On another note, I have been able to get a few die hard Amish friends to fish the pond the last month, and they were able to pull out several dozen large BG each time, released many more, but those crafty catfish still prove to be very elusive and difficult to catch.
And if ever there was a group of people that know how to catch catfish, it is our Amish friends, who grew up as babies with a pole in their hands needing to catch fish so they could even get by in tough times. They have taught me a great many tricks. But the large cats frustrate them, the best they can manage is to pull out no more than 2 each trip no larger than 12 pounds. I have maybe six in the pond that have heads that look like they might have been exposed to radiation or something ( must be males ) for they appear to be a giant head a foot across with a tail behind it
They have never been caught in the years we have been watching them, although I suspect they are responsible for breaking the lines that happen each time a group fish and at least one will hook up to something that will make short work of their line, but never pulled in close enough to get a look at.
I am concerned with overfeeding, and at times I have shut the feeders off or down very low. But, according to everything I am able to research on the subject, with the fish cleaning it up almost immediately, overfeeding should not be the issue. On the flip side, the more I feed them, the larger they are getting, the more waste they produce with no where for it to go and I have no aeration to disperse any of it, so it is kinda a no win proposition at this point I think.
A question. Since I have switched to all Purina high protein Aquamax 500 and 600 for the ponds, will that in fact perhaps cause an even faster growth spurt in the CC also? I realize that was the goal for trying to grow large BG, but there was little point in trying to separate food when my fish are scattered in both sides of the two bridges and the darn CC swarm to the Aquamax like flies on roadkill no matter where it is tossed by the feeders. The only way to make sure the BG were getting enough of it was to load both feeders with Purina and blast both sides with it at the same time, some of the largest RES ( I just discovered this year that they are spawning also, I put 50 redears in 5 years ago and forgot I did so, now we are catching small ones ! ) and BG are actually in the larger pond in the deep water, out where the catfish are normally waiting for the food.
Another problem that will face my kids or whoever gets this place when I check out of the game is that the catfish have decided to dig massive tunnels ( and the turtles are not helping I suspect ) all over the island that separates the two ponds and that is where they are spawning, lots of holes they are guarding. However, they have already nearly caused a cave in at the foot of the new bridge we placed there a few months ago, eventually, that island, trees and all, is slowly gonna just "go away", it gets a little smaller each year. Kinda funny actually to see them come flying out of the holes when we walk on the bridge, like dogs waiting for their treats!
At times I think maybe I have to many fish in the pond. Then at other times, I realize there are very large areas of the pond that appear to never be utilized by the fish at all, save for the occasional bass that cruises below the surface desperately grabbing any bug that hits the surface. In fact, the entire population of the ponds APPEARS to be heavily concentrated in the immediate area in front of the two feeders. Of course, they are pointed at the two best locations of each pond, but we are amazed at the lack of fish in both ponds in so much of the water. When I look at the total amount of water available to the number of fish I appear to have, I would say that I am not near an overcrowding situation, save for a LOT of very small fish, FHM, spawns of all types, etc which would and should be great bass food, but it is just to darn green and difficult to see for the bass to have much of a chance to catch but a fraction of them. When the pond was clear, I noticed that the minnows seemed frighted all the time and hid in the cover or right on the edge of the shore in very shallow water. Now they swim wherever they want, sometimes in groups of 20 or so will come up to investigate a tiny Aquamax 55 pellet I will toss in and they will come to the surface in deep water, in great bass water, and peck at it, play with it, swim around like they own the pond, completely fearless, I have NEVER seen a single one attacked by a bass or bluegill. First thoughts would be that I just done't have any bass left in the pond ( and I have NO idea how to catch bass, never did ) so after watching that I was actually convinced that the pond was without bass of any size, despite the fact it was full of 4-6" spawns.
I kicked in BMP 1. My brilliant master plan was to get my neighbors son in law, who we knew to be a borderline pro bass fisherman, to come down with is wife, also very good at this, and fish the pond for a few hours and see if there were actually any bass in the pond, since up to this point only 3 had been caught in 7 years ( admittedly no one ever fished for bass, only CC and BG ) so he agreed and fished it in May I believe, possibly April, and in the span of a couple of hours I watched them pull in 18 bass. Took em a zillion casts, but I guess that is the life if you wanna catch bass according to them, they sure did not mind at all
Now in my book they were not that impressive, for our pond yes, for any other pond, no. They said the bass were healthy, but they could not explain why their mouth was much larger than their girth. The bass were all the same size, about 15" long, but skinny, not a single one had a bulge or stomach of note at all. They looked very thin to me. No parasites ( maybe the redears are doing their jobs? ) and otherwise healthy, but skinny, not like any bass I am used to seeing.
I would like to learn to catch bass, but not the poor starving fish, I want to build them up first, and I think I need to clear up the pond in order to do that so they can begin to eat the hundred of thousandths of minnows as it was intended. Are ANY of the products that I see advertised in PB that say they can eliminate suspended solids quickly an option for me or will they have no effect since the suspended particles are in fact algae? Is there a product, a bag of something, anything, that I can toss in there to try and reverse this and clear up this excessive algae bloom?
Again, thank all of you for bearing with this old, highly medicated, disillusioned soul
