Today I had the two Aussies hop into the rowboat and took them for a row around the pond. We disturbed a nesting mallard from her clutch of 8 eggs on our floating island and picked up 9 floating dead fish, two YP, a GSH, one BCP, and the rest GSF, BG, and HBG. This is the only occasion I've witnessed several dead fish. Most of these were large, at least for this pond. 2 of the GSF measured 10" of stinking, rotting missed trophy potential. 1 of the YP was 12", the other 10".
As disconcerting it is to see some of my best panfish belly up, I'm making the assumption these losses were a result of the several days of rain we had this week. Pond temp was 66 degrees this morning; the FA is still going gangbusters. I've been waiting to rake out the mats of FA, hoping that a rain event would sink it into the beds of elodea and then I'd drag it out when I raked the weeds. That ain't happening yet.
One of these days the water will warm above the temp that FA likes, it will die back and sink, and I can get to work. For me the only part of the weed removal that I enjoy is seeing and identifying all the critters that come in with the pulled weeds.
