Brand new here and figured I�d bore anyone who bothered to read this with my story. The attachments below are pictures of my two ponds. Since I was about 6 years old, (37 years ago) these two ponds have been known as �The Back Lakes�. Growing up, my mother would tell my friends and I that we could play �at the Front Lakes, but not the Back Lakes.� She dubbed them the back lakes because they were behind our house at the back of the property. The front lakes (3 ponds) were at the north end of the 40 acre plot, and were shallower, located near my uncle�s and grandmother�s yards, and were considered by her to be an overall safer location for her son and his friends than the more secluded �Back Lakes�. Of course �The Back Ponds� would be a more appropriate moniker, but mom wasn�t one to be bothered with semantics and I must say �The Back Lakes� has a nice ring to it.
When I reached driving age and my fellow teens and I needed an out of the way place to gather on tailgates and lawn chairs while imbibing in one rebellious teenaged act or another, we headed to The Back Lakes. It became quite the well-known hangout in my small hometown in southern Indiana. At the peak of my teen heyday, there could be as many as 100 kids sitting around multiple campfires on a summer Saturday night. Catfish tight lines, loud music, and iced down coolers. I�m proud to say the parties never got out of hand. In all those years, only once did a police officer show up and he left red faced after getting his car hung up and guickly being pushed out of the mud by a dozen or so �minors� who emerged from the woods they had fled to upon his arrival. It was a sight to see. The officer warned us to stay put until morning (which most did anyway) and waved to us as a rooster tail of tire mud followed him down the road. He likely headed for the car wash before his fellow officers could question him about the condition of his car.
Fast forward to present day. The Back Lakes are now my home. After getting married, my wife Lisa and I bought a modular home (ok a doublewide) and we have lived there the last 16 years. I love it. Since those early days of childhood, I knew it was where I would one day live. In my vivid boyhood imagination, it was to be in a beautiful log cabin, with a perfectly landscaped yard, big dock, etc. As it turned out, it�s not exactly that, but to me and mine it is still the greatest place on earth. The log cabin may still be in the cards someday, but for now it is all I ever wanted.
So there you have it. A brief as I could make it introduction of me and my ponds. One last anecdote before I get to some specifics regarding the ponds. My forum name of �Ponduke� has a history as well. The fact that it has the word �pond� in it is 100% coincidence. I have used that forum name for years on other, non-pond related forums, and it comes from a story my parents told me about that occurred when I was little more than a toddler. When my mother was pregnant with my younger brother, I told her, with all the seriousness a 4 year old could muster, that my future brother�s name was to be �Ponduke�. It wasn�t a question. I just told her that was, if fact, his name. Mom found it cute, but certainly not cute enough to follow through on my �fact�. My brother is eternally thankful.
It a funny name. I figured I�d use it online.
Now, on to the lakes...er, ponds.
The southernmost pond is about 7/10 acres, the other 4/10 or so. They were dug in the forties for clay. Legend has it the south pond captured and refused to relinquish a bulldozer during the clay excavation. It was left at the bottom overnight and when the workers returned the next morning little more than the exhaust stack pipe was above the clay mud. Not sure if that�s a true story, but it�s one I like to tell and grandpa swore it was true when he was living.
Originally, both ponds were probably 10 to 12 feet deep on average. Today, due to decades of leaf accumulation, etc. they are closer to 5 and 6 feet in depth. They are unique in that they truly are just holes in the ground. There is little watershed and no dam, yet they hold onto their water really well.
Until I found this web site, I hadn�t even really considered the concept of pond management. I�ve been lucky I guess, as we have a very healthy population of slab bluebill that we eat messes of every year and some huge channel catfish (my brother in law just last week landed a 37 1/2"er! I wasn't there at the time but he swears it's true! LOL!) that we enjoy catching but always release. The largemouth bass population varies year to year, but this year has produced a 5 pounder, and plenty of one and two pounders. They seem healthy.
The water is dark green and fairly murky, always has been. I have never aerated it. At one time I did stock the ponds with a hundred small fiddlers each. This was maybe 9 years ago, and I began feeding them with floating catfish food. I enjoyed watching them feed, churning the water like multiple toilets flushing in unison. Sadly after a few years of that we had a turnover event in the smaller pond, and I arrived home from work one day to find dozens of 3 to 10 pound catfish belly up. I have since stopped the supplemental feeding and things seem to be going along swimmingly (pun intended).
Now, I wish to become more active in the management of my ponds in a quest to make a good thing even better. I will continue to educate myself by reading these forums, and will subscribe to the magazine soon. I will have many questions as time goes by but this post is getting WAY too long and I best wrap it up. It you have read this far I am amazed and humbled and I thank you for taking the time.
