries/afm/2005/7x04_21shawnee.htm

This lake had a very low northern pike population for years. Then the population blew up when the right conditions existed. Something similar happened to a reservoir near my house. We had a bad drought a few years back. Many of the shallow coves went dry and grew up in vegetation. When the rains came, the vegetation was flooded and the northern pike spawned like crazy that spring. The 2005 year class is just getting to about 32"-36" in size now, makes for some great fishing for pike where they are not common typically.

For skinnybass...

Thanks, Josh...
@ work at the moment, so i can't see the image, but that is (i think) the fat 19" bass we caught...the evidence of the skinnybass syndrome solving itself, I guess. (that's my friend chris...the expert ice-man out of the group of us).

Ok....Now that i have become more familiar with the PB forum, I've found the wealth of information about bass-heavy BOWs. You guys are just plain awesome, you know that?

I read this in an archive:

The pond in question is CRYSTAL clear. You can see the bottom of the lake clearly in places I have identified as 12' of water, and some that I am sure are 14-16.
After more discussions with lake residents (the people, not the fish...;) Growing 2 or 3 12lb monsters is not a goal. Many people enjoy the fast-catching action of the bass-heavy lake. But everyone agrees that ultimately it would be nice to hook into a 3lb mini lunker once and a while.
So given the low fertility levels and the more moderate goals than the initial ones my father and I have, how should I be adjusting the bass population? I had originally used the equasion that each surface acre should maintain 50lbs of bass, making it 375 lbs in the lake, (assuming average weight of just under a pound) I was going to recommend they try to cull 70-90 lbs of skinny bass every year until the balance reached the goal they wanted, then reduce it to around 30 lbs a year (they are considering a 4th of july annual skinny bass fishing derby to do this...they are actually proposing that to the HOA and lake committee before I can get my plan together, I think you guys have inspired a bunch of empty-nesters to take on the task of managing their fishery more actively).

Remember that artificial cover is already in the works.

I have signed 4 more homeowners who frequently fish to start keeping creel data compiled on a google doc spreadsheet, and now the 9 interested parties aren't all on the same geographic side of the lake, which is good. Honestly with all of the info you guys have given me, it is beginning to look like we can get this thing done right, HOA or no HOA.

It may be as simple as removing 20 lbs of LMB per acre from the skinny sized group the first year and measuring the results. In the mean time collect data on size and condition of all types of fish seen and caught. Also water visibility readings over the spring and summer and notes on water color changes.

I think the water clarity statement is a generalization gone bad. Many if not most fish are sight feeders. If you have muddy, turbid or algae tainted waters it makes it hard for them to feed, stresses them and you have even a worse situation than crystal clear. It also can affect thier gills, cause oxygen depletion by reducing normal aquatic plant photosynthesis. My ideal pond, the best I manage is on the clear side. But it has the best zooplankton bloom I have ever seen. I think overall fertility and the proper food chain from the bottom up will be there even if water is clear. It may not be if the water is murky. Just my two cents on clarity.

I think the clarity issue does not involved suspended solids. Suspended solids are no helpful... However, a clarity reduction because of a zooplankton bloom is helpful in most cases.

ewest is dead on, but skinny bass thinks that is his problem, which seems to be simplifying the real issues. I'd say clarity might be an indicator of a lack of fertility, and a resulting lack of phytoplankton, then zooplankton. Bottom of the food chain from lack of fertility. The clarity here is not the cause of his problems, but a symptom.

Not so much think it is THE problem, but rather another wrench in the system that messes up my original analysis and proposal to the HOA I see that as a possible issue to be wary of. what does that mean for the amount of gamefish the lake can support?
howso? Not sure I understand. the problem as I originally thought was overcrowding bass. could those overcrowded predators be having that effect on the zooplankton? I originally thought it was a chemistry issue....the minerals they were digging in the original quarry could have resulted in a high acidic or basic tendency for the water, which could be keeping the phytoplankton down. I know i'm no expert, and I stand to have my opinions corrected

thanks
-skinny

This viever video gives a glimse of what pike is capable of.
Greed for game fish, and no fear for people.
http://www.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/309424
This top predator I wouldn't want in the pond, my opinion

[/quote]

Its a mesage telling you need a broadband of minimum 375 kbit/s
you cam manualy try to change your speed

I don't think I know how to do that, but I want to see that video.

That pike really wanted that fish!!!

Found it on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EHkNXhwQxk
ØRETTEN OG GJEDDA
means THE TROUT AND THE PIKE

Thanks ande! That was wild!

Wow, crazy stuff!

I remember when I was a kid, while running set lines with my Grandpa on the Missouri River by Niobrara, Nebraska, we had a pike encounter. We were using 4-5 inch green sunfish for bait. A 4 pound pike had eaten the sunfish and then an 18 pound pike had bitten the smaller pike, hooking itself in the process. Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera to take pictures.

