Pond Boss Forums Active Threads

Rusto
I think the closer to the house the more manicured I'd want it to, at least the closest side.

I'm glad to hear that the aquatic isopods are good food for the trout.

I put my camera down today while doing some fishing (no bites) and saw such a strange looking worm on the bottom. It looked a lot like a dew worm used for fishing, except it was moving on the bottom and seemed a little bigger. The last time I fished with worms was two weeks ago, and I used very small red wigglers. I do not believe this could be one of the worms I used. Does anyone know what it is? I was shocked to see it when I reviewed the camera footage. It was also right on top of the trout food. Maybe it was trying to eat it?

Deer are not grass eaters per se, they will do better on Forbs and woody things. Cut down a growing tree and watch them devour the leaves and twigs. They will eat alfalfa hay but at $37 a bale it’s cheaper to feed protein feed designed for them

OK, thanks, no gizzard shad.

There are a lot of willows around the pond, I could fell a couple of dozen of them into the pond for cover. How much is a lot of shiners for a 2 acre pond?

What about crawfish for the detritus?

There's way more information on here than people realize, and sometimes it's hard to find unless you know the exact search parameters.

Could very well have been an O2 crash. All it takes is 2" snow and 2" cloudy ice to stop the majority if not all sunlight from getting to the water. Phytoplankton produces a lot of O2 during the winter when the plants aren't growing, but if there is no sunlight they utilize O2.

That's why having a large amount of water in the pond in regards to the biochemical demand and also having 10% of the surface area open to the air is the ticket for minimizing winterkill when ponds are iced over and then snowed upon. I've seen a winterkill in less than 2 weeks in a pond without winter aeration and not a lot of water (5' depth max).

Fish can become "educated" if you regularly practice catch and release.

For me it is hard to tell, I would suggest a better picture of the plant/plants. I can tell you that some plants can get out of hand quickly and it can cause a fish kill if they do get out of control. Believe me, I know!

That's a nice-looking little bass. It would be nice to have a lot of those in the pond.

Awesome Tbar!

How do you put a brand on that pond so rustlers don't steal it?

P.S. I showed the pic to my wife (who has lived in Texas), and she said, "Most Texas thing ever!"

Thanks esshup. One more potential tool to add to the pond management toolbox!

CC-
I definitely will have a box cam going again. As with all northern ponds this winter, we have a lot of ice. I typically get the first ducks within a week or less of ice off. That averages March 5th for my pond. My latest ice out in the past 6 years has been March 25th. I did turn on my shallow diffuser on February 20th. We had 14" of ice with 12" of snow on it, and it had been a dark cap like that for 7 weeks, so I was getting nervous about low DO (diffused oxygen) levels.
So, as soon as ice out, I will do a quick camera check and then set up the web feed again. I did catch a screech owl peeking out of another box yesterday, so here's a picture of my latest "Air D&B" (duck & bird) tenant.

I like the trotline idea. That will be on my April list. Right now I've gotta get ready for pigs to show up and then do a bunch of projects around the house i just bought.

RER, I miss your updates and cool pictures. Are you still checking in and what is going on with the fishing in your pond?
any new comers who haven't seen this thread, start at the beginning and enjoy!

Like Fireishot said, have the seller fire it up and run water through it. Have him fire it up from being dry, not just run and shut off. How long it takes to prime is another indicator of how much wear it has - it should prime quickly.

I think it was 2002, our second big flood event (1998 the first) for Bexar and surrounding counties, getting about 28 inches, I was caught at home, it had already been raining for some hours and was a flash flood event for all of Bexar county and the hill country beyond. The rain was torrential, like 1998, and for the same type event...moisture from bad 'ss hurricanes off of Baja sneaking across the two mountain ranges of Mexico and pouring down in central Texas...in October! The same effects as that for the model max, a gulf coast hurricane stalled out over the hill country. I had links to some really cool NOAH and NWS sites...they had live satellite feeds of "precipitable moisture," kilograms per square meter, I think on 100 meter squares, zoomable right down to about four square miles around me, this link is showing 25 (min) to 35 (max) kg/m^2 (color coded) rushing overhead at what looked like near a hundred miles an hour! (I will search for those links on an old computer). Outside was the sound of roaring falls as inches of water ran off the hills and rolled over lesser hills. Spectacular! All in a fog. With that event in mind, I'm happy my watershed is small. I am looking at catching our driveway run-off into a drain and pipe to the pond, with a valve to cut it off...I think a three inch rain, somewhat rare, but..., could replace half the water in the pond, but I wouldn't want that much..

