Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - The Big Chill

My forage pond is full of CNBG, which normally have no problem overwintering. But not when temps get down to 5 F next week. Unfortunately, CNBG are more vulnerable to cold than BG, so...

Think I'm gonna drain the forage pond tomorrow. Fish won't be handled, but of course the sudden change in location will stress them. I'm betting that, despite the extra stress, they will still be better off in the main BOW where they can find much better thermal refuge.

Not happy about this, but I see no good choice.

How cold is it you ask? its so cold here I seen a couple politicians with their hands in their own pockets.

Ice on the blades makes the windmills quit.

I was a power engineer for over 30 years. I think we need to build some new nuclear plants. Turn some of those COE reservoirs into "hot lakes" in the winter. Good fishing year round.

Unlike a lot of people around here ,I am pro wind. Not because it is any better than other types of power, but because it helps out the community and the farmer that is getting paid to have it on his land. Seems like everyone blames wind for the shortages of electricity. Maybe for wind to work you need many wind farms spread out all over the country. So when one farm has no wind the other farm a 100 miles away would. Also needs to be backed up by natural gas, because that is the fastest type of production to start up over coal or nuclear. I wonder the rolling shutdowns are for 1 to 2 hours, if you are out for days it is probably do to trees that have never seen ice for many years. Oil is well subsidized why else would you shut down your wells. The government pays you not to run. Same with grain farmers, they pay you to leave some of your ground idle. That way they control how much is around and there for the price. Hey in 20 years when our president wants the country to be on electric cars. We will have all kinds of petroleum run electric generators. They would be able to start up and shut down really quick.

there are a lot of problems that will happen in a weather event like this. IMO It isn't cost effective to plan for these rare events. If so we would all have basements and better heat sources here in Texas, instead we have waterlines buried 12-14" deep and heat pumps which are EXTREMELY inefficient at these temps, and no real backup heat sources. Everyone will jump up and down and point fingers for a few weeks. I'm sure they will pass regs that will cost us more money in the short run,. 30 or 40 years when it happens again, and everyone and all the equipment is different than it is today, many of us will even be dead and gone, and the people running things will be shocked that this could happen.

Here's what I expect to happen:

While it's important how cold it gets, the most important factor to killing fish is how fast it gets there. When southern ponds were in the low 50's midweek last week, and drop to 35 in a few days, especially shallow ponds, expect coppernose bluegills and Florida bass to die. Even today, here at LL,2, the Swimming Pond still isn't frozen. We've been below freezing now since Wednesday, and that pond is still 80% open. It's 11 degrees and snowing here, on the way to single digits. Not supposed to be above freezing again until Thursday. For us, that's a long time.

I expect threadfin shad to die in all lakes as far south as San Antonio...even the biggest public lakes except power plant lakes. In private waters, I expect to see some of the biggest Florida bass die due to how cold it is getting...how fast. I expect to see coppernose bluegills die as well. When they get really cold, fast, they'll sink to the bottom, lay on their sides and slow down so much they quit breathing. Then, they die.

I also expect to see gizzard shad die in lakes where they are overcrowded, in shallow, muddy areas. All the rest of the fish should hunker down and be fine. Catfish will be okay, F1 bass, native bluegills, and native species will be fine. As soon as this event passes, I'd go take a look at your ponds and see what you can see.

We're right next to Lake Texoma, 90,000 acre lake with substantial depths. Threadfins will all die in that lake as well. Agencies need to be prepared to restock them next spring, if they can find them.

For our environment, this is about as harsh as it can get.

FWIW I understand the power is cheap in TX since there has been no implementation onto a nationwide grid, and no contingencies and regulations for events like these. It is capitalism rearing its head how to get the cheapest solution to maximize profit with little regulation.

For example: for additional cost you can somewhat weather-proof windmills with heaters to keep ice from accumulating. If you don't do that, and you detect ice on them, you have to shut them down or it will fling shards of ice at very lethal speeds. So it costs money to put on and maintain the heaters. There is no regulation forcing them to do so in TX.

Also natural gas is pumped via electric to the power stations, which is more efficient, cheaper, and less polluting than using a natural gas engine to pump the natural gas (a small amount of NG is used for pumping). But when the electric goes out, how do you pump the gas to the electric? You hope that a plant nearby is still running to get gas to the other plant. Multiple stations go down? Good luck.