A second pike encounter occurred on a canoe/camping/fishing trip to Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. I had hooked and was in the process of reeling in a 3 pound small mouth bass. I had just brought the fish within about ten feet of the boat when this 40+ inch northern pike comes from nowhere and snatches the bass. I fought them both for about five minutes before the pike finally let go. It was crazy stuff.

I would love to put four or five pike in my 2 acre pond, but I am afraid they would decimate my other fish.

ahhh....quetico....even a SC boy like myself can tell stories about that place. just took my dad back up there for the first time in 24 years for his 70th birthday. Saw our paddle from 1985 on the wall at Canoe Canada and went smallmouth fishing for 5 days. That place is heaven on earth.

sorry to hijack the thread. Nostalgia overtook me.

Ok, i get more and more into the wealth of info on this forum on every lunch break and usually find some great info to email my dad about his lake. Got into a train of threads off of the crappie question that is currently active, and stumbled across this post:

So how is this done? Like i said, the ice fishing revealed a bunch of fat bass along with the skinny ones, so things seem to be improving. How can i tell this in the future when i angle there. Please remember this has to be told in a way that I (not the brightest crayon) can understand and then communicate to Pops.

The best way to tell is to slaughter the fish and look at it's otolith. It will have rings like a tree to identify it's age. OK, that's too durn much trouble.

So, take a look at the relation of it's head to body condition. If the head looks kinda out of place for the body, it's an older skinny bass that has had or is having a tough time getting enough to eat. You'll have to look at some of them but it will begin to get pretty obvious to you.

so freaky looking big head on a skinny bass is a bad thing. Check. Big belly average head good thing. Understood.

Thanks, Dave! (and vicariously Bruce) much appreciated.

how about an easy way to identify if there are crayfish in the lake without crayfish stacks on the shore? people there have heavily manicured lawns and landscape companies. No way that there would be a stack on someone's property. There is a wetlands conservation area (huge for around there, like 50 acres), as well as morraine hills state park just beyond their lake community, though, and I am almost certain they are there. These places are the source of the plentiful chorus frogs & bullfrogs.

Dad is asking if stocking crayfish would provide a good forage base for the bass, enough for a few of them to grow to size and help manage the pond themselves. You guys rocked the good infor on tiger muskie, what's the ruling here?

I ask how can i tell if they are around because i don't want to put them in the lake if there is a reason they aren't there to begin with (like bad water for crayfish, the wrong chemicals present, or some other problem that would stop this from being a good investment).

Most crayfish species require rocky habitat to do well... Some species can/prefer to utilize leafy detritus but the vast majority prefer rocks. Two methods I would say to see if you have native crayfish in your lake is to walk the shoreline at night with a spotlight. If there are crayfish in any kind of numbers, you'll see some walking the shallows. You can also purchase a crayfish trap and bait it with something stink nasty. If there are crayfish present, you should be able to capture a few...

A word of caution, if you decide to stock crayfish be VERY careful. Some species are beneficial, others can become a real nuisance or worse! Many hatcheries sell crayfish, getting them to actually tell you what species they are selling you is a challenge. Making sure their crayfish aren't contaminated with unwanted species can be even more challenging.

Some species of crayfish are burrowers, others are not... I would try to get a species that doesn't burrow. This is especially important for ponds that are formed by dams as the crayfish can cause bad seepage or cause failure. Some species are nasty on aquatic vegetation, so much so that they can completely denude a pond of it. So depending on your desire for aquatic vegetation in your lake, be forewarned. Some species are very aggressive and will dominate and out compete other species.

Crayfish do provide a good forage base for bass. They can be a very important part of the forage food chain. I think they are much more important for growing quality SMB, but LMB certainly love them as well.

Here are a couple of good threads on crawfish. But start with the archive which has more.

Archive
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=119724#Post119724

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=25641&fpart=1

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=110189&fpart=1

And from Theo :

Major PB Crawdad thread: Crawfish for LMB forage

Northern Crawfish info: Seagrant link

Rusty Crayfish info and identification: rusty crayfish invader

Thanks guys...now i just have to find a crayfish and dig through the fridge for something stink nasty.

Much appreciated.

skinnybass, beef liver has worked great for me when trapping fish or crayfish.

rock on, thanks, i'll try that.

I have actually seen a Tiger Musky try and take down a Loon 3 times. Pike and Musky are eating machines. I have also seen first hand a large Pike try and eat about a 2 to 3 pounds bass as they swam around like crazy in the shore bass in abolute fear for his life!! He did get away only because we got in the middle of it trying to catch the pike!! Put a couple in your pond and you will no loger have an overstocking problem before to long that's for sure!!

