Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Fish Pics From 1/4 Acre Pond

Well my 1/4 acre pond is finally producing some decent fish. Below are a couple pictures of some fish that I caught over the last week. I don't have a scale to weigh them yet, but the channel cat was 21" and the bass was 19". I kept the catfish and released the bass. The catfish had a pretty big crawfish in its stomach. Its always cool finding out what their diet consists of.

[img][/img]

SWEET!!!!!!! Those are some pretty fish!

My pitiful bass are 3 years old and since the water was so muddy, they are still under 12 inches! I'm VERY jealous!

Thanks for sharing your pride and excitement!

VERY nice bass.

Glad to see you changed T-shirts between bassfishing and catfishing. The fish like that.

Nice bass!

Just remember...while we like to see pictures of our membership, we'd rather see the 'entire' fish in the picture; a simple arm extension would have accomplished this.

See thread titled.

Condello photographic technique.

Excellent Limb. The relative weight of both the Catfish and LMB are outstanding!

Great fish! Any chance they grew up eating bugs?

For some reason some of the fish in one of my ponds seem to be a little fatter too!

Nice bass Limb Bream. Looks to be a solid 4 pounder, and nice color.

Thanks guys. Reading this forum definitly helps with pond management. I'm really happy with the bass and catfish. The bluegill seem to be spawning like crazy, but don't seem to be getting much bigger. I caught one the other day that was 8 1/2", which I was happy about, but 90% of what I catch are 5-6". I also see plenty fingerlings along the bank also. I've started removing some of the perch, but this is really a trial and error experiment. Any suggestions?

Bruce, the fish have been fed PLENTY bugs all summer. They're staring to become a little more scarce now with the cooler weather though. Have you tried your wacker yet?

By the way, any suggestions on fish scales would be appreciated.

I can tell you that I don't like my Berkley 50lb digital scale. I just don't have confidence in it. It seems to be about 5 oz light. The hook that is supposed to hold the fish doesn't hold the fish. As soon as they wiggle they fall in the boat and flop around. Which doesn't bother me unless its a nice LMB then I get a little worried about over stressing them.

The fish gripper scales look realy neat. They are more expensive but I think I'm going to give them a try next year. Does anyone else have some suggestions experiences etc?

Boga grip rules - expensive, yes...worth the money, every penny...

I've had mine since first introduced several years ago, and used in salt and fresh water.
Only scale recognized by IGAF...

Glad to see you changed T-shirts between bassfishing and catfishing. The fish like that.

He also shaved. Catfish dont like competition in the whisker dept.

By the way, any suggestions on fish scales would be appreciated.

Scales are small dead skinlike fingernails that form a protective coating to the fish. Catfish dont have scales.

Sorry, LB. Good to hear they are fillling up on bugs. You have a kick butt homemade whacker. I must take the time to build one.

Thank you, Mississippi Kid.

I think any scale graduated in 1 Oz or smaller increments would be accurate enough. Some of the expensive ones are graduated in 1/4 LB increments, which would be useless to all except big bass anglers.

The boga grip looks serious, but I'm really looking for a scale to record relative weights of bluegill, catfish, and bass.

I know Theo, and maybe others, have mentioned using a digital kitchen scale to record weights of bluegill and other smaller panfish. This would probably be the most accurate route.

I use a Cabelas digital scale. It gives a read out in one ounce increments.

Plus:
Cheap: only about 15 bucks
Easy to use
Will store in memory the weights of fish caught
Weighs fish in once ounce increments up to 50 pounds.

Cons:
Not certified by any tournament organization that I'm aware of.
If you leave it in the sun with the screen side up it mades the LCD screen go crazy - it does recover from this though if you put it in the shade for a while.
It has a big hook thing to hold the fish. For smaller sunfish this can be somewhat of a pain. You end up having to grab onto the fish to put in on this big hook.

Overall for fifteen bucks I can't complain. I have no idea how accurate it is though. Probably accurate enough, I've just never tested it.

Wow, Limb...great progress.
Give us a brief background and history of your journey to this point. When was the pond built and stocked?
-
-
(edit); the stubbly look could pass for Magnum, FI (fish inspector)

Thanks for the suggestions on the WEIGHT scales (and fish scales also BM).

My pond was built about 5 years ago. I don't have exact dates, but a few months after it was built, I added 250 bluegill and 50 catfish. A couple months after, I added 25 F1 bass. During a pretty dry time my pond level dropped really low and weeds were growing along the bank where I couldn't get to them to cut. Then one week we had thunderstorm after thunderstorm. Needless to say the water rose and when all the grass/weeds along the bank began decomposing I had a fish kill. (I didn't have an aerator at the time.) Being a rookie at this pond stuff I assumed it was a total fish kill, so I ordered the same type and numbers of fish as the original stocking. Looking back, its pretty evident that some of the original fish survived, and probably gorged themselves with fingerlings that I stocked.

I use a bug wacker during the summer and feed my ducks Mazuri waterfowl feed, which the fish LOVE. Its a race between the ducks and fish to eat as many pellets as quickly as possible.

Now if I could only get the bluegill to get some size....

That bass looks exactly like the Florida strain bass I've seen before.

My wacker worked great. I just now put it away for the summer. That thing is seriously powerful.

I was going to get some pics the last few weeks but I've had some professional issues I'm needing to work out.

Well, I was going to show you what I and others have been using, from Walmart, with a rectangular shallow pan, but this one looks like it will hold your lunkers better. http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4694336

or this http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5390883&findingMethod=rr