Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations So... How did your January go?

In Iowa the month of January was the warmest ever recorded. More open water than frozen. What I need is a Pond Boss state by state roll call. Did anyone else manage to break the record books? Driest? wettest? My guess is we are not the only ones.

Georgia had record warm temps.

Frank

Mr. Willy this was the warmest January on record here in Nebraska too.

I did managed to catch some open water bass on crankbaits though!

Ditto-Indiana

Hot, dry, sweaty, brush fires, bluegill spawned, drought.

Yes, But what do you really think Bob?

What do I think? About the weather in January? In our region of Texas, I think the dryness has been scary, with lack of moisture deep in the soils, I wonder if we have damage to trees. I think we'll know, soon. I think we have had the driest January in more than fifty years in north Texas. I think it's a normal weather pattern, not related to the concept of "global warming." Go back 100 years and look at the records, and it's a pattern, not a shift. So, I think January was way too warm, way too dry and somehow we all adjusted. We still bought gas, we still went places, we still lived a normal life. We still aren't threatened enough to make any major changes.

NC has been unusually warm & wet. But I remember 30 yrs ago the same type weather.
It's certainly something worth commenting on but I'm concerned events like this are latched upon to further certain groups agendas.
This planet has gone through periods of warmmer, colder, wetter, dryer long before we, with our arogrance were here to believe we caused it.
I am an optimist, realest & pragmatic in dealing with weather. You can't change it so use it to your advantage.

I couldn't agree with you more Ric. The weather patterns we are seeing is nothing new, and I have no reason to believe man is the cause of it. We can cut a tunnel through the mountains, but we did not make them. I guess what I'm aiming towards is advice on how to best prepare my pond and aquatic life for a possible second year of drought. My pond levels are down three feet and its hard to imagine a second year similar to this year. Our previous warm record for January was 1933, we beat it by 1/10 of a deg. Lets keep in mind that our rains may come from patterns formed in the oceans, but a good amount of the quick spring storms are pulled from moiture in the ground drawn from ( RAY). After the 500yr floods in the midwest in 93' our 94' season was also very wet. my fear this year could be a repeat showing of 05'

We have been, in the North Texas area, living with drought for several years. I have learned that biomass can be my biggest danger. In years of plentiful rainfall, I followed the fertilization mantra and increased my ponds carrying capacity. Sounded like a good idea.

Then the water levels dropped and I had the equivalent of 125 to 150% of the carrying capacity, per acre, in 75% of the water. The results should have been predictable. The DO crashes taught me to play defense. I no longer fertilize and am now at 50% capacity.

It is my belief that reducing the fish biomass is key to drought survival. Of course, in my case, the extended drought is indicating starting over. There's not much defense available to prepare for a dry water hole.

Dave D., how many ponds do you have?

Sunil, I have 2, potentially or used to be, one acre ponds and a half dozen much smaller ones. The smaller ones, up to 1/4 acre, are history.

To add to what I said above, I got less than 10 inches of rain in 2005. The dry ground absorbed it all and I got virtually no runoff. Average evaporation, according to Lusk, for my area is 88 inches.

Mike Otto said, in Georgia, that he isn't digging ponds in our area. Not enough moisture to bind the clay. However, he is staying quite busy cleaning out dry ones.

The telling statement above, by Lusk, is that there may be real concern about oak and other tree survival. Otto reports that in a lot of places the soil is dry down to 5 ft. That's why I really can't be too optimistic about the survival of my ponds. Another good indicator is that I recently started feeling guilty about not watering my lawn at home in the D/FW area. Heck, I never water in the winter. When I did, most of the water ran off instead of being absorbed by the soil. The ground was just too hard. Now, that's dry.