Yeah, somebody dropped a 30"+ one-eyed monster pike in there a few years back. the mythical lake beast Onezey.
This year ice fishing we ended up with the fattest bass we've seen (still too many of the tiny, emaciated looking ones with the huge heads and tiny bodies, like skeletor bass....thanks to the above poster for informing me that this is characteristic of an older fish with not enough to eat), and even a bunch of baby pike (all under 21").
In my uneducated opinion, there have always been pike in the pond, just kept down by bass predation, and with a little pressure off, we saw some growing past the minnow size.
The crappie & BG are still HUGE, but a few smaller ones were present as well (but this might just be seasonal, like with the pressure off as the bass feed slower, the tiny BG got a little bit of life without the ever-present impending doom by bass).

The plan, as it stands, is to improve forage cover with artificial structures and remove the Skeletors. the crayfish is another idea for a larger forage that can fatten up the bass a lil.

Of course, i invite anyone again to throw down your opinions and advice. I think tiger muskie are officially out as an option, as is spending any large amount of cash, the HOA just won't throw the cash around.

I second the beef liver. Works great.

Hello all:
Again, thanks for all of your help with my dad's bow. Last weekend of ice (they hope) and there apparently was an ice-fishing bonanza, i didn't get to make it up there, but they had a huge weekend.Onezey, the mythical lake beast, was caught by 2 people on a total of 3 seperate occasions.

There were also a bunch of those smaller pike caught. Unfortunately for me, and for all of you whom i'm now pestering with the questions, Mr Chairman of the Lake Committee was the one hosting the bonanza, and apparently he is flipping his lid very concerned.

There are a few questions at this point. So there have been a total of 12 mini-pike caught and confirmed, but sizes recorded only make for 6 different lengths, so only really 6 confirmed mini-pike, all between 12-21".

Other species caught were the usual suspects, skinny bass (24 more removed from the lake, if my dad told me right), black crappie, bluegill. Nobody pulled in one of the walleye this weekend.

So dad asked me a bunch of questions to ask you guys..i told him he should just sign on, but i don't think he's too into forums...whatever.

a) Lake committee chair was very nihisitic about it, saying it's all over, we now jsut have a pike lake, all the bass are dead. What is a good response to this? How accurate is this? He's a pretty smart guy, from what i understand, but it seems like an alarmist approach to me (although to begin with this was my response, as you all may remember, but Walt was good enought to convince me otherwise, and the rest of you have done your parts as well).

b) is removing bass still a good answer? Or will the pike start to mediate this on their own? I guess yes, still remove slot bass...

c) In the post below i'll be putting some images down. One of which is the map of depths we've been putting together, the colors don't mean as much, just the depths in text. Just southeast of dad's pier is a culvert that functions as the drain from the street into the lake. Dad wants to put some emergent grasses there, that he thinks and i agree will double as cover for forage as well as a very sightly cover for yet ineffective filter for road-grime and other nastiness that makes its way into the lake. what is a good species of grass to plant there that will survive the mean chicago winters and be easy enough for him to maintain (ie not cover his shoreline in a year or so...)?

d) based on the map, where would be good places for cover? In front of dad's pier where it first drops to 12' will be one set, i'm sure. Where else?

e) dad likes the hone-hole style of cover, with soft polyeurethane tubing (no hazard to people diving off of the trampolines etc...as opposed to rigid pvc, no skewering of swimmers, etc). What kind of tubing should he invest in for the construction of these things that will still remain erect for years?

f) in the summer we'll be putting in minnow traps and craw traps, but just to point us in the right direction before we can ID any forage species, what kinds of additional forage should we be looking at?

Thanks all! Photos coming soon!
-Skinny

my buddy nate with a crappie
nate with a mini-pike, 15"
Chris with a skinny bass
The standard gill..really small actually, dwarfish in comparison to the others
A neighbor with Onezey the mythical lake beast. That's the good eye. He seems much skinnier than he did in the summertime photo i saw.
That's my smiling mug.
Nate lost a rod to a bass. That's him and chris, having just fished the rod back out of the lake, using the retrieved rod to pull in the bass. see the trail of holes the drilled chasing it across the lake? Using the aquaview, they eventually snagged it, and brought the fish in. It's the skinny bass with chris posted above. Lol. Good times.
a shoddy topo map.

Just got another question....
When are the respective breeding times for all the big players in the lake? I know that it all hinges on water temp, but just a guestimate on what to expect?
from the species i hit when i fish down here in southern illinois, i suspect it goes in this order:
-crappie/bg
-largemouth
-pike

Does that even make sense? somebody please correct me.

this is where we need back issues of the magazine catagorized. Dave Willis had pretty all the info you need with ur questiosn in past article. skinny you need that issue.

Spawn order from coolest to warmer is NP, LMB, BCR-BG. As Greg says Dr. Dave reviewed all this info in May-Jun 2009. The index and Table of Contents for all the magazines are available in Common Q&A Archives:
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=196790#Post196790
Hopefuly the Indexes and Contents information will be more visible & better organized in the up coming new Forum format.

so i had it completely backwards? Awesome!

Yeah, new subscriber, i don't have the may-jun from '09.

