Well, they got me again. Went to fish the other day(I don’t live there) and couldn’t get a bite. Only a couple came to feed. I’ve been here before.
My own fault. I have Tposts driven around the pond and string line over the water to exclude the birds. This year I didn’t get around to it. A guy deer hunting on the place saw one land. Too dang late to fix my oversight.
In the spring I’ll add minnows and bluegills. Later some bass.
Lusk says kill off everything and do a total restart to get a balanced pond. I just cant do that.
Neighbor stopped by the other day and told me there was a Cormorant on the pond, took 17 shots with the .22, some very close to it to scare him off. The hatchery about 5 miles from me gets 50 tags a year to thin them out. Going to see if that option is available for private ponds.
It flew in today while I was down there at lunch thinning out the GSF to help my BG population get established. He landed then promptly flew off. I fired a warning shot just to make sure he knows he's not welcome. They can eat up to 1.5 pounds each per day, wouldn't take long to clean out a small pond.
Dave if you want more GSF I've still got plenty to spare They are fun for the Grandkids to catch but I want something we can eat. While reeling one in today I had a LMB grab it to eat, wish I would have had a Go Pro on to film it. Fun stuff!!
It's unfortunate that bird was a non-target victim of that conibear. I suppose accidents happen.
A trotline set in an appropriate location of a pond probably would be a fun fishing adventure right now. Fun story. I grew up fishing the Arkansas River. It's shallow so we always waded it. Best place to set a trotline was behind an underwater sandbar. One fall we had one set in about 2ft of water and had been doing well with 1-2lb channel cats on it. One morning we showed up and there were a couple of pelicans hooked on it. THOSE ARE BIG BIRDS! And they can beat the living crap out of a 10yr old with their wings. We eventually got them unhooked and they flew off seemingly no worse for the wear, but holy crap I was bruised and sore!
It's unfortunate that bird was a non-target victim of that conibear. I suppose accidents happen.
A trotline set in an appropriate location of a pond probably would be a fun fishing adventure right now. Fun story. I grew up fishing the Arkansas River. It's shallow so we always waded it. Best place to set a trotline was behind an underwater sandbar. One fall we had one set in about 2ft of water and had been doing well with 1-2lb channel cats on it. One morning we showed up and there were a couple of pelicans hooked on it. THOSE ARE BIG BIRDS! And they can beat the living crap out of a 10yr old with their wings. We eventually got them unhooked and they flew off seemingly no worse for the wear, but holy crap I was bruised and sore!
The Arkansas river used to backflow into my pond.. That is until I blocked off the inlet pipe. Bunch of nasty fish got in over time
I grew up in Ark City near a large pond called 6th Street Pond (it's now called Veterans Pond). When I was a kid the Arkansas would flood into it once in a while. It would get large schools of gizzard shad (as well as drum, gar, and carp). Bass fishing around the schools of shad was some amazing fishing!
We had a few of those carp and gizzard shad wash into the pond, they create a mess
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