It's been a pretty mild winter here in southern New Hampshire... usually by now we've got another three weeks until open water but last week's sudden burst of high 40s and low to mid 50s opened up a portion of our pond and I've been able to feed the trout for the past 4 days. Next week looks like a repeat but with a good amount of rain. The pond will probably be mostly open by the end of the week. Time to dust off the fly rods!

Yes Uncle it has started to shine here this week also. Southeast Kansas here please dont hold it against me but born and raised here and stayed by chose lol. I am loving this weather here 65ish all weekend. I will take it cant say that I'm ready to start mowing again. I am ready for it all green up and look nice again.

Today was a beautiful day in Western PA.

We've had a pretty mild winter, but... Oh well!!!

Let's get spring going and the feed flying!!!

I think spring has made it to my pond. I hadn't seen a live BG (I seen 1 dead a few weeks ago) since last fall, until today. I see FHM on nicer days and I toss out a little feed to see if there is any takers, which I haven't had many until today. Yesterday was much nicer than today, but I had a lot more FHM swimming around and they started feeding pretty good. After about ten minutes of seeing the FHM feeding, I was surprised to see a lot of BG come up and feed. After about twenty minutes I had even more BG and FHM feeding. I'm glad to see spring coming!

Interesting that what is called global warming is mostly milder winters. In the US, summers were hotter in the 1930s.

Isn’t that funny they don’t notice that. Just want to grab some money to see if they can screw up the weather.

I'll try not to hold it against you too much! Every time I mention moving my wife reminds me that I'm a New Hampshire boy born and raised... Heck my family has been in the same town since 1730.

At least you've got good, real BBQ in Kansas!

Yes we do I can smoke a pretty mean batch of burnt ends myself.

It's the cusp of spring here also. Being on the north side of a hill, we get little sunshine in the winter...mountain laurels are just starting to bloom and the oaks and pecans are budding out. On the south side of the hill (Cross Mountain), everything is in full bloom!

Saw my first frog yesterday. Hopefully they don't all freeze

Spring peepers are singing here. Also hope they don't freeze!

I watched a pound and a half lmb male bumping and pushing a 3 lb female toward his bed. And she seemed interested as she turned on her side. And we are going through a hail storm right now with half inch + sized hail this morning. Yep spring is here.

That hail should cool off the spawning for a bit.

Redbuds blooming here. A sure sign that male LMB are making nests.

Around here, we say they start bedding up when the red clover blooms. Not quite time yet but soon I think.

I saw an where an LMB had cleared a nest this past weekend. But did not see the fish.

I have seen the Dogwood trees blooming but no redbuds yet. And as far as the lmb spawning here in NE Texas? I have seen them on their nest now through May. They don't all go to the beds at the same time.

Saw a leopard frog avoid the flames while burning dead grass next to the pond and a green grasshopper nearby. Spring appears to be here in north TX.

I saw my first Red Bud tree blooming and as I walked the pond yesterday I saw around a dozen lmb that looked to be males (based on size) that were what I think are staging up for the spawn. Or they were just absorbing the suns warmth on the north end of the pond. These lmb were hanging off the edge of the FA that is surrounding the ponds edge out to about 3 to 4' waters depths. The FA is where the APW surrounds the pond during most of the year. I'm hoping this cool water type of FA will soon die back and let the APW get alittle sun light for growth.

Although I have waited 2 years in vain for wood ducks to decide to use my very luxurious wood duck houses, at least right on cue today, the momma/poppa mallard came back to rest on the pond. How they figured out that yesterday there were ice floes left and today the water is clear for a landing is beyond me. They are like teenagers who seem to sense when there is food around and show up at the right time. I hope the pond is big enough for the woodies to share with the mallard. Both are fun to have around.

Canyon,
I decided to take my wood duck watching to another level this year, and added a camera to one of my boxes. If it works as hoped, I'm going to setup a YouTube feed, so other Pond Boss folk can check out the duck box.

We have an what I believe is a returning owl this year again. Looks like she has laid a set of twins.

That's a pretty cool setup ya got Drluke. My sister gets on live animal web cams. She watched a tiger drinking out of a water hole. Then it has ran off by a herd of elephants. Crazy to think about what all is going on at any given time.

In keeping with the theme of the thread, I also did the spring cleaning work on my duck houses a couple weeks ago, and found this guy, "time sharing" over the winter season. I posted a picture of an Eastern screech owl last year also. He was very sleepy.



An owl pellet. They yack up what can't be digested. You can see some mouse bones stuck in the pellet.

Great ideas and pics Dr.Luke !!!!

Thanks ewest! As with everybody else with northern ponds, I'm antsy for spring to arrive. But part of the signs that spring is coming is working on my duck houses off the ice.

Nesting pair of bald eagles showed up, just like last spring. They left during the summer, don't know where.

Also saw 7 wood ducks, 3 geese, and too many cormorants.

Redbuds are coming out, but not dogwoods yet.