Thanks for the heads up, guys....

wow.......that issue has an article on mapping too.....judging by my ramshackle map on the previous page....i need this issue!

So how do i order a backissue, i'm guessing right on the subscribe page.....

man, i just looked back at my series of questions....i really hit every category with this one...what plants to choose, selective harvest, what happens with the pike, what do i use to make structure, where can i place plants and structure, when do the fish spawn and what do i stock for forage.....
lol....buckshot approach. Already turned up one good hit, thanks greg & bill.

Greg: BTW..the wife loved the loon piece in last month's issue. She's studying biogeography, and she appreciated your want to help the bird in a pond too small for itself. although she did cringe at netting it....i dunno, something about bone density in the wings at risk...crazy scientists, who can understand 'em?
that was you, right?
man....it's been a long month.
wait... week.

dang.

Back issues of PBoss Magazine can be ordered using the form in back of the magazine or by calling the PBoss office 1-800-687-6075. Hopefully fairly soon all back issues and individual articles will be available for purchase and electronic down-load from a location on this Forum. Stay tuned and watchful.

no idea that was evenin there, figures my mag is late this month or mia? I was careful with it let her know. I had to handle plenty of geese in wildlife class so it was not harmed I can assure you. Pretty cool experience. thanks

If you have trouble ordering I think there is a place to order back issues in the magazine as well.

she knows it all turned out well, it wasn't a doubt in your ability, just a cringe at the possible things that could have gone wrong. When i showed her this post she even said, if anyone was going to do it, she's glad it was someone with enough care and want to learn about the animal and think it though beforehand. No doubt that you did it well.....just fear at the possibility of injury.

In any case, we both really enjoyed reading it. Nicely done, Mr Grimes, nicely done.

She also just read the piece about restoring rangelands...lol....she is currently reading a text with a lot of the same information. Good stuff there too. The PB magazine is just plain awesome.

Anyone know the type of poly tubing to buy for one of those "soft" forage covers?

Thanks, and keep up the good work
-skinny

skinny:

Look into the 1/4" and 1/2" poly tubing that's used for drip irrigation.

Ok, sweet. What about a good emergent grass to plant? in shallow water, from 6" to 3 feet, that will a) survive chicago winters b) be easy to manage and not take over a shoreline c) survive the annual herbicide (Dad says it's called sonar) and d) help to hide a big ugly concrete culvert, and maybe, just maybe, filter out some of the road grime and other nastiness that comes through it.

Another friendly PB'er PMed me the name "horsetail rush"....from the looks of it that would be a good choice. Any thoughts? lol...he also taught me what ag zone i am working in, 5a&b (thanks, dude...you rock).

-skinny

I thought horsetail rush can become rather invasive? If not, great, I got a ton of it on this one section of the creek on our property I could just subplant.

yeah, i've seen that too...but a little manual control for whatever plant we choose is ok, just so long as it isn't weeks of control just to keep it from taking over the shore or other parts of the pond.

However, on another site, i just read that attempting to pull unwanted stalks out breaks the tuber, which causes it to spread....

Of course this is coming from a poster who said that calling it invasive was an "inderstatement." source reliability = FAIL.

Dad's initial response was to head across his yard into the wetlands conservation land and just pull a handful of something that is spreading beyond the state/county land and plant it there. lol.....Now i know that the wetlands conservation area and this pond are connected, so they share water, algae, frogs, birds, mice and more...but if the plant is spreading out of the wetland...do you really want to give it a jump start into your pond? I know, i don't even know what he was looking at. Maybe that is a good idea, just gave me a chuckle.

Alright....question for the day....
where do i get a good seine for relatively cheap? Googling it got me some pretty shaky results.

Anything i should look for in style or quality?


Thanks
skinny

this place has been recommended frequently. They sure have the styles to choose from. http://www.memphisnet.net/category/nets

ok, great. Thanks....now....i see it is order by the foot. To get a good, accurate sample, how big of a seine would you all suggest? Just 2 people to operate would be best (me & pops...)

I'd go with at least 30'x4' but 50'x4' would work better and can still be run by two people. It takes a little practice to get the pace and method down, but once you do, you can sure catch a pile of fish with a net that size!

Bass Pro Shops also sells seines in that size range and if I recall correctly, they are a PB supporter.

CJ I recommend a 6 foot model, a 4 foot will not work well in water over 3 feet. Remember the "bag" pulls down the height of the net. Also, I know it gets pricey, a mudline is good investment so the net does not roll as bad and keep fish from going under it. A good net is not cheap, it is a longterm investment.

skinny a 50' model would be my choice for you.

I agree with you Greg. Nothing like watching your floats go under and all the fish go over your net... However, it's a lot harder to find a 6' net as compared to a 4'. 4' nets substantially cheaper because I think they are more mass produced. I do agree that a 6' net works much better though.

