Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction What did you do at your pond today?

CNBG and LMB are in shoreline cover, including some bigguns. Trout were biting like crazy a few days ago, but lost enthusiasm when temps rose. Trying to harvest them before summer wipes them out.

Also harvesting underperforming small LMB, 51 taken out this year so far after 206 last year. Cormorants seem discouraged, didn't see any. Geese, on the other hand, are bad. Eight on the pond when we left, though I suspect from the squabbling not all will be there tomorrow. I set feeders to go off at 2am to cut down on feathered fish food felonies. Wonder how LMB and CNBG feeding will go on the night shift?

Added 25 lb of pond fertilizer after initial 25 lb put in a couple weeks ago. So far, just a tinge of green, far less than I want. Still have another 25 lb I can use, plus I now have 3 bales of hay, 120 lb, to add to the shoreline. Even if no TFS end up being stocked, I figure the hay will add fertility as it decays.

Forage pond is bursting with small CNBG, ranging from 1 to 2.5". Aquamax 300 and 400 feed now in at Purina store, so hopefully I'll be able to get that to the little guys in a few days. Right now I'm feeding MVP, which helps but isn't ideal for this size. The crisscrossed twine over the forage pond still seems to work great against cormorants, which may be part of the reason they've left early this year. Tiny pond has very good bloom without any additional fertilizer other than fish food.

9lbs of FHM into the cow pond this morning, 1lb into the bait pond.

I need to get a pallet stack into the bait pond so they'll have a place to spawn.

Osprey at the pond today diving. Completely ignored us and we were pretty close on the side by side.

One Bald Eagle and maybe two (the other was high enough hard to tell for sure).

Been discouraging cormorants from hanging around and that kind of scares the eagle off, but it comes back. Been around for a couple weeks. This is the third year and it hangs around quite a long time so am wondering if it has a nest around near.

Well that was certainly a good day bird watching at your pond!

Hopefully your fish are also having a good day.

What happened on your pond where the crayfish were crawling out on the ice? Did the fish in the pond make it to spring relatively unscathed?

Around 8am I was told (by the neighbors) that a Bald Eagle grabbed a fish from my pond and flew to a tree nearby, spending about 1/2 hour there eating. Then around noon a buddy brought is 10 yr. old son over to fish in the pond, (yes, he's 10. 5'-7" and 180#....) he caught and released an 18" SMB and caught and released a few HSB, one was kept because he didn't bring his net and dragged the first one up on the bank, so it went home with him. After that I grabbed my net for him.

Don't know about crayfish crawling out on the ice. I avoid sticking around when there is cold enough temperatures to make ice. Had a couple bluegill floating when I got home from Arizona so I presume the winter stress got to a few, but I fed a little several days ago and had lots of takers so at least a lot of them survived. I have not fished yet but a neighbor kid caught a 2# smallmouth and a few other fish.

Put out two bales of hay along the shoreline in hopes we'll get TFS stocked and they will spawn there. If not, at least the hay should deteriorate and help fertilize.

We have cold and a little snow yesterday. SFS still killing the optimal on the surface. I have amazingly clear water all spring. I have no idea why really. Eerie to see my cement blocks and pallets so clearly in 3 feet of water. I thought the YP would be very skittish given that I can more easily spot them as they cruise in to get the pellets but they seem to be undeterred.

I'm somewhat hopeful that some of the credit can go to some muck dissolving pellets that I tried out for the first time late last summer and early fall. AT that time the water cleared up in a big way and it stayed clear I guess. I'm hoping somehow those pellets didn't disrupt the tiny plankton and other critters that are necessary for the richer color of a fertile pond. I also know that water temps are still pretty much at early spring temps and not much will grow yet. I did put lawn fertilizer down once already and usually some run off from that jump starts some algae or a slight tinge to the water color. Maybe as water temps come up we will see some healthy water color.

I have no way to know if the muck dissolving pellets work for sure (didn't take before and after measurements of muck) but the price was OK and I see much less leaves and debris on the bottom in the shallows so maybe I inadvertently found a winner product!

Started my aeration system on Friday. Had a timer malfunction, or more likely, an operator head space malfunction.
Was supposed to run for 15 minutes. Actually ran for ~6 hours.
No harm done. The fish attacked the Optimal with their usual gusto Friday evening, so I went ahead and ran it for
6 hours yesterday. Full attack mode at feeding time.
Guess I've got good water.

You got good water! Thank goodness, huh? It makes good sense, I guess. Young pond and all.

