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by Snipe |
Snipe |
Wow!! Can't believe the wealth of information here. I'm new to the forums here and just wanted to express my thanks to Bill Cody for a big part of my inspiration to build my new smallie pond. I finished construction of my 3/4 acre pond mid summer this year and stocked Fatheads about 4 months ago and followed with yellow perch, redear and smallmouth about 90 days ago and just finished a 7 day trap net set that produced some amazing results in such a short period of time. My issue here in NW KS is the very fine sandy loam soil type. I had to use soda ash as a sealing agent due to less than 3% clay particulates and I'm worried about water clarity issues long term for the SMB.. This pond is fed by well water through a 2" main run down on top of bottom seal with a riser to act as an augmentor if needed. I stocked my SMB after about 2 months of fathead spawning and at 90 days, my SMB went from an average of 55mm to an average of 114mm for the sample. My largest was 141mm (about 5.5"). My SMB sample was relatively small at only 9 fish so maybe I'm ok but I noted my Redear went from ave 60mm to 135mm and yellow perch 95mm to 210mm ave. I have very minimal aquatic vegetation but literally several hundred ton of rock substrate in the form of large concrete chunk, 2-5" rock/rubble down to pea gravel. WR's of the SMB were low (90-ish) on the larger specimens to around 140 on the smaller fish sampled. Granted some of this could be my WR formulas were meant for 150mm + SMB. I'm hoping time will show a better sample of SMB but I'm wondering if water clarity is more of an issue than I think?? Disk reading has varied from 18" to 30" at the clearest. If someone would have any suggestions, I'm very open to ideas.. I know this system is extremely young but the excitement is hard to hold back.
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by Snipe |
Snipe |
Compare this with above.. I'd say she's gravid.. This fish caught today, was 10ozs over current State record. In fact, we caught 3 today all at least 5oz over record.. one day a kid will be the one on the other end..
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4 members like this |
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by Snipe |
Snipe |
Haven't posted for some time on this so time for an update.. Last August I performed an Alum treatment after a small fight for 45 days or so with algae. Pond is completely ice-free today and the vis is nearly 5' and it is painfully obvious I need some new/better/more habitat. I can see so much...of missing items of structure/habitat, but the last time I had this type of view was as I was filling it. I'm not 4 yrs in yet but I think 3 big floods was a bit hard on things, so thinking about a redo now that I have a berm around inlet side and no more field run-off can occur. I think it best to wait another year or so as the fish farm needs to be established first, and... we have caught 14 YP well over the KS state record now, I think 11 of those were late October and November. Unfortunately, It hasn't been somebody's kid or a friend that doesn't fish much or we would make it official. Funny thing is our Region 1 biologist caught 1 and said there was no way he could claim it so on we go. The largest we've caught so far was well over 1lb over the record so if a kid does get that piece of paper, it's going to stick for a long time.
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3 members like this |
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by RStringer |
RStringer |
Snipe I'm always interested in your data. Your insight is very useful. Unfortunately im just not smart enough to respond to them. Just want you to know we always like reading you info.
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1 member likes this |
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by Snipe |
Snipe |
does your state recognize home grown hand fed YP from a private pond as an official state record? Maybe it is only in MI where recognized records only come from public bodies of water? Yes. It's a fair entry by KS standards. This was the 16th to best it and they just keep growing. I've had a few friends fish here but all but 1 of the 16 have been caught by me. The 1 fish, caught by my friend who is our region 1 NW Biologist, is also the gent that said smb and yp probably won't work here. He has very much changed his mind and I have sold some smb to them for other community projects in my region.
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1 member likes this |
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