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

With pond water temperature up to 52 degrees this afternoon, my BG and GSF showed up for their first feeding of the year.
I've been throwing out small quantities of Optimal BG and dried mealworms for a couple of weeks. Yesterday a couple of trout came up; today it's trout and sunfish. I also could see one of the monster grass carp fining just below the surface, catching some rays.
It's always a joyful time each Spring to see fish life once again.
It can certainly be quite meditative to quietly sit on the dock and watch those hungry mouths eat up the offerings.
Yesterday there was ice on one side of the pond; today there are feeding fish.

I've been told that once a blue (& flatheads too) reach 5 lbs in weight that they can grow up to 5 lbs per annum. Assuming a 5 lbs fish is 3 years of age at top growth rates, a blue growing this fast could be as young as 18 years. I imagine that some grow faster while others slower than that 5 lb figure. But this estimate may be within 3 or 4 years of the actual age.

Really great fish, gehajake. Thank you for posting the photo.

The wife and I have been about half gimped with the flu for the past week but I did manage to sneak out to the pond last Monday before I started feeling seriously ill.

I tied on three different colors of marabou jigs and made a few tosses. Caught one female YP ~8" and full as a tick, and one male HSB. That fish looked
perfectly healthy but was definitely an underperformer compared to some that I've previously harvested - 20" and 3.8lbs., which is under 90% wR.
Probably not bad for coming out of winter, but a good pound shy of what I would expect for a 20" HSB. Fish was a male and had nothing in it's gut.
That makes 8 harvested of the 20 that I stocked.

The weather has been unseasonably warm and I noticed when I was walking around the pond dam on Saturday that the BG were up cruising the shoreline.
I tossed a few pellets and they made short work of them. Fed again yesterday afternoon and you'd have thought it was May rather than February. The BG
and RES were on top slurping while the YP were slicing and dicing under/in/through them. No signs of fin fungus on anyone so I think things are all good.

Stuck in town. Drought continues and I doubt that I will add more fish until Noah starts building his Ark.

My father said when Noah built his ark, it only rained three tenths on one of the places he owns.

If Noah does start building another ark, can we politely request that he leaves out the pair of feral hogs this time?

Relocated about 20K dace and FHM today. and the mayfly nymphs are all over the place where the water is open.

wonderful tinylake!!

I wish we had a source for dace like that. Tremendous!!

I hear they are good eatin!

It's pretty cool right! We go onto the beaver dams where there is a small hole open about 10x6 where the minnows are gobbling up the air because of the low oxygen in the swamps, then we just scoop them up - a few pounds at a time. One load was about 80 pounds of 2 inchers...I'll grab some pics when I can.

At the neighborhood pond, ambient temps were 64/65F, and the water a foot down was 56 degrees.

It took about 10-15 minutes before the Golden Shiner Brigade forged a light attack on feed, and then, bluegill and what I'm pretty sure were some nice Redear Sunfish started appearing and feeding.

After about 25-30 minutes of observation, I told myself it was time to go. As I did this, more and more fish showed up.

After the 4th time of telling myself to leave, I saw an approx. 3 lb LMB hitting feed. Then I saw a few more LMB.

After the 6th time of telling myself to leave, I saw what I'm pretty sure was a blue catfish looking at some feed.

Visibility was maybe 10" so it was nice to actually be able to see some fish.

At my neighbor, Lee's pond, water temps were 48 degrees a foot down, and now real activity except seeing a lot of fatheads around some rocks.

My fish already come running when I walk up. I think it was about 2 weeks ago I only had a strip about 6' wide on one side that wasn't iced over, and I had fish trying to get the pellets that landed on the ice.

Our feeding paradigms may be changing!!!

I have a customer that can feed his fish today and they'll hit the pellets. His pond can ice over, and the day the ice leaves his pond he can throw out feed and they will be hitting it.

Scott, what kinds of fish?

I've got BG coming to feed at 48-49 degs with consistency. quite surprised but shouldn't be I guess beings my feed training starts to get real active at 55.

Today at the pond:
hauled 9 ton of rock and built new pier structures after pumping pond down 5ft.
Built 12 new SMB spawning beds, then fished for an hour.. Caught some YP that look like they could blow tomorrow.. seriously, low water has made it warmer and I hope I get the water back up before they blow.. I don't have any of my perch spawning tumbleweeds in place yet.
Where does the time go when you miss a few days?????????

I don't have any good pond news, but I did go out to the farm and start fertilizing trees today.

The fun part was that five separate flocks of Sandhill Cranes went over while I was working. They have such a strange call when they are flying, and I can always hear them before I can see them.

I have no idea why they call so much while flying at altitude, but they sure do make a joyous racket!

Yellow Perch, Bluegill, Hybrid Bluegill, for sure. Maybe HSB and SMB too along with a few golden shiners. He has a self sustaining population of GSH in his pond. His Hybrid Crappie are growing great, I think some are close to 16"-17". This should be year 3 or 4 for them in the pond, I have to check my stocking records to be sure.

He feeds about 1/2 pallet of Optimal a year in a 4 ac pond. He's got RES over 12" and over 2#, BG and HBG at 10 3/4" and 1.75# (we electroshocked that pond 6-27 last year).

They make a ton of noise on the ground too, and you have absolutely no idea just how loud they are until you are sleeping with the bedroom windows open and they start in only about 50 feet from the house. I have a pair that nests within 300 yds or so from the house. I think a coyote got the colt last year. It was with Mom & Dad and was probably close to 24" tall then it wasn't with them any more.

Regarding Yellow Perch, yes, I told my neighbor Lee that he has to get some Christmas trees in his pond ASAP to get a YP spawn.

I thought he/we'd have more time, but who knows?

I had several YP show up to feed for the first time this year yesterday. I think I'd be surprised if they hadn't already spawned here, as the big ones didn't look egg laden.

(I've never been able to see YP egg streams in my pond, despite placing tree branches around the shore for several years. There is shallow-to-deep water structure out too far from shore to see that they must lay their eggs on.)

Theo, do you have tumble weeds up your way? If so, place a few large ones in water a ft deeper than tumbleweed diameter. I tie a brick to stump of weed and use para chord so I can pull it out when done. They look like teenagers toilet papered a tree when the perch do blow.
Earliest ribbon I had was 3/7/22 at 11:47 hrs of daylight. most show up at my place around 12:15-12:30hrs of daylight.

The only Tumbleweeds we have are the kind that claim to serve Tex-Mex food.

My YP manage to spawn on Osage Orange logs, black plastic water pipe, old tires, and/or a broken round bale feeder.

Theo, do you have any cedar trees to be cleared? I think those are the arboreal version of tumbleweeds.

I don't know what out-competes tumbleweeds, but driving from the arid regions of western Kansas, Oklahoma, or Texas, the number of tumbleweeds drops off quite suddenly as you move to the east into the areas with significantly more annual moisture.

No cedars.