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

I did a lot of "windshield time" on rural blacktops over the last two days. A significant portion of it was in some hilly terrain with lots of small ponds.

I think I saw a single Great Blue Heron on about a third of the ponds I could easily view.

Each one appeared quite intent on "fishing" while I was passing. I assume the birds get a bit hungry over the winter, and are then very happy for spring to roll around so they can eat the fish and other creatures from our ponds.

They must also be pretty territorial in enforcing that they have sole access to the pond. I never observed a pair of GBH on a pond. (Even though it is close to mating season?) And I never saw a Great Egret in any pond that had a GBH. (And I believe the GEs are the second most common large wading bird in my area.)

If someone is having significant problems with GBHs eating their forage fish and fingerlings, perhaps a Great Egret decoy might frustrate the GBHs?

I have seen a pair of GBH exactly twice in 25 years as a pond owner - the second time last week. I'm guessing a breeding pair (?).

Years back it was not uncommon to see 2GBHs at our 3 acre pond. There was often disputes: this is my side get back on yours.

This year we have one GBH & one GE. Each has his own territory & sometimes time of day, the GBH occupying the better half.

I picked up 20 lbs of Tilapia from Freedom Fish Farms (about a 20 minute drive) and put 15 lbs in the FA-heavy big pond and the rest in the Smallmouth pond, which has just a trace of FA currently.

Wishing there were suppliers for Tilapia in Michigan. I was thinking of the fish haulers (esshup?) and I saw diesel just hit $6.20 a gallon here. Ouch... going to cost an awful lot to truck just about anything anywhere for a while here.

Theo,

What was the approximate size of your tilapia stockers for mid-May in your part of the country?

Apx 6" to 10". I didn't measure them, that's my visual estimate.

These were raised in an indoor, heated aquaculture system, with the big tanks where the water rotates to separate the solids.

Nice!

I thought you had mentioned stocking some pretty large ones a few years back(?).

The heated tanks and aquaculture system are an elegant solution for your portion of the country.

Until a few years ago, you could get a pretty extensive tour of Ripple Rock Fish Farm near here, until the owner Craig Bell retired. He showed my family a lot about how his RAS systems work. He raised Tilapia primarily for the ethnic market and restaurant markets. but you could show up on Tuesdays and buy as many pounds as you wanted; they would fillet them for you for a little extra.

Curtis at Freedom Fish Farm looks to have a very similar setup.

Got up to my main pond yesterday for the first time this year.

All looks good up there.

Can anyone provide an update? There was some discussion in the past of having fish farms that were in areas where spotfin shiners were found in the streams and lakes natively (most of midwest) experiment with keeping a multiplying population in a pond (using appropriate spawning disks) and then possibly if it is self-sustaining offer these for sale along with or in place of the less hardy FHM. I'd love to see these available in more fish supplier locations. In my experience they offer many unique advantages.

Also there was some interest in trying to raise and sell Lake Chubsuckers (a pond chubsucker that also has advantages as a unique forage fish) Any updates from anyone?

I had great success with SFS. They fed almost year around as long as we had open water and were vigorous swimmers, could avoid predation, and spawned repeatedly once water temps were favorable. Sadly I'm afraid my two episodes of fish kill this late winter and early spring might have wiped them out. I can't seem to see any at feeding time. I don't have a way to restock unless I drive to Ohio. Oh well, it was a great run for the SFS in our SW MI pond.

If don't know yet if pond truly is a blank slate (not sure yet as I stocked about 100 3-5" yellow perch last fall and they might still be around, hard to tell as they don't seem to come to the feed either.) But if it is, that makes it easier for me to try another experiment with another unique forage/predator combination.

Canyoncreek - Here is my take on the Spotfins (SFS) and Lake Chubsuckers(LCS).
Spotfins can be very beneficial in the "right" fishery combination. I have been working with them for over 20 years. They have a very good purpose with the right predator specie or in some low density predator populations with good habitat. The right specie for the right purpose. Basically no fish suppliers sell them due to lack of availability, low demand, low profit margin compared to the famous high profit fathead minnow and they would have to grow their own supply. Most farms just buy their fish from big efficient producing suppliers - easy, quick, high profits. There is one SFS supplier in Northwest Ohio that grows SFS however he has trouble producing large crops of SFS due invasions of green sunfish. Reproducing GSF can decimate YOY minnows in a minnow / shiner production pond.

