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

Wow, Tbar!!! That's outstanding!!!

I'd love to have something like that at my main pond.

Fishing through a hole?

Who knew you could go ice fishing in Texas!

Dang TBAR, that looks like something for the rich folks downtown.

As far as “gas holes” in the ice, I have been quite observant about ice the last ten years or so, trying to prep the ice for hockey with friends. It is a constant struggle with ice dynamics in a warming world!

Wind appears to be the main culprit with a water column that is still above 39 degrees below the ice in the early season. The ice cracks from flexing due to wind, and the pulsating surface of the ice due to wind pumps water up and down the crack until you get a larger opening. Gas bubbles and warmer waters lift to the backside of the ice, and are pumped towards the hole. Where the gas and warmer waters flow, you get a cool looking river-like pattern where it melts channels.

This process stops, at least in my pond, once the water below the ice chills enough, and the ice is thick enough to resist the wind. But if we get a thaw and warm water is inserted beneath the ice, the process starts again.

Earlier this winter we had about 3” of ice, mostly bare. The wind came up and created holes all over it. I could watch as wind gusts came and went which resulted in water pumping up and down those holes to spread across the ice. Needless to say that ice was about as dangerous as it gets.

I sawed out a chunk of ice and had right at 7" thick ice, thats about as thick as its been in several yrs here in central MO.
Thats a mighty nice dock there Tbar. jealous!

Great observations regarding wind!
I wonder if Bernoulli's Principle is in effect? The high speed wind causes a pressure difference that pulses the water column, which then cracks the ice? Same results but maybe a difference mechanism? I don't know, just thinking out loud.

A little ice fishing for a little one.

Great pictures!!

From my pond

From a customers pond:

Them are some serious beautiful looking fish, guys! I been too busy to get any ice fishing in, and it was a little raw and cold.. I need a shack and heater like Esshup has going there.
Those YP look gravid Esshup, like they are full of eggs, or then they been eating really good under that ice.

A little bit of both!!

Here's some fish from another customers pond:

11" Bluegill (maybe HBG) anyone?


3.5 year old, 14" HBC

[quote=esshup]

Here's some fish from another customers pond:

11" Bluegill (maybe HBG) anyone?
]


Looks like a HBG to me , but maybe not - close call - and very nice fish !

ewest, I did not see the fish in person. I only have the picture to go off of. I see some orange on the anal fin margin, that's why I'm saying HBG now vs. just seeing the pic on my phone. Both are in the pond.

It looks closer to a pure BG to me compared to a "normal" HBG. Notice the pointedness of the pectoral fin, Nice fish regardless.

It's been very cold here and the ice is 2 feet thick now with about 4 inches of snow on top, light isnt getting to the bottom as well now and the weeds are starting to die. It's very strange though, I dont have any gas smell out of the ice fishing holes like I did last year which may be a result of rerouting an incoming stream that was bringing some swamp water into my 6 acre lake. My water is clearing up quite well and I have 6 feet of visibility through my sight fishing hole in the ice fishing tent.

Catching these trout has been tricky as they just seem to turn off like a light switch but we tried a few different things and yesterday was a successful day with 3 nice ones landed and several misses.

I do have the aerators going and there is a nice open spot, not sure I need it but Im doing it anyway. I'll be testing DO tomorrow.

Here are some pics of the fish, the BRT (brook trout?) in the bucket I put in exactly 1 year ago, and this is the result of 1 year of growth, Im very surprised that it grew that much and was very healthy. The water beetles came out of its belly....and it was full of them. The rainbows were a fall stocking with nothing in them but they are certainly healthy, they look scaled because I scrape the slime off them on the lake and bleed them out on the spot....makes for a tasty fish!

Hopefully the warmer wx starts coming and the longer days will start eating that ice up....with 2 feet of ice in a lake with an average depth of 6 to 8 feet (and several 10-12 foot holes) that means about 1/4 of their living space is gone, there are some deeper spots but we are catching them everywhere and almost always right off bottom - a very good sign for the lake quality I think.

