Bill:

I will have a pond made this summer or late fall, once closer to completion and near final grade of the west lake shoreline where they are removing the aggregate. I already have a seine minnow net some 60'long x 4'deep. My father some years ago had a bait business while I was growing up and he had a license to seine minnows from Lake Erie @ Port Stanley, nearly due north of you some 60 miles by water from the Ohio shoreline. We used to catch thousands of "emerald shiners" each sein during specific times of the spring and early summer each year near the break waters and piers and move them to our holding tanks in the shop and holding pond in the back yard for sale to the perch fishermen and ladies throughout that year.

Back to the growout pond......maybe I will have a small 40' x 80'or something sized pond dug out with the longer axis facing east-west as you pointed out. My thoughts are I won't be really using this too much but have the option for seasonal growouts of a few hundred fish such as fingerling walleye,HSB,or SMB, etc (Bob Koerber maybe even a few hundred koi)..but just in case I will have it at least 4-6' deep for overwintering if longer periods are required before release into the larger lake. There is no way the water could be pumped out fast enough as the "B" gravel base would fill back in with the abundance of ground water available but overall I really couldn't complain. The koender windmill would be a must as they are great and enjoyable to watch.

The reason I'm being aggressive about the walleye establishment is that I want to pay back my father who is in his early 80's and having more difficulty getting around each year but I could make it a friendly place for him to still fish his favorite sport fish and remain young at heart. I think my best option is to buy fall walleye fingerling this year that are larger in the 6-9" range and stock in the later fall as the bass become more inactive say in early November. My fear is the longer I wait, the bigger the LMB will grow from introduction 2-3 years ago. Thanks as always....

Rowly