jpsdad, I am seeing that you are giving a LOT of advice on the forum. I have a question and I'd really, really like an answer. I asked this before and you artfully dodged answering it.
How much of this information that you are giving on the forum is gleaned from different publications, either on-line or in print and how much of the advice that you are giving is by your direct, hands-on experience?
esshup, interesting take on the words "artfully dodged". Anyways, the reason I don't answer these questions from Theo and yourself is because I consider them rhetorical. Said not for the answer but rather to say something. Given you've said it, your two cents have been published and it doesn't require an answer from me.
I would just say that I respect experience. If I didn't respect experience, then I wouldn't respect science and experiments as much as I do. My father used to tell me, "Learn from other's mistakes". But in my fashion, I took that to mean "Learn from other's mistakes and successes". When I research, I am gaining knowledge from someone else's experience, something I like to do very much. When the report is peer reviewed, outlining methods, treatments, and controls for context ... further providing results and a discussion that is peer reviewed ... what's not to like? So yes I do respect experience and acquire knowledge from others experience.
Everyone who reads my posts knows I have only recently acquired a property with a pond. The site is also ideal for commercial production of farmed fish. I do have an interest in farming crawfish there and co-cropping fish to support a planned recreational fishery. I'd like to start sooner than later but I have kids and a wife who are not ready for it yet. Anyways, I have never pretended to own a pond when I didn't have one. Furthermore, I have made every effort to credit those whose experience is the source of whatever facts or knowledge I have shared. Where I can I do try to provide these resources through links that make these publications accessible to every one.
There are many ways to learn. One's own experience is only one of them. Think about, if that weren't true ... why would anybody come to Pond Boss Forum for knowledge if that weren't the case? I'll get my opportunities to learn from my own experience soon enough.
