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

Snow overnight here. Water temp about 50 deg F; today I shut down daily aeration for the Fall/Winter.

Looks nice Mark!

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Ran out of feed yesterday. But these catfish are still feeding 11-18-25. If your setting are set to 4K, you should also see the numerous GAMs. This pond also has Red Shiner but I think most of what is seen in the video are GAM.

It's been a while since I've had time to jump on here but I have some time and took some underwater footage to confirm proof of life after an extreme drought he in Ontario from about July to mid to end of October, almost no rain at my location and high heat. I know for sure that I lost a lot of trout at the very end of the drought just because I saw eagles flying away with them and the odd morning I would see a trout at the surface struggling....so Ill assume that had happened on the days I wasnt there and the eagles were taking care of business.

For context my lake is about 13 feet deep in a small area but averages about 8 feet for the entire 6 acres. The extreme conditions this summer and fall caused a massive growth of algae that covered the weeds that had grown very high which in some areas left only about 4 feet of depth and of course some deep areas. The water became extremely clear and in the deeper areas I could see the trout swimming clear as day - it was too clear.

Which brings me to this week. After thinking all my trout were gone I put a camera in and to my amazement I saw one...it attacked the camera, so I have at least one left lol, But I suspect there are more, probably the smaller ones but I cant say for sure until I start ice fishing. in the next couple of weeks. I also saw schools of LMB (about 10) in formation cruising the banks and of course many PS sunfish. I had not been aerating during the drought, I'm not sure mixing the water would have helped even at a raised aerator depth of just under the surface, and I kinda wanted to see if they could make it to be honest, I'm hoping this lake could support fish on it's own without support and it's looking like it will. the depth did drop about 18 inches so subtract that from the original depth.

So what I've done is this: In the fall just after the drought I started letting tanninish water in from a swamp above the lake, through a 4 inch pipe I estimate Im getting about 500gpm, I'll have solid flow thoughout the winter and over the summer and hopefully the tannin water will help keep the algae from growing - and keep the water from becoming so clear that the eagles can pick the fish off. Also, Im raising the water lever by about 16 or 18 inches which will keep the water cooler and keep the light from penetrating so far. At this point its obvious I have areas of refuge for the trout so Im just trying to make the area more survivable. At it's peak the surface temp was 82 degrees in the summer....no idea how they made it. Cheers.

Oh to add, Ive put several thousand trout in, RBT and brookies of all sizes, weve caught many and eaten many, about 1000 were fingerlings, about 800 10 to 12 inchers and a whack of 2 to 3 pounders which. have been great to catch and plentiful to say the least. The otters picked off many healthy fish and the eagles picked off the weak ones. I've blasted all the otters....or trapped them, cute but I hate them.

After this snowpocolipse and some really cold temps I went out and checked the pond and the ice is finally thick enough to walk on.

Found a deer that must have broke thru the ice or something, its frozen into the ice out a ways from the bank, it was under the snow but the coyotes have found it and been trying to get what they can thru the ice, have a foot diameter piece of the hide tore off of it, all that is exposed thru the ice, with the rib cage showing, they are having to work pretty hard to get anything off of it but they're trying.

Also checked a couple of duck nest boxes and was surprised to find this owl in one of them.

Does anyone know what kind of owl this is, here in central MO?

It was in a home made nest box I made out of a hollow piece of firewood, I couldn't take the lid off of it to look into it so I just stuck my camera into the entrance and took a picture to check what I need to prepare it for spring, now I don't know if I should, will I disturb the owl?

I was wanting to do it while I can walk on the ice, its much easier then trying to do it out of a boat. they all had ducks in them last spring. I usually just clean them out and add some fresh wood shavings.

From what I can tell it could be a Screech Owl.

Awesome conservation project, Jake!

I agree with Learnin, appears to be a screech owl.

Is it small?

The Missouri owls with "ear" tufts have the following adult heights:

Screech 8"

Long-Eared 15"

Great Horned 22"


The most times I have seen (and heard) screech owls is when they had two nesting pairs in the parking garage of one of our area hospitals. There were hollow steel beams with small holes used in the construction. The screech owls really enjoyed their steel-reinforced, secure homes!

The best part was if you went to the hospital after sundown, they sometimes would be emitting awesome screeches that reverberated through the concrete parking garage. Many people were freaked out by the racket, but I loved it.