How do you spur the coal economy as a politician? You blame all of these problems on green energy, when you should be blaming it on lack of preparedness and regulation.

Plans here in Tx are to shut down some more if not all the power plants that are natural gas/coal-fired. I think it is a bad call. But not much I can do about it I do know we are the largest in the world when it comes to natural gas reserves and it is cheap and clean-burning. Leaves little footprint after it is set online. Way less than a huge windmill that is an eyesore as far as I am concerned. It also supplies a large workforce with high-paying jobs. And we are not buying from China who wants to take over the world economy. And no nucular plants where we store waste for a lifetime that will or can destroy every living thing around it. Solar power and battery storage are way too expensive and until we can do a better job on reducing cost and improvements in our batteries we should not make it a requirement in our lives. Ok, I am through with this because it gets me upset when I think of the politics of it all.

I believe there is pros and cons on all sides. Coal plants have their issues same as nuclear. Same goes for solar and windmills. They just put up like 150 windmills right outside of the town I live in. I think they are pretty cool to look at. How many coal miners have lost their lives? How many nuclear accidents has there been? Solar and windmills still have a cost problem but are getting better. I think there is a need for all of them just ask people in texas about it. We should use all of are resources. Im no professional just mine own opinion here.

I do not know what will become of my fish. My farm ponds were frozen over and my grass lessor was coming over daily to break ice for the cattle.

Back home during this winter storm we would get power for 1-2 hours then be down for 9-12 hours.

I have one Honda EU2000i here at the house and it was working well but I needed just a little bit more power. The wife and I ran out to the farm and picked up the Honda 2k companion genset and cabled the two together. We had lights, two HVAC units, TV's, internet, fridge, freezer, microwave, toaster, etc.

One hiccup in my emergency planning was my 1 y/o diesel truck that didn't want to start at 0 degrees. After waiting until afternoon temps rose to a balmy 19 degrees and giving the fuel tank a good shot of diesel 911 it kicked off. I have owned diesel trucks for 20 years and never had a problem with gelling.

Second thing I could improve is having a way to cook inside and not on the outdoor grill.....Burrrr. I have a plan for that going forward.

Frank,
I have flown over, but this time it was the drone's turn.

Bill,
I do not aerate in the winter here. The only temps I got were on the surface. Both mornings, there was a skin on nearly all of the big pond. 0C or really close to it. In the afternoon, the warn side, NW exposures, added a few degrees and that was it. Next morning, an ice skin was back, it was gone after several hours of sunlight. Where the springs enter the pond did not freeze as expected. The ducks were happy to find the spring water and rafted up there by the hundreds. Several geese were walking on the ice Sunday morning.

No threadfin.

I am really not worried, I just thought it might be a great time to talk about events like these and what we can expect good and bad. I expect some plans to die-off and others to take advantage of the nutrients. I doubt my fish had any issues as there is a large deep section for refuge.

BTW, I was going to get grass carp delivered Saturday, but that was put on hold due to weather.

Oh, and no to flip flops, ice augers, and fishing where I can't cast with both hands.

Anthropic, and others. I went out again today, and my CNBG were coming to the surface and eating at near summer numbers. I hand fed in 2 different locations in my hatchery pond, and both groups ate aggressively. FHM's were out and about near the shoreline. I also hand fed at both feeder locations on our big pond, and the results were the same. I left the feeder on the dam with large CNBG still feeding. As the food disappeared, they starting coming to the dock for more handouts. In short, I think we're all ok.

I will not be stocking native BG or non-Florida LMB. Magic 8 ball says we will have 90+ degree water temps every year, but we're not likely to have another Snowvid event like last week in our lifetime. I'm not recommending any plan, or giving advice, I'm just saying that I'm personally staying on the course I'm already on.

Great report, Dan!

I'm in the camp that anthropic's forage pond will be a pleasant surprise.

That 43 degrees 10' from the fire is some wrong feces though!!! Crazy!

All of my bamboo did survive but my sago palms look like Hell. Sometimes they gradually come back. Peaches,figs,roses,and azaleas all have come back!! Yaaaay!