A quick little update since Bruce's visit back in late October..... upon discussion with Bruce he has assured me HSB would do well in my 15 acre pond, or any fish that are feed trained. I've always had the concern that due to the turbidity secondary to carp presence they wouldn't thrive. Although I do have crappie, various sunfish and some LMB that get by, they struggle to thrive. Well after a long discussion of turning lemons into lemonade I've decided to grow fish out in grow out ponds, add a couple more feeders and to improve the game fishery via 'corrective stocking'.
As luck would have it, my friend 3 miles down the road has a 1 acre pond that he'd like to have fish grown out for. He also has a NICE backhoe and skid steer. So for a few fish he built me two nice little grow out ponds. Fortunately I had a perfect place for them right where I already have a well and electrical. So long story short, 3 days later I had a 550 sq ft and 1100 sq ft grow out ponds built and full of water. They're dropping about a foot per day yet, but I'm not sure how unusual that is for a new pond. If they leak terribly bad I'll attempt bentonite, soil floc or a liner.
The plan for year one is to order 1000-1500 HSB from Keo Fish Farms at about 1.5"-2" size and grow them out til fall in the larger grow out pond and then move them to my 15 acre pond. The plan for the smaller pond is to put about 5 male RES and cross them with about 5 female Condello Strain BG to create a BG X RES hybrids. I'd like to share those with a few local guys (Bruce, Shorty, TJ, snrub, etc) to see how they turn out. The excess of those hybrids will also end up in my 15 acre pond. Over the years, I'll probably grow different species that take readily to pellets and turbid water and adjust as I go. At this time I've pretty well scratched the idea of ever using rotenone or draining the pond and starting over. I just don't have the patience for such. LOL.
All input and ideas as to what I can add or need to watch out for are appreciated.
Seems that feeding trout cleanings to my catfish over the winter worked. For the first time my catfish came out of winter with relative weights of about 105. Two years ago they were at about 85 from my guesstimates. Here's a 6-10, a 6-14 and an 8-10. Much better condition than prior years. Making headway. Unfortunately we aren't catching any of the older blues (3 years old now) yet, so I don't have a good feel for how well they're doing. The few 10-14" blues we've caught are plenty chunky though. So I'm hopeful
So for those that have been following this, or may run across similar trash fish and water quality issues in the future, I wanted to do a quick update. For 20 years now I've been fighting this issue seemingly making no headway. The smart thing to do would've been to rotenone my pond and start over. But being hard headed and overly confident in my abilities to manage my pond, I forged ahead attempting every possible method available. Well, to my amazement I've made massive headway on my water clarity issues. For 19 years I've ran between 4-6" of water clarity due to suspended clay. Earlier in the summer I began noticing a significant improvement and measured it with secchi disk at 11.5". Last weekend I came home and noticed a significant jump in clarity, and measured it this Tuesday at 15.5". And now last night I measured it at 24"!!! I guess I bring this to the board to see if anyone has good ideas why this may be. For that discussion I'll run down what I've been doing for management.....
1) Began stocking Blue Cats in fall of 2015. Right now the largest appear to be about 4-6lbs. Although I'm almost certain I have less than 100 of those at that size in 15 acres. 2) I've began a seining program in which we've removed nearly 700 channel cats and 250 common carp (in the last 13 months) both averaging about 1.5lb per fish. Now this seems like a bunch, but in a note of transparency I'm noticing more carp spawning and at my feeder than I've ever noticed in the past. I honestly don't think this has made a significant impact. 3) I've began a much more intense feeding program of my channel catfish, going thru about 3000lbs of feed per year, and 5000lbs of trout guts. I have a signigicant amount of catfish now over the 5lb mark that presumably have become more piscivorous and may be limiting smaller carp reproduction.
Now I'm assuming its a combination of all of the above that is leading to an improvement in water clarity. But what's puzzling to me is the sudden improvement. Maybe someday I'll figure it out. Either way, here's a few videos for reference. I'm assuming I have videos from last year above of similar feeding scenarios and there's a dramatic difference in water quality.
Had some young guys come over this weekend and catch close to 100 lbs of catfish in 3-4 hrs. Removed most of the channel cats and released the blues. Set a new pond record with a 9-4. Also had a 9-2 and a couple in the 8s. Probably average between 4-5lbs per fish. Great day.
Just a brag post here, but had another good weekend of fishing. Once again the pond record was broken. In fact it was shattered, going from 9-4 to 12-3. And the catfish was only 29" long with a bigger fish breaking us off. Its crazy how proud a pond manager can get when seeing young fisherman have a great day of fishing.
Just wanted to update this post with some new images. I believe the pond record may have been broken by my 8 year old son last night. My scale wasn't working, so I didn't get an official weight but I believe this was around 12 and a half.
Took my 8 year old daughter fishing on my pond Saturday night and had a heck of a night. Within 20-25 minutes she landed 6 fish from 4.5lb to 11lbs. Dad was busy unhooking while her brothers were netting. It was a memorable evening.
Memories like the ones pictured will be there most all of the rest of their lives. I still remember those fishing trips when I was about the same age as the children pictured and I am in my 60's. Well Done NEDOC!
Do not judge me by the politicians in my City, State or Federal Government.
Had some friends and their kids over fishing last night and had most likely the best evening of fishing we've ever had. We caught 6-7 channel cats over 26" and the longest channel we've caught yet at 30.5". He wasn't record weight as he only weighed in at 11.8lbs. Most exciting to me though was that we finally started catching some blues again (5) with a 23, 26 and a record 26.5" beauty that had incredible condition.