Yep CJ with you. If you plant to use a couple fo times the n BPS net might work. If you plan to use on routine basis for next several years my advice is save up for a good one from memphis net and twine or delta net or others in the business.

Lusk once said that it is not unusual for bass to lay flat and let the seine pass over them. Doesn't seem fair.

They also refused to hit my spinner yesterday evening, first 60+ day here in stl, got all the way up to 72, but the dang bass wouldn't bite. Also not fair.

update - dad just sent me an email, ice 3/4 off, someone put a roach on a line from their pier and pulled in another 30+" pike....2 eyes....not onezey the mythical lake beast.

So we have a small population of big pike and a growing population of lil toothy buggers, 15-20".

The HOA and the homeowners in general are getting nervous...all of this showing up in one year? The general fear is that the bass are a losing arrangement, and won't be around too much longer, they also are afraid for the kids swimming (a main focus of this lake).

What should I tell them? what should be done? I can handle the fear of danger to swimmers myself...obviously it takes a Carcharodon carcharias sized pike to be interested in people....but what about the danger to the fishery? I personally am not afraid, i think it is likely a good thing, more competition for the forage and a predator that can handle a 12" bass will start weeding out the skinny bass, right?

Skinnybass: I think your biggest problems can be solved with good food. Fear of the unknown will get you every time and knowledge is the answer. Put out a notice that you will be holding a fishing contest for the local kids, winners and winners get free hotdogs and a cold drink. Cost is minimal and those fradycats at the home owners association can see first hand that baby lock ness does not in fact eat small children. While the kids are putting hook to worm you can address the parents with a general discussion forum. I'd recommend you ask one of you local wildlife officers/biologist to show up to help you get the facts straight with the "thicker headed types". If this contest is a hit you should be the driving force behind making it an annual occurance. Just my 2 cents, hope it helps...

Yeah, there is a 3rd of july fishing derby in the works. I think, at least i hope that this part of the conversation will be fairly easy to present...of course your kids won't get eaten. Look @ the movie jaws, get around all the Freudian stuff and see that it is unlikely that a great white will attack a person...unless he is an underage drinker or a boy named Alex Kintner.

The bigger problem is how do i tell them that the bass aren't all going to become pike-lunchmeat...

and further, I would like to make a BIG discouragement of bringing fish in from other, nearby BOW's in the chain of lakes. It just makes sense to me that They shouldn't be allowing this, but I would like a good message to deliver to discourage it all together..the possibilities for disaster are many (disease for one...). The main suspect no longer lives on the lake, but he is the one who put onezey in, as well as the walleye, and i think he put a bunch of crappie in as a final goodbye before he moved away. I think that's just deplorable, personally...but whatever. Maybe making a fine to boost the lake committee's pond management fund for anyone who gets caught would be a good idea.

In addition to the question above, placement of the artificial cover is a question i still haven't answered for my dad. What do you guys think? Straight out from "dad's pier" where there's a 10 ft drop is already a plan for a trio or more of the honey-hole style of cover with the soft tubing, but I know a variety of options is best, at different depths. I don't know much about fish behavior, and where the forage would prefer there to be some cover...what do you think? over on the "flat" on the north side where it just ranges from 3-6'? That was an instinct of mine, but i don;'t know if the homeowners there would appreciate it, as clear as the water is, the cover will be very visible. Maybe some rocks and boulder there would be a good idea?

Any suggestions are welcome.

I still think education is the key. The more you can teach them about the bad things that happen when you transport fish from one place to another, is gonna be a good thing for your lake. Remind them that bad things happen to a good swimming hole when intra-lake transportation happens. That means showing them a few pictures of really bad looking ponds with hydrilla and a few pictures of swimmers itch and other icky looking stuff. Bring the wildlife officer to help you. Have your officer preach the good sermon about taking every pike that can be caught out of the pond when its caught. Let it be known that the more that come out the better the bass will be.

I will see if i can get the officer out for the 3rd of july derby we are setting up.

There's a big illinois hatchery In spring grove, about 45 mins away, maybe one of their employees would come over, or DNR from the morraine hills state park...who knows.

I'm going to follow up on that, and showing some hydrillia takeover is a great plan, as well as the swimmer's itch.

Any ideas for the cover placement?

Thanks to all!
-skinny

update-
dad & one of the neighbors decided to get rid of the rest of thier wax worms yesterday and fished from the pier. Tons of tiny bluegill. He reported catching over 40 himself, while chuck got 10-12 (dad was out there much longer than chuck). These are tiny bluegill...in years past they were HUGE (due to heavy bass predation of the size i am now talking about, right?) Here's the image i posted on a previous page, that when i showed it to dad, he agreed that they were all about the same size:

so previously i had been told that this could just be seasonal, the reason there were small ones was because in the winter the bass were too lethargic to knock them back. This seems excessive to me, though, that there were this many tiny ones, with ice off and temps in the 60's for almost 2 weeks.
What do you guys think this means? just a curiosity.

thanks in advance,
-skinny

What do you define as tiny?

just like that pic...i think i posted it right (photobucket blocked at the office computer so i can't really see)

it's like 3-4" usually they are between 6-9" ( am assuming 6-9", i've never actually measured one....but Big. Really big in comparison to these guys, like double this size is normal).