All the while not providing enough information to get an answer that will do them any good.

I can't help but smile because, like you, I puzzled with the appearance myself when I caught it. The LES I stocked did not look like a smaller version of the fish in the photo (more on that in bit). Also I apologize for the poorly focused low resolution pic. I did not want it out of water long and as my daughter was holding it was spinning around. But if you look closely, except for the banding and a darkened patch along the lateral line, the fish was primarily orange ... even under the dorsal fin area. This is visible in the pic but the pic does a horrible job of depicting that fish. Nothing compared to the eye candy of being there.

Back to how different it looked when I caught it as compared to when it went in. The LES in this region are bright orange with blue interspersed. I haven't been able to find a pic online that demonstrates what I am looking at when I catch one, at least not a match. Some time later I will post a pic of one for reference (will be a while after I catch another). The LES here have a long thin bright bluish grey ear tab with a black and then a white margin as did the LES when I stocked it. So I was very puzzled because ear tab a year later was long and FAT and blackish blue. The margins weren't there and I was puzzled. But at the time I new the history of the pond and I thought the fish in it were stocked by me. Given I stocked only one LES, I felt confident it was the same fish (though I could be wrong). But this leaves the question, why so different in appearance? At the time I was able to view a pic of the world record LES and it too was dark and oddly shaped and colored. So I do wonder how this plays into maximum potential sizes and how this affects morphology. As an example, consider the fish you posted. At one time the fish you see in Bruce's hands once looked very much like it ...



I would mention that the banding does occur in other LES when spawning ... but that big fat ear tab ... why? So either it wasn't the same fish ... or ... something else is going on. Perhaps colors, markings, even shapes of ear tabs are not fixed but are plastic features that can be modulated. To be sure, I wondered if the appearance had something to do with this fish's competition. With no females present, was this natures way of mimicking his competition by presenting an ear tab that was bigger and blacker than the larger BG? I just don't know, perhaps it found its way into that pond by some other means than myself. Either way, it is a memory I won't soon forget.

'The archives are a precious store of knowledge.' This forum ought to issue a digital coin. A billion coin issue at $0.02/coin. Reserve a good chunk of the coins to be payable to forum members in return for their $ donations or $ magazine subscriptions,,,50 coins per dollar submitted by members. Meanwhile, establish the coin on the exchanges and sell a good bunch for $ for the Pond Boss Forum Foundation. The Foundation attempts to stabilize the coins value, selling from reserve at $0.06 and buying back at $0.01. Eventually, the reserve runs out and all the coins are in circulation. While coins were held in reserve, members would still get a good deal of free coins equal in value to the donations and subscriptions. Maybe you need to issue six billion coins. Think of how, by some miracle, these coins will be worth a whole dollar someday...and the Foundation flush with money could even support research from the start. Most coin foundations are devoted to developing applications that tie into the blockchain ledger data. This Foundation...Pond, lake, fisheries and sport fish sciences plus the accumulated knowledge (even that bought or licensed). Wild rantings of someone who woke up to find a small bunch of crypto was worth a lot, and sold out too soon.

Does it have to be battery power? There are a lot of very small gas powered pumps out there now.

We have a 45 acre spring fed lake near Tyler, Tx. We stocked threadfin heavily the last two years. I generally see the lake surface temps stay around 48 or so most years. We hit -8 during this storm and 2/3 of the surface was ice. Lake surface temp hit 38-40. We experienced a significant threadfin die off, but certainly not 100%. Whether they will recover significantly or need restocking remains to be seen.

We just spread seed on a future prairie to take advantage of the freeze-thaw.

You are exactly on track!

My statement, "The process is NOT additive" is ambiguous. (I see that it could be read that the "process of creating small dams" is not additive.)

I should have said the erosive energy is NOT additive.

A 90' drop is >>> greater than six 15' drops - even though the math is the same. The physics is not the same.

Any time you can break the water flow chain with a level surface of pooled water, you are reducing your erosion.

Enjoy the journey - do what you can after thinking things over - don't worry , that never does any good.

Good to know, thanks!

Many of the ponds I fish host wild mallards and Canada geese. Some overwinter while others nest. I've noticed the mallards muddy the shallow areas considerably. There are a lot of submerged weeds in them which may help to keep the central portions clearer. I would think that any duck that tips to eat and will disturb sediments might contribute to muddiness.