Hello,
I just found out about this site today, and I'm tickled pink about it. I can't wait to glean a few pearls of wisdom from the sages here.
To start with, I live in NW Georgia and have had a love of fishing ponds from an early age. My fondest memories are of sit'n with my Dad or Granddad beside the pond that now sits behind my house and learning what it was like to feel a tight line at the end of a rod. I was hooked then and still am. I spent from 1983 till just a few years ago traveling the world, working for my "Uncle" and didn't get in as much time with a reel in my hand as I would have liked. All the while wish'n that I was at home on the pond, sip'n on something cool and drowning some bait.
Some how, while I was gone, no one did any thing with the pond except to cut the grass around it. So, I returned to an over stocked, under fished mud hole. The bream were in the 2-3 finger size and you could catch 10"-12" LMB's on chicken liver every cast. The channel cats and brown bull heads were non existent. Luck has it that a friend of mine had just dug out and rebuilt his Granddad's pond so that his Grand kids could have a little place to learn what he and I had at their age. He needed fish, I had too many. Problem almost solved. I spent the last couple of years pulling bass and bream out of my lake and putting them in his. Not a problem since they both drain into the same stream. Now I also moved a few LMB's, bream, and channel cats from a few other places that I found access to. I even brought some red bellys from the creek that these ponds feed into. Trying to mix up the blood lines so to speak.
Good news is, his boys have had a ball this year playing with the stunted bass in his pond. Even better, the bream and bass in my pond have started growing and even spawning this year, with the channel cats growing at a good rate also. The big problem that I'm having right now, and I know that this is a big thorn in a lot of folk's sides all over this country, but for some reason bull heads have become extinct all around this area with out a clue as to why. Yeah, for most of Ya'll, this would be welcome news, but not for me. That's the middle fish in the lot, the one that no matter your age or fishability, can be at least hung and with just a tad of skill, landed. They taste pretty good to. If, by chance, any one knows where I can find some of them, semi close by, or a hatchery that admits to carrying them that delivers some where close, let me know. And I'll take any advice on my work so far, or for the future of my pond. Thank in advance, and it's great to meet Ya'll.
Tight Lines,
Taz