P.S. The literature says your red morph is the rarest of the Missouri screech owls. Any chance you can put up a few more log homes like the one the owl already picked? It would be nice to help their population numbers a little.

I am having the same theory about adding more houses for them and the ducks, I wound up going ahead and cleaning the houses out yesterday, one had 15 rotten duck eggs in it, I guess something got the hen or for some other reason she abandoned them, I can only get to them to work on them while the ice is thick enough to walk on.

I just took the top off the box and let them fly off to a nearby tree, I'm convinced they will be right back in the boxes the next night.
There were actually two of them in two different boxes, not even the same box as I seen them in the first time, one was in another home made box made out of 8" pvc pipe that I have had out for several yrs too, and have had ducks successfully hatch in them for several yrs now.

They are actually a lot smaller then I had pictured, about the size of a common pigeon, they been eating bluejays, one had a half eaten bluejay in the box with him and tons of bluejay feathers in all the boxes.

Am definitely planning on making a few more of the hollow log boxes, everything seems to love them, Ive had more success in them and the PVC boxes then I have in the regular commercial bought DuckHuts. I have had the least luck in them, only once or so that they have had ducks in them in three or four yrs, I am wondering if it may be the placement, they are a little nearer to the campground but not much and in early spring when they are nesting its usually too cold to do much camping so that shouldn't be a problem, but I am thinking about moving them further back in the flooded timbers see if it makes a difference.

Now to see if I can get a couple more built while the weather is still cold so that I can get them put up, they seem to like the thicker flooded timber that is really hard to get to by boat.

Not today, but two days ago, I broke out an ultra light rod with honey worm still on the hook from last Fall, made a cast halfway out into our pond, and immediately "got a bite". A wriggling 7" golden shiner (GSH) had taken the bait. In the 17 years we've had the place, this was my very first fish caught in February.

The 150 or so GSH that were added late last summer as 3" to 4" fish have put on some length. That was the only interest to my presentations that day. Water temp 46 degrees along the south facing shoreline and about a half a foot below the surface. Maybe the YP will be stirring soon.

Not today but so far this early spring i added 1000 GS, 25 CC, 50 CNBG, 30lbs crawfish and 2lb of the biggest FHM ive seen. Should be good on forage until next spring i hope. Hobby aint cheap.

I thought the water looked awfully high in the creek for the speed it was running.

Only later did I observe a bit farther downstream that the creek had a new beaver dam that is currently almost 3' tall.

Not many chewed trees visible, so I believe I have had a young male move in this spring to start his new "homestead" projects.

So even though "I" didn't do anything at my pond today, I may still be getting a small new pond for the summer!

I added a ton of dried out cedars for some of my brush piles. The closest one always goes all the way to the bank. The tiny critters like that.

Some of the brush piles on t-posts were 15-20 feet wide under water and still stayed solid.

Clearing cedars AND making fish habitat.

That is definitely a "two-fer" of things you did today at your pond!

I shot Sporting Clays today. The range is 20 - 25 miles due East of me. I had 2.05" of rain the last "big" rain event. They had slightly over 7"........... Needless to say, their pond is full. LOL

I took advantage of the turkey season opener, on my birthday no less, to take a friend into the montains. I called in a lovely longbeard for him which he missed as he cranked his body way around to the right to try to connect.
So later in the morning when I called a subordinate tom away from the boss bird's harem he was shadowing, I sent him to turkey heaven with a 16 gauge load of 6's from my 1890's German hammer drilling.
Certainly not as much shooting as you Scott, but my Aussie Gypsy enjoyed half plucking the bird as he flopped. The harem and its boss were coming in to investigate the feathers flying as Gypsy worked over the downed gobbler. Unfortunately she spotted and heard them creeping up on her before they were in range for my friend Gary to nail the boss.
Tomorrow is another day.

Good going! Do you usually take your Aussie with you when bird hunting? Do you have any pictures of the drilling? You could email them to [email protected] if you don't want to post them. What's the rifle caliber? (curiosity is all) Here's to some good luck to you guys this morning!

I hadn't shot since October or November, and it seems that my right eye is getting a wee bit blurry so I can see glasses in my future, plus stations 4-8 were shot looking towards or directly at the sun. We should be shooting the course about 3 hours later in the day, but the guy that schedules this (it's a monthly shoot we do) schedules the start time for 8:30 am. I sucked and that's my excuse(s) that I'm sticking with. I only shot an 83.