Update....mystery solved.

Where did all of these 15-20" pike come from all at once? Well...

So i went up to dad's place to talk with some of the people that have been on board with aiding the pond for quite some time. Brought some diagrams on how to build thier own structure, had a bunch of stats you guys have helped me put together, wanted to convince everybody to start keeping better records, start communicating more, get everybody on a google doc that they could post creel data and observations, you know, to start making more educated guesses than the ones everybody's been spewing out.

Well the question comes up that hey, how did all of thes 15" pike all appear in one year, and why ddi we catch none of them until ice-fishing? I get just about ready to start talking about their growth rates and spawning preferences, and how they are a more verocious hunter than some of the other fish in cold weather, and one of the homeowners speaks up and says.....

wait for it.....wait for it.....wait for it

It's because those city guys put all those pike in our lake last year.

WHAT!!!!?????

Turns out that they had one of the larger lakes in the chain of lakes stocked last november. They had a bunch of left over fish (how is that even possible!!!??? Fox lake is enormous, why didn't they just put the rest in there???) than they had originally planned on using. 'Round comes the city works employee with a giant tank, pulls up to the shared land (where the drain plug is), and dumps in (estimate from the homeowner might be WAY high) 75 15" pike.

So......i guess that answers the question.

looks like we're gonna go on a pike-hunting bonanza. Other homeowners are really peeved, the one who lives next to the shared land (the HOA owns one sliver of the land that no house is on...this is where the drain-gate for the pond is) never thought it would be a big deal....but now he sees how it is. A lot of them are talking lawsuit against the city works department.

LOL......so i guess the overpopulated bass problem will be solved in due time. The overpopulated pike are sure to chow down on them. Now we just need to get about 95% of those pike out of the lake.

So say we take a conservative estimate and guess that there are 35 2yo pike now swimming about in this lake. What do you guys think???

LMAO over here, after all of the brain wracking trying to figure out what was going on and what to do about it. Some dumbass public works guy is responsible.

I spent what seemed an hour or more reading this thread. Here are some of my thoughts at this point.

1. Nice lake with very good average depths. Low percentage of shallow water that can contribute to rooted vegetation problems.

2. Do a rooted weed survey this early summer May-Jun to early fall Sep to document dominant aquatic weed species. Weed community will change over time. Plot weed beds and approx size on your map.

3. Get or make a secchi disk and measure water transparency every week or every two weeks. April to end of Oct/Nov. Plot visibilities on a graph - (excel or similar). As the number of small panfish/filter feeders increases the transaprency will decrease.

4. Does lake have an inlet and outlet? One is not shown on the map. Inlet & outlet will give some info about fertility and retention time and can affect stratificaion.

5. Does lake straify and if so at what depth?

6. If water is as clear as you note (10'-12' up to 14') that suggests to me a lower fertility and productivity and lower carrying capacity (fish biomass) than a lake with 2'-4' of vis. This means you may not have as many small skinny bass/ac as you think you have. Ewest suggests removing 20LMB/ac. It can be a target number. See No 8.

7. Without doing a survey and based on what fish you say are present (numerous predator types), I think the lake has a large and healthy zooplankton population causing the overall clear water conditions (filter feeders). Lake should have lower transparencies due to runoff from connecting house lots. See No 11.

8. For the 1st yr and with numerous NP present/ac(10/ac) you might want to reduce the LMB removed number to 14-18/ac. Then re-assess number removed in 2011 based on catch records. The 12"-20" NP will be in 2010 keying 1&2yr old bass and 3-4" panfish. In 2011 and beyond average consumed forage size will gradually increase. Those 30"+ NP were eating the 8"-12" bass and medium panfish. Since you indicate there are a fair number of small BG IMO you don't want to remove too many bass right away that could dramatically affect the overall catch rate for the average angler. Some like frequent catching versus less frequent with larger size. As mentor Bob Lusk says, the angler catch records will indicate progress and status of the fishery.

9. Have all pike caught so far been removed? Now that we know the NP are probably not recruiting very many if any new ones into the lake IMO keep removing all pike caught. Lake can probably do okay with 2-3 NP/ac. Eventually anglers can get out all NP over the next 4-6 yrs.

10. The manmade structures you will add in a lake this size IMO will basically amount to fish attractors and not refuge areas for small fish. OK to Place them in deeper water front of your dads place or where you prefer to fish. Ideally they should be shallower water 3'-5' but in a HOA lake, deep is okay. We are not talking a very big percentage of the bottom area with structures. Your weed beds and emergent shoreline vegetation will be your main habitat/refuge for fish (large and small).

