Sure thing, I have been super busy and haven't been on the site since the post but maybe once.
Here we go:
So after the thread I went about week and got some help stringing out a bunch of 6" alum and setting up my smaller 3" pump. I topped off the pond, everything seemed ok. Then we got about a week of rainy cloudy days right after that. I was checking the pond now morning and evening and found that by the second morning of cloudy/rain the fish were piping at the top. The pond was full so best I could do was just run fresh water in from the lake nearby with my pump. I ran it for 3hrs every morning and that relaxed the pond. Well I'll say by the end of the week when we started getting sun I was ready to pull'em out.
So I took 2" PVC, made a 10 by 20 ft rectangle, tie-wrapped in my 1/4 net, drilled holes all in the PVC for water to flow in and out when lifting the net, and put it in the water with one side right on the edge of the bank. I tied three ropes to the side sticking out in the water, The idea was to pull on the ropes and the net would raise out of the water much like a big crane raises and lowers it's boom.
It took another week for the fish to get used to the white netting laying on the bottom under them. By the way Im still running my pump off and on during this time.
That Saturday morning i grabbed my brother and father and my mom came along to watch. I filled my water trough with my pump got everyone on a rope and started throwing food. I was really fretting the next couple minutes as this was the first time to test the net.
Up it came and the whole swarm of fish i've been feeding was in it!!!!!
We lost maybe 100 fish that catapulted themselves out of the net before we got it high enough.
First thought, "Holy crap they are larger than 2-3"
Second thought, "Thats a lot of money!"
Third thought, "Why am i just standing here staring like an idiot?"
PROBLEM #1 If we held the net to low letting the fish have good water to hold in they jumped out. If we hold it right, they are laying in the water on there sides 50% of the fish just laying on the net totally out of water!!!
So after seeing this I kicked it in high gear and scooped the fish out of the net as fast as possible into my trough and we left for the larger lake. 5mins later we arrive. I setup a small tub for a salt bath and I start netting them out, dipping them in the salt bath then releasing them. At this time I decided to guage the scoop size to estimate the numbers. I got 8 scoops out of the trough that were the same weight. Average size was 4.5"! My fault on guessing the size wrong, the range was more like 4-5" with some 3" in there also. Boy was I happy with that mistake though.
Quick count on the last scoop = 300 a scoop! Estimated total 2400!!! they all swam away!!!
Mission accomplished! I was super happy with that. For one they were a lot larger than i thought and its nothing like a plan working the first time. ~2400 fish in one hual just made my day.
There will be a next time and I did make one HUGE mistake, I was so worried about them laying in the net in the hot low DO water I didn't take a photo with all the fish in the net...That is my biggest screwup but next time I will have another person to film the whole process. I did get a couple when we released them though.
Now what? Now that I know what 2400 looks like its been about 2wks since the move and I'm still feeding. I have what looks like 1200-1500 more fish at the net everyday. They seem very healthy im thinking about feeding them and leaving them in to grow and letting the water cool off. I hope I releaved the pond of the strain with pulling out the 2400. Im watching the new batch and will make the call as I go i guess. Right now it looks like I can make it to fall and maybe have a big batch of 5-6" fish which would be even better.
The pond i released the fish in is mature with bass but I have higher hopes now that we found out they are 3-5" fish.
Me scooping out some fish, mother and brother.
Brother releasing them in 7acre home.