I have a 16ga SxS that I have to send out to have refinished and a new stock made for. It possibly could have been made by a great, or great, great grandfather in Suhl, Germany. Chris V. Schilling Damascus barrels, sidelock construction, gold inlays over the chambers in the barrels, exposed hammers, etc. It was listed as a percussion 20 ga, but it's a cartridge gun with a splinter forend. When I got it home I dropped a 20 ga hull in the chamber and it slid down the barrel about 3".

It has seen better days, and I knew that when I won it at an auction. The stock is cracked, it looks like someone tried to pry the skeleton buttplate off the wood stock without taking the screws out. One firing pin spring needs replacement. There are two loops for your fingers in the piece that is behind the trigger guard, and one loop is broken. I thought it was made from brass because it's a yellowish color. I found out later that the particular piece is made from horn and I was told that when horn is 100+ years old it starts turning a yellowish color. I'm planning on sending it to Doug Turnbull to get all the metal work refinished. It's never been apart, or a master gunsmith took it apart and put it back together. All the engraving on the screw heads perfectly line up with the engraving that is on the side plates and skeleton buttplate, and none of the slots in the screws are boogered up. The bores are in excellent condition, no pitting or rust. No rust on the outside of it either. Some corrosion on the side plates, and I was told that maybe the side plates had gold inlaid in them but it was picked out. The president of the German Gun Collectors Club of Ohio said he thinks it was made 1860-1880. It DOES have a serial number and I wish I could figure out a way to get more info on it. The same guy said the Damascus barrels on it were stronger than teh fluid steel barrels of the same time frame, so shooting low pressure modern smokeless loads would be OK.

I did purchase 125 brass 16 ga MagTech hulls and found a 16 ga shell holder so I can insert the large pistol primers. I have some recipes and components for loads in the 7800 - 8400 psi range using modern powder, but I need to do more research to see what I can and can't safely do. If you have any advice I'm all ears.

Aussie's have been helping cleanup on game birds since 1985. They're primarily flushers, but herding flushers, watching where I am and trying to get around the birds, heading them off, and holding them until I'm in range. This is particularly effective on running pheasants in sagebrush, and chukars racing up the steep rocky slopes. A former girlfriend used to say that it's really not fair to the birds to hunt two Aussies together. Hahaha.

I'll put up some pics of my drillings (3) and J.P.Sauer 16 gauge double. The drillings have taken many elk, whitetails, muleys, and antelope. And turkeys. I'll PM them to you is I can.

Turnbull will do fabulous restorative metal work for you. I've got connections for wonderful English walnut and a stocker or two in mind when you are ready. BTW, send me a bunch of pics of that old beauty.

My Border Collie loves chasing off birds - buzzards, crows, and geese. But her favorites are the Great Blue Herons. They fly slower than she can run, and they usually just fly to our other pond, where she can have at 'em again.

Thanks. Watching and/or hunting with a good dog is a thing of beauty. i'll send pics. I used to Field Trial Springer Spaniels. A buddy would get a group of customers together and take them all to a planted pheasant farm. He called me one year to bring the dog. He wanted me to carry a gun and I said no, I'll just handle the dog for you guys. After meeting everyone I could tell that the people weren't hunters so I had to give a safety talk and explain how it worked. After an hour I could see why he said bring a gun. Nobody hit a bird. Finally someone scratched one down and started going after it. I said what are you doing? He seemed dumbfounded that the dog would not only find and flush the birds but also retrieve them.

I ended up getting my O/U out of the truck and playing backup shooter.

I don’t have a lot of pictures, but we have had a good number of visiting waterfowl in the last 2 weeks. Since April 3rd, we have seen mallards, Canadian geese, blue heron, migrating buffle heads, three kinds of mergansers (red-breasted, hooded, and common) and a double crested cormorant (which I scared off). It seems we must have gotten on their Google maps.

Rains locally have been hit or miss. My pond came up about 3 feet with 3" rain over a week, 25 miles East and again at a place 12 miles South they had 7" rain in one day.

Weather app said areal flood watch for last night. We didn't get a drop of rain.

It is an uncommon year when a Bufflehead stops in here in early Spring, but we always enjoy seeing them.

It is usually just one, which we always name Barrington J. Bufflehead.

Theo, this was the first Bufflehead I had seen on our pond and it was apparently a mating pair on their way to Canada. Sounds like a nice trip.