Yeah I was a little bit bummed out when I saw that it was still running when I got home from work.

Got lucky this time...

I sprayed half of a small pond for algae. Will do the other half in a couple of days.

Then, if I get help from Grandsons, I will spray large pond next weekend.

Both turned green from algae.

Dave, what product did you use and where did you purchase it? I need to do the same but have not got around to it yet.

Cutrine Plus. Off the internet but don’t remember which vendor. Found different prices.

Thanks Dave. I have just turned my aeration diffusers to the 12 hr runs today. Most likely will stay at that 12 hr runs for the rest of the year, mostly because it won't be long before our days are long and hot and I don't really want to warm up the water temps higher by running the system 24/7.

Had a bright sun coming at the east side of the pond yesterday around 6pm. I thought I would try to capture cell phone video of the spotfins and YP feeding given nice bright lighting and clear water.. The glare on the water wasn't so nice but the water is rarely this clear. I had to slow down the playback to about 40% in order to allow better glimpses of the spotfins. They never stop moving and rocket around at full speed.

I'm amazed at the spotfin growth. I bought 'mature adults' in spawning colors so that I could be sure I got a mix of male and female. They were tubular and about 3" long. Now the adults have to be 5" long and have a wide spot in their midsection and a tapered forked tail. They look more and more like the profile of a shark as they fly through the water! They launch themselves out of the water sometimes in order to be the first one to get the fish food.

If the first section of the video is too fast I can slow it down more. Sorry for the bad audio, when you slow it down everything gets distorted. You can make out the american toads keeping up their calls back and forth in the video. Only a few stragglers left in the shallows, the bottom of the pond now is covered with strands of eggs.

it is interesting how the YP seem to make a pass towards the surface, then stop, circle and then make a final pass at it to swipe it.

Fun stuff!

Spotfins and YP feeding 4.30.2021 5pm

Anyone know why we can't embed youtube videos in our posts anymore?

I'll try again or will have to post a link for you to follow.

Couldn't get it, just added the external link for you.

Hello.

Thanks for the video.
A+

You are welcome azteca. I figured you would enjoy watching YP do their thing in my pond

Let me try and find out.

What a difference a year makes! Electro-survey last year took 65 minutes to produce 35 to 40 LMB. Electro-survey today took 37 minutes to produce 120 LMB up to near 5#, 4 HSB up to 7#, plus some monster BG up to 1.5#. (Largest BG I've ever caught was 14 ounces, btw.)The survey guy said he could tell the big momma bass were deep, beyond where the current worked, but it was prime time to harvest the males who have finished bed guarding duties & were in shallow feeding.

Honestly surprised at LMB numbers, as bushy pondweed was killed in June last year and I'd have thought the yoy LMB would get eaten quickly without much cover. Apparently there was a huge spawn and 206 LMB harvested in 2020 should have been more.

HSB and BG doing very well, and even the few female LMB were in good shape. But we have too many LMB and I'll need to step up harvest. So far 154 taken out this year, two-thirds by electro, with 300 goal.

Big BG are to be expected in lakes with lots of LMB, but fortunately we also have lots of smaller BG. Feeding makes a difference! Also, forage pond is now full of small CNBG spawned last fall, I plan to put them in main BOW in a few weeks. Trying to fatten them up a bit first, I wanted to wait until after electro harvest.

Ten (!) more trees need to be felled into the pond to make for adequate cover. Some variable leaf pondweed growing now, not a whole lot of anything else. Fishery biologist very kindly added 25 lb pond fertilizer to the initial 50 lb I put in earlier to help the plankton bloom.

They didn't shock up any trout, so I'm guessing RBT are either dead or deep. Tilapia stocked to head off algae issues. A few F1 LMB were identified by their color & girth and released regardless of length.

Sounds like a good report ! Now the work starts.

Anthropic,

Good job, and thanks for the report.

That is certainly a GOOD DAY at the pond!

So true. Thought taking out 206 would be enough, but the survey doesn't lie. I like fishing, but prefer to harvest with electricity than take out the most catchable fish.

Thanks, FR. Last year the biologist said that we shouldn't take out too many bass, numbers weren't great. This year the opposite. But last year's survey was done several weeks later when temps were considerably warmer. Also shows that you never arrive at perfect balance, at least, not for long.

That 1.5 lb coppernose bluegill was absolutely gorgeous, beautiful colors including some purple. So wish I'd taken a pic. I'll just have to catch him (it was a male) & get photo.