Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Happy Birthday to Bill Cody!

Happy Birthday!

I do find it difficult to believe that someone with so much pond wisdom crammed into their head is only 29.

Happy Birthday, Bill! Hope you are having a great one.

Happy Birthday Bill !

Have a WIid Birthday, Wild Bill!

He has YP older than that.

Happy Birthday. Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge

Joining the chorus here. Thanks for all your hard work behind the scenes and on the forum. I never did make the road trip I was invited on to see your pond and harvest some of your surplus Pickerelweed, maybe I can still work that out sometime in the future! Generous of you to offer though! Hope you have a great day!

Happy Birthday, Bill!!!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. So far I keep moving along with various fishery adventures. Currently it is tilapia harvest times in northern Ohio - water is right at 70F in the mid morning. Below 70F TP quit spawning and leave the spawning areas. Then further decreasing water temps they begin to lose their aggressiveness and willingness to bite. We are catching some 13" TP at around 2 lbs each; they fed well this summer. Fun stuff.

Happy birthday Bill! Thanks for all your enlightenment over the years!

Little late to the party. Happy birthday!

Bill can you share how you coax the TP to take bait? what a great way to utilize the tilapia before they succumb to cold.

HB Bill, sorry to be late. Thanks for all you do, and the effort you put in it.

This is a timing thing and a process of how I do it. Tilapia are a whole lot more fun to catch and remove than removing algae and the more delicate plants. Harvesting TP and plants are a form of nutrient / fertilizer harvest from your pond.

Firstly one needs to regularly feed the TP some fish pellets once you get them. This keeps them conditioned to eating pellets. TP are grown eating pellets before you get them. You don't need to feed them a lot of pellets, even cat or dog food would work; just a few tablespoons per day. If one regularly feeds their fish then TP become more conditioned to knowing and eating pellets.

Secondly - watch the late summer water temperature and 70F is the magic water temperature. At 70F the TP quit spawning. Now they leave the regular sex party going on at the beach spawning area and feeding activity gradually slows down more and more. The beach area or pellet area is where you fish for them. Fish for them while they are usually concentrated and still in the beach area spawning zone. Below 70F they scatter thoughout the pond searching for food and you have to now find them to catch them. When you wait until the water is 60F or below TP become a lot harder to catch.

Thirdly - I make my anglers sit down and keep a low profile as much as possible so TP are not as skittish.

Fourthly - Use softened pellets for bait. Carp boilies made with fish food may work, but I always use a rolled cluster of softened high protein pellets under a small slender bobber and just big enough size to hold the pellet in 12" to 4ft deep without weight nor hardware. Finese fish. Find the depth where they are holding. In cooling nights of Sept, early Oct TP and then during sunny days TP will bask or hold near the surface during sunny days. Find the best depth for the best bite. Mold the soft pellet into a 3/4"-1" nugget to cover or imbed it on a No. 4, 2, or 1 hook. A Sproat hook works good. If you don't catch a TP on the first bite you almost always have to rebait. I do not consider this a bad thing as the free pellet snack keeps them interested in hanging around and willing to bite. I think when missing a hookset, it is a form of baiting them to try again.

Fourthly - TP will quickly become hook smart. Thus I only catch several every 2-4 days. Give them time to readjust back to eating pellets. Then fish for the next catching group of 6 to 10 TP. This year's first catch session removed 10 TP all about 13" weighing 16-18 lbs; some 2 lb each.

Fiftly - I have discovered some yearly batches of TP are more willing to bite for anglers than another year's crop of TP. Not sure why yet. So you need to sometimes experiment with different angling methods and maybe different baits such as sweat corn or bits of hot dog. A FA algae based carp boilie may be a real good bait. One of the main things is do not wait until the water is colder to try and catch them. Fish for them when the water is 70F to 65F, while they are still active usually gives the best catch results. Removing the adults at 70F is I think okay because they should have eaten all or most all of the algae, Chara and delicate plants by then and the young TP can continue to keep the pond clean until late Fall when they quit eating and die at 45F-50F water temp.

Thank you for the information Mr. Cody, we really appreciate you taking the time to share your process.

This is my first year stocking Mozambique TP, so I’m still learning their rhythms. I put in 30 pounds on May 7th, but haven’t seen much of them since.

Your timing notes are especially helpful. I hadn’t considered how critical that 70°F threshold is—not just for spawning, but for concentrating them in predictable areas. I’ll start watching temps more closely and plan to fish the beach zone before they scatter.

I like your finesse approach with softened pellets and minimal hardware. I’ve mostly fished for bass and cats, so this is a shift in technique for me. I’ll give the Sproat hook and nugget-style bait a try and see what kind of response I get. Also appreciate the reminder to keep a low profile—easy to forget how skittish TP can be.

Curious if you’ve ever tried harvesting TP with a cast net before they get hook smart? I’ve considered it as a backup method once the water starts cooling.

Thanks again—this is exactly the kind of insight I was hoping for.

Also late congrats. Happy birthday Bill.

Happy birthday, Bill; I'm so appreciative of all the great advice you're always willing to share. Have a great day and now a great year!

A cast net will work better to capture the TP as the water gets colder and TP are moving slow. But at 70F+ temps TP are very skittish, wary, and fast. I think in warm water TP are much faster than a novice using a cast net. Try it and report back here your results. TP might even be out from under the net before the net hits the water. TP when they are sunbathing near the surface will scatter when I open the door to the house 40-60 ft away.

Happy belated Bill! sorry to be the slow guy..

Cody Note: Very glad you are here able to post some of your valuable information.