Bruce,
People with ponds often believe that stocking grass carp will solve all of their vegetation problems. Sometimes these people need to be made aware of possible ramifications to this stocking, such as possible increase in simpler plant forms.
Where do you think people with ponds get that notion?
I've seen many posts of warning to be cautious of certain people selling fish. They make their living selling fish not managing ponds.
IMO we should be advising pond owners to buy from reputable people like Overton rather than suggesting GC do more damage than good.
GC in the correct numbers have proven to be the ticket in many more ponds than are represented on this forum.
I'm all for trying new ideas. Ask my wife, she keeps a smile/smirk on her face watching me modify a brand new purchase to make it better!
I too have out of the box ideas for my ponds & have posted them here in the past looking for suggestions.
I am just cautious since so many pond owners come here looking for answers. Am I helping them when I go against the tried & true?
In our enthusiasm to make our ponds better it's too easy to promote our untried, untested ideas as a better way to unknowing new pond owners. We mean on harm, but could we cause harm? We
know our ponds intimately but mostly we are shooting in the dark when our advise steers someone away from what has worked in thousands of ponds across this country.
Our experiences are based on a relatively small sampling of ponds. I just don't think it's smart to disparage what has been intensively studied & proven to work at numerous universities across the country over many years & in many many ponds whether it�s stocking GC, fertilizing, feeding, or any of the tried & true methods of pond management.
Please don't misunderstand; I like the posting of opinions & out of the box thinking! I've picked up on several things I will be trying. I've also learned allot from these posts.
Since so many are coming here for advise I just think we should be careful not to stray too far in the advise we give & save the experimenting to
our ponds.
After all Bob Lusk along with Greg Grimes, Ewest, Tod & many other pond managers practice the tried & true every day.
I'm not trying to say you're giving advise to the masses in this thread, just felt this needed to be stated. Besides, it's just
my opinion.
All that being said, Thanks for all your experimenting with your fisheries & sharing it here!!!
