Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Creating a protected area for forage

Thinking of fencing off an area of the pond and placing plenty of structure for fatheads. Perhaps an area about 50 feet in length out to about 3' deep. Probably use 3/4 inch black mesh, the type used to protect berry bushes from the birds. Seems like this would help bleed small forage to the main pond. RBT and YP, .3 acre pond. Anybody have experience trying something like this?

What would prevent a small LMB from swimming in, liking what it saw, and staying in the area, possibly growing larger than what could fit through the net to swim back out?

Just saying that because I have had small BG swim into cages that I hold fish in, and stay long enough to be too large to swim out.....

What you are proposing would work, but it wouldn't be 100% foolproof.

Foolproof? Ha! Nothing we do is... That's the fun of it! If it was easy...everyone would be doing it!

This is a yellow perch/ stocked RBT pond. Theoretically, none of the RBT or adult YP should fit. Obviously yoy YP will get in.

I'm planning to take some plastic shelves I have ( 2'x3') attach a 2'x3' 2" thick foam board on top for floatation. Cover it with a natural looking outdoor carpet ( got the idea from the turtle structure thread) The netting will be over the foam board, but under the carpet and drape down at least 4 feet. The edge of the net where it meets bottom I will zip tie old garden hose filled with sand to hold it on bottom until I get it sealed at the bottom with pond bottom clay, etc. The bottom of the plastic shelving has many rectangular boxes (to add strength and prevent sagging in its intended purpose) that look to be perfect FHM spawning structure. It would be easy to zip tie 4" black plastic drain tile sections for additional paternity wards underneath as well. My hope is that at least some FHM will be protected and bleed forage through this to the pond through the growing season. Better than the YP and RBT having a FHM spring blowout then little except yoy perch. I will be supplemental feeding as well.

Plan B is placing the FHM structure in a corner of the pond, then the netting across from dam to shore, this would leave about a 16' (net)x 16' (shore)x16' (dam) protected triangular cove to give the minnows a relatively safe place to procreate. If it appears to help with forage supply to the pond, I can duplicate it in the other corner next spring.

We have a LONG winter. Stuff like this helps keep the hope of Spring alive!

Just curious if it's already been tried. I'm sure it probably has but couldn't locate anything.

I have thought about this very same thing. And came up with the same potential problem Esshup talks about.

One thing I thought of, is within the fence put several fish trap type openings where larger fish could swim out to the main pond but would be unlikely to find their way back in. Might be a way for said small predators that grow up in the forage part to eventually be expelled.

Not foolproof, but one other option.

I had a forage pond built above the main pond, but during this recent flood (10.45 inches in 47 hours) the two ponds merged for two days with about a four foot wide , three to four inch deep canal between them. Fortunately, I didn't have any fish in the forage pond, and no bass yet in the big pond. I doubt BG or CC would swim that small gap in a flood, but I can see possible problems in the future. Eventually, I think I will set up a 1/4 inch hardware cloth barrier.

Oh yeah, they will swim. If you have an inch of water small BG will swim upstream into the new pond. I have a very small pre-sediment pond ahead of my tenth acre sediment pond where water runs an inch or two deep with any significant rain event. BG and FHM populated the pre-sediment pond from the sediment pond in no time at all. I had only put FHM and 4 RES in the pre-sediment pond, and all of the sudden I had loads of small BG also. They will swim upstream in an amazingly small amount of water. Species survival instinct I suppose.

I know bullhead catfish will swim upstream in very shallow water but do not know for sure about CC, but I would suspect they would.

If you had connecting water and there were fish in your main pond, you most likely now have fish in both ponds.

Snrub,
I can pump the small pond dry into the big pond in a couple of hours, and fill it back in 3.5 hours from the creek, provided the creek has flowing water at the time. I only stocked about 130 small BG, 100 small RES, 65 6" CC and 30 adult BG into the pond in addition to FHM. The forage pond is only four feet deep, so they might not survive the winter in it. I might throw a cast net a few times into the small pond and see if I catch anything. It's very muddy right now, so cannot see into it.

John F. as you are doing now I pulled fence out of a fence row. When tightly rolled up it was 4 or 5 feet in dia and many small openings for minnows to enter but would keep most fish out. I dumped the roll in about 6 feet of water in my pond. I don't know if it works but I like to think it does.