11. Is shoreline completely surrounded with houses?. Where are houses in relation to the perimeter of shoreline? Make a new map with dots, boxes, or Xs for houses. Then suggestions can be made for vegetation plantings based on house lots and the location of weed beds on the new vegetation map to be produced.

12. For beneficial vegetation do a search here and or read through this thread.
http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=213182#Post213182

There are other good species besides those listed that could be introduced based on what your vegetation survey reports. Other BOW's in the chain of lakes or the adjacent wetland/marsh would have specimens/seeds for transplant.

13. That picture of the BG you posted did not look little (2"-4")to me. It was the same BG pic from the ice fishing pics and looked close to 6"-7"long. It was a mature male BG and typically BG don't mature in a lake fishery like your dad's until they are around 7" or more long. Typically stunted BG mature at smaller sizes.

14. IMO the larger LMB they catch in the lake are eating a fair number of small bass. This is a common occurrence in a bass heavy lake. A few big ones feeding on numerous smaller ones because they are common and available. As you remove a larger percentage of smaller skinny bass from the lake expect the average size of BG to decrease. Cach records will verify this.

16 Catch records should also include sizes of BG&crappie csught.

Here's the google map image, you can see the houses, as well as the marshland to the northeast. There is no inlet or outlet, and actually, this lake is at a higher elevation than those surrouding it, so when it overflows, it feeds all the smaller ponds nearby. The marshland there and this lake share a lot, there is a big corrugated pipe that runs under the street for water to flow through if one or the other is about to overflow. the "a" is my dad's propery, and actually where that metal pipe is (we call it the culvert).

I've always been told 7.5 ac. Others have been trying to tell me now that it is 10 ac. Who knows. The more and more i got into this mess, the more and more i recognized the amount of ignorance that all parties involved have displayed, lol, myself included. That's why i ask you guys.

Yes, i believe the lake to be pretty infertile. The weeds grow pretty thick, but the water is ridiculously clear.
Thanks for your input, Bill.

No regular inflow and outflow tends to indicate less fertility from stream flow. Number of surrounding houses 20-22 around entire perimeter limits amount of shoreling vegetation that will be tolerated. A sizable amount of submerged weed beds will consume a big percentage of the nutrient budget for the lake and limit phytoplankton development. Reduction of weeds could result in lower transpariences. It is suprising the lake is so clear because of potential fertilizer runoff from lawns. HOA may have its act together and limits amount of phosphorus in runoff from lawn fertilizer. Lack of numerous planktivorous fish allows more larger species of filter feeding zooplankton to graze on phytoplankton and clearing the water.

Submerged and emergent weed survey is needed. We can identify species from good pics that are posted.

definately no regular outflow. The pond is fed by a spring that pops up in a few different places across the bottom - basically the water percolates up from the bottom through all the limestone.

I'll add a plant survey to the list of things to be done this summer. Generally there are actually a lot of weeds in the bottom of the pond. Very, very thick in some places. Every summer we end up mannually removing an entire canoe-full whenever they have company that might want to swimm off the pier (grandkids). I also know that directly across the pond from dad's pier is a heavy bed of weeds every year that goes unmanaged, and the southern end of the pond is much the same.

I'll take some pics and mark on the map next time i get up there. Lots of things going on for the next few weeks, probably won't be until mid-may early june before i can arrive.

Thanks
SB

Oh, that's priceless! Great story, SB!

Update:
13 mini-pike removed since may 1, about 20 skeletor bass.
Onezy, the mythical lake beast, was found floating belly up in the lake, so the big pike is gone.
The walleye was caught again (supposedly, i did not see a pic)
Caught a 2lb bass this year, biggest i have ever seen from the lake, and my friend chris who is helping my dad fish the pond out got one that he says is 3lbs. Big fish for that lake.
Discovered another predator species: warmouth.

So we've got way to many pike, warmouth, lmb, black crappie, walleye, and a wide variety of types of bluegill (besides pumpkins, i have trouble telling the difference..but at least 3 more distinct kinds).

No pics just yet, trying to get my dad to start sending them to me. 4th of july bbq i will be out there for a few days fishing, and will make sure to get some.

The pike and skinny bass hunt is ON!!!!

Further update:
apparently it may not have been the city who dumped the pike in, but rather one of the newer residents, who is actually just a renter (his grandma's house, i think, but both renting and adding fish aren't allowed....so of course he denies everything)

When i was up for memorial day he saw me put a pike in a bucket and came out screaming about c&r & how he was going to have me kicked off the lake. The funny part is 3 or 4 of the other residents saw the whole thing and basically told me not to listen to that jacka$$, and do whatever i like.

One of the perks of actually caring about the lake and trying to be friendly and communicate with everyone, i guess, the one who isn't friendly with me about the lake apparently gets on everyone's bad side.

On the other hand, if i had just gone through the trouble of calling people to tell them where to put fish, or even paying for 75 NP, maybe i'd be a little pissed to see a resident's kid show up in a paddleboat and start taking them out. lol.

