GW, I don't think any meant to offend you or put words on your mouth. For what it's worth I've enjoyed your posts, from our banter during the GSF/Warmouth scandal to your post regarding Gams. Although I don't know you personally, I envision you as a guy that is gonna push the boundaries and walk against the flow of the crowd just to see what will happen. I like that attitude. I didn't post to your BSF thread (and to be completely honest tried to avoid opening it because I am well aware of your photo posting capabilities) because maggots give me the heebie jeebies. :o. Hang in there and keep posting - I'm reading (except maybe for the BSF thread (did I mention I don't like maggots?).
I read this thread and though it was a great question. For what it's worth I have the following non-educated, expert free observations.
Observation One:
Vision if you will a small (about 15 feet across) koi pond in Mom & Dads back yard. It has a fair number of koi of various sizes. They breed so much that Mom & Dad give away (yes for free, crazy I know) the young to a breeder. Anyhoo, a few smart Egrets discovered the pond and decided it was too good to be true. Koi began disappearing at an alarming rate. After consulting with a koi pond guy he suggested cutting a trash can in half down the side (in other words not going around the can but down the side of the can) and weighing it down in the pond. It would give the koi a place to swim into for shelter. Dad calls it his Koidominium (see where I get my humor now don't cha). Although it helped some the Egrets if nothing else are persistent and they still managed to eat a bunch. Finally Mom and Dad had to get one of those motion activated sprinkler things. So in this instance the hidy-hole had limited success but then again we are talking about an awful small pond here.
Observation Two:
Now change the channel to my pond. About 2.5 to 3 acres (depends upon the season and my exaggeration level that day). Chock full of Elodea (bane of my existence). Lots of places for fish to hide. At this pond we have two types of herons. Don't know the common or scientific name and it ain't really important. One kind is short the other tall. Both are quite good at stocking the shallows and picking off fish even with all of the Elodea. I've observed the larger herons take down two to three fish in just a few minutes. These guys are good. If I could only convince the herons to be Vegans I'd have it made. So even with a ton (actually probably several tons) of cover in dense Elodea the herons get their fill.
And none of these birds dive down. What's the moral to these stories - don't have a clue - just my un-scientific, non-expert observations.
Last edited by jeffhasapond; 09/07/07 06:52 PM. Reason: Edited to reduce spelling errors and stupidity.
