Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How many inches do you have?

The trout pond has only 10 1/2 inches. May be so thin due to so much on and off heavy snow cover and the duffuser in this small 55 by 88 pond?

I was very concerned recently as the diffuser hole got quite small even pumping in 4 cfm's of air. No doubt due to the subzero temps and the fact that the diffuser was only set in a couple feet of water. In a normal year that is all that is needed...

I was able to chop a hole 10 by 12 feet with a spud and move the diffuser out to about 5 feet of water on the deep edge of that hole, which should eventually make the hole even larger.

I then cut a hole with the auger some distance from the diffuser and dropped a hookless jig into it and immediately had trout fighting over it. I had one trout try and come up in the hole after the jig. I can't imagine fish being this active if their were low D.O. Issues. So I'm thinking I wasn't too late expanding the opening and moving the diffuser to deeper water.

The total sale value of these brook trout when they are 4 to 6 pounds in the fall is somewhere between 5 to 10 grand. You can see why I don't want to lose them. And I've already been feeding them for a year and been running the well 7 months of the year for a year.

Some pictures:

The ice opening I made looking toward shore showing the boil from the diffuser.



The ice opening and boil looking out from shore:




Some of the ice I chopped out with a spud and pulled out with a large landing net to make the hole larger. There is smaller pile on the other side of the hole not shown outside of the picture.