The same basic consensus applies to the lake chubsucker. It is a very good soft fin large forage specie for fisheries with larger predators. However, I am not sure of how prolific the chubsucker is for commercial production compared to other good forage fish and how easy it is to produce large numbers of them for a profit. Overton fisheries tried one year producing lake chubsucker. Todd had a hard time collecting the YOY in traps. Several PBoss Forum members bought some of the Overton LCS production. My individuals never seemed to thrive where I stocked the representatives. Aquatic Environmental Services have several or maybe numerous clients that have LCS in their ponds. AES IMO has never regularly offered LCS for sale. AES has to my knowledge never tried growing LCS as a production forage fish. Contact G.Grimes (AES at https://lakework.com) for his opinions about LCS and he as a PB Forum member might respond to your PB Forum query. AES does sell gold fish and crayfish as forage items.
https://lakework.com/services/fishery-management-services/fish-stocking
Gizzard shad are a very good substitute for larger sizes of soft fin forages are popular and a risky forage fish for fisheries with large bass.

Thanks for all the expertise and experience Bill. It sounds like SFS are the niche product that could catch on if a smaller 'boutique' fish farm had a couple extra ponds and made sure nothing else got in them and set out the right spawning structure. I agree, they probably won't make it into the massive wholesale bait business catalogs. But boutique/regional niche sellers sell just about everything else these days too.

When you speak of SFS needing a low density predator combination what do you mean? In my experience the FHM were slow swimmers and decimated in my pond by just a few predators whereas the SFS seemed very agile and able to escape predation even though my pond lacks structure, weeds, and other hiding places. I am interested in trying to find alternate 'minnows' to FHM and GSH.

I had LCS in my pond and the stockers did great but I don't have enough vegetation and clear water apparently to allow for a spawn.

In my experience SFS will not tolerate aggressive large size predators such as LMB that have a reproducing number density greater than my current guess is maybe 20-40 larger predators per acre. I basically have used the SFS in ponds primarily for yellow perch. SFS work great in a YP pond because the SFS grows to a size (4.7") the YP do not or are not able to normally eat and eliminate the breeder sizes of SFS. SFS are fast often open water swimmers and the larger sizes aptly escape YP predation or are ignored by the larger YP.

I have never used SFS in a LMB nor SMB pond because IMO there is too much total predatory pressure to eliminate the SFS breeders. The only way I see the SFS thriving in a regular LMB or SMB pond is if the pond has a large amount of underwater pond vegetation such as maybe pondweed, eel grass, water lilies or one or two shorelines are lined with tree tops that will provide good habitat and cover.

My rule for forage species thriving in a pond is a significant number of brood stock should survive for an annual spawn to recruit an abundant crop of new individuals each year. If that does not happen, then IMO there are too many predators, not enough habitat is present and or the wrong forage item/s is/are being used. IMO if one is having to add forage foods (fish) each year then too many predators are present and / or not enough habitat is present for a natural balance of prey - predator.

Did some general clean up and maintenance on our aeration windmill Saturday. The crank shaft wore out so we had to replace the hub and crankshaft then put it back together. After went and did some fishing, the first couple of hours were a bit slow but in the last hour before sunset, the bite was incredible. Between my father and I, we caught 30 LMB between a pound and three pounds. Definitely some of the best fishing I have ever experienced.

That sounds like an all around great day!

Yeah, I have to add a fuel surcharge this year. Fish prices were calculated on $3.899/gal for diesel.

When I pick up fish in Arkansas, it takes around 150-180 gallons of diesel to get them back here to Northern Indiana. Every day of fish deliveries takes roughly 30 gallons of diesel, sometimes more. You can do the math..............two weeks ago the local Loves Truckstop had diesel for $7.049/gallon...

I’m not even up there, but I think we dodged a bit of a bullet. My daughter’s 2 yr old son hopped on his battery powered JD tractor and headed for the pond. His older brother was supposedly watching him. Brother ran in the house and said, “Brock took off on his tractor!” They hopped in the side by side and found him circling the pond. Glad he didn’t drive it in.
This pic is from the game camera I have down there to spot trespassers.

I was amazed yesterday at the amount of row that came out of two CC totaling 14 lbs that we filleted.

Glad you got a favorable result SetterGuy! All water is an attractive nuisance.

Maybe buy some of those cheap orange cones for soccer practices and set up a tractor "obstacle course" for him to drive? Make clear that the course is the ONLY place he is allowed to drive without an adult.

Today? Raking dead HSB out of my hatchery pond. 2 days of huge rain brought in muddy water, and it's happened before so I have to just deal with it.

Weights were 2# to 5#.

Sorry.

Uggh

Ouch looks brutal ! Was it muddy or temp change that got them?

Eric, mud is the big issue, but heat didn't help any. Right now is a rough water here for me. The hatchery is muddy, and Todd Overton and I have faced that same issue before and found that bluegill were choking to death because of the huge amount of muddy water also.

We should have moved them a week or two before which would let them go deeper into the cooler water. But, I'm fighting blue/green algae and it's bad too. I've been keeping all the weeds in the big pond to help use up the nutrients, but the bluegill in the big pond are barely feeding and moving also.

Having a 13 acre pond is great for everything but one's pocket.