With a bad weekend fishing, I noticed a few things:
first, all of the bass caught are in the same size range still. Still evidence of overcrowding, right?
second, that range has gonoe up from 10-12" to 12-14".
Ice fishing this year we had noticed a little growth too.

What does that mean? The bass culling has been light. Just me and my dad doing it, and only off and on (dad won't kill fish in front of the grandkids...). Personally I don't think enough to make a difference, but obviously, something happened, i mean, the bass grew, right?

So what do you think that means?

Thanks
-Skinny

It's a year later, and the LMB grew. Since they are over 10" now, you should be able to weigh them and compare WR's. I don't believe they will grow in length without having enough weight on them, so it looks like you are on the right track.

just found these on my digicam, thought i would throw them on here. Pics from dad's pond standing on the culvert between his property and his neighbors.
Looking north:

Northwest:

West:

and south:

Ok, random question.

So the plan to establish a more balanced fishery with a little more weight on the bass (a few in the 2-3lb range would be great, so far have only seen one of these out of all the times i have fished there, although i have heard reports of a few more).

One thing i noticed this weekend was the ridiculous amount of blugill. Rained horribly on saturday, and on sunday, the gills were all up close to shore. Minnow traps were chalk full of baby gills, and if you use small bait, you can hardly keep the gills off the hook.

I might be crazy, but since most of the gills are much to large to feed a bass (or a pike for that matter), would it be a good idea to remove a day's worth of gills via hot dog fishing? You guys are the experts, but with so many bluegill, is it effecting the carrying capacity for the other fish? Absolutely not stunted, i can tell you that. A lot of gills very well grown, many smaller ones too, a good range of them.

I'm no expert but it sounds like your efforts are starting to work. A few years ago the only sized BG I ever saw or caught in my pond was big (6"+). And all you could catch were small skinny bass, because there weren't enough small BG for the bass to get full on. Since then I've started thinning the small bass and feeding the BG and the average size of bass caught has increased and their relative weights are good too. And I now see BG of all sizes, just like you. I wouldn't remove any BG. If you now have a healthy BG population it should only be a matter of time until the bass start growing too.

Skinny: I think you are seeing the results of your work. I'd leave them (the BG) in there and keep monitoring the LMB WR. The LMB won't become super fat overnight. You were fighting a battle with stunted bass, it'll take a few years for the fingerling LMB to get up to size. Remember, stunted LMB won't grow to their full potential, but if they weren't stunted for many generations, then their offspring will look great.

Have patience!

Rock on. Maybe in a year or 2 I can Adjust my moniker to "BalancedBass"

Thanks for your advice, guys.

All in all, though, not too many bass have been taken from the pond. I know i have taken out maybe 20, 30 lbs, and my dad may have a little too, but not too many in reality (maybe the pike did a number on the yoy and fingerlings, and that has helped??? I dunno)

Which brings me to my next question...we are safe from a pike spawn until spring, right? So ice-fishign this winter, any i take out (or that get taken out in fall) won't be able to breed?

edit: there can't be any negative reaction from killing the culled Skinny Bass and pike and throwing them back into the lake, can there? I mean that is just fertilizer, right?

And these things that i think are warmouth....i like having them there (although i don't think dad even knew about them before i pointed them out....) because they bite on slow days when nothing else wants too. Should i be taking them out too? I'd really rather not. And the Crappie, i hear such bad things about them from you guys, lol....but there can't be that many of them, and i like pulling them out through the ice....should i take those out too or am I good, leaving them in?

here;s yet another photo i've been meaning to add. This is the biggest bass we've gotten out of the pond to date, weighted in at 2 lbs 1oz. Judging by the fact that my hand is as big as my head in this pic, i'm trying to learn the fabled picture technique you all boast about, but havent quite mastered it yet.
This was in mid-may, and sorry for the pic quality, it had to be re-touched by the good wolks at walgreens, this was at about 8 pm, and there was very little light and a cheapy disposable camera.

Another interesting tidbit:
That house across from me, to the left of that point, that is where most of the pike were being caught. I notice 2 things about that property compared to others. a) no retaining wall. It is a gradual, grassy slope to the water. Most other gradual slopes are sandy beech areas, otherwise there are retaining walls (for the most part). b) besides being just before a point, with an underwater island about 3' below the surface to the right of that point (some of the best structure in the pond, at least according to my cheapy topo map i made ice-fishing) the area between his two boats (look above my shoulder in the top left of the pic)is a steep dropoff, from 2-6' in the matter of a few inches. Also more well-defined structure than most other places in the lake.

Any who- rock on.
Skinny

Skinnybass, did you get the length of that LMB? I was curious what the Wr of the fish was.

No, Jhap, not that i remember, at least. I can tell you that i got a 19" one through the ice last winter that was smaller, and much skinnier than that (of course it was in winter too).