Some pics for ya. Thats the 5th otter i've found that has heart issues - their hearts just stop beating....crazy.

TL : Your Otters have a genetic ailment , common in water mammals . " Hemorrhagic Leakage " , main symptom is snow turning red during winter months , in some situations other ground cover may develop reddish high lights . Most common symptom is the thinning of the skin in one or more locations , causing the "Leakage" . these thin spots in the skin may vary from ,177" to , in rare cases to as large as .458" in diameter, but .177" to .357" are most common. Seems to be a genetic disease , Hoping it doesn't spread to any Beavers , other Otters, Nutria, or Muskrats in your County , be just horrible, wouldn't it ? If others are found with the disease , recommended control elimination of all infected Female and male specimens.

What did I do at our pond today? Nothing. We hit a near 4" deluge the night before last, and our big pond went from 3' down to the pond water flowing though the dam siphon on the same day. First full pool in 8-9 months.

Started feeding the fish again. Its gonna take forever to get decent sized catfish. Lol

We had five otters pass away from the same ailment. Must be genetic!
We are going to hit 62 tomorrow and 67 on Monday. I’m thinking I’ll have open water when I get up to the pond next time.
Those trout look amazing.

Speaking of otters, we have had about 7" thick ice for several weeks, I seen where the otters were going up into the the bank and then out on top of the ice thru holes in the ground and leaving their fish scales and heads scattered on the ice, this was on the bluff side of the pond so the banks are pretty vertical, set some traps there but most were too small, just muskrat traps and a couple were tripped and they got out, just left a few hair.
So I was walking along the edge of he ice and actually seen the otter underneath the ice, he seen me at the same time and skedaddled into the den hole under the ice, so a light bulb went off in my thinker. I cut a hole right at the edge of the ice by his hole and dropped a snare with the loop right in front of the hole. had to take to other end of the snare and drilled a hole in the frozen ground at the correct elevation and drove in a piece of rebar, to have the noose right in the hole.
Bingo, worked like a million dollars, 12 hrs later we have a fisheater in custody. like shooting fish in a barrel.

I been trying to trap beavers and muskrats but don't have much, if any, luck on those steep banks with the conibear traps, no place to stake down a conibear.
Snares are not legal everywhere, but here in MO they can be used for some things when you have a trapping license and proper training.

With good quality feed, you will be amazed at how quickly your catfish will grow - especially in LA!

Several of the members with CC ponds say the best eating size is roughly 3-3.5#. It might be fun to raise some really big ones, but they get very smart about hooks and you might catch a fish only one time. Be a shame to catch one at 5# and then he eats all of your food and you never catch him when he weighs over 15#.

If you want to experiment, you might fin clip the ones you catch, and note how often you catch the clipped fish in the future?

Well done gehajake, feels good to get them right!

Well I was worried about my weir overflow that we built, the ice is 2 feet thick and the water stopped flowing out the weir about 3 weeks ago and what was flowing was freezing - maybe a slight trickle remained. So I was worried about the ice crushing the weir, cracking it, or lifting the boards at some point and draining the lake somewhat so I drilled some holes and put the aerator in there for a couple of hours. It's running off the generator and on ecoload I should get a solid 12 hours of aerating out if it before I return tomorrow.

Here are the results after 2 hours. FYI we built the weir not at the deepest part of the lake because I dont plan on draining it ever and at the depth I made it I could do any work I needed to if I dropped it to that level. That is a 36 inch culvert. Next year there will be constant flow after I create a gravel filtering field about 200 meters long into the lake from two other very large swamps.

Great looking work, Tiny!

You could also buttress your weir boards from behind. Put the butt end of some 2x10s on the concrete of your outlet and the other end on your weir boards.

I think the ice is going to put the most pressure on your top board. You should be able to horizontally brace a 4x4 across your culvert and use that to create the anchor to buttress for your top weir boards.

That should still allow plenty of water bypass during a freak winter flood. Just take it all out when your ice breaks up this spring.