I have a 2 acre pond here in north-est Texas. I had it built 18 years ago.

Recently, mostly in the morning, I noticed something I had not noticed before. About 10 feet from the shoreline along one side of the pond there are something jumping up out of the water for just a split second. It looks like someone is underwater, popping their thumb or finger up out of the water, about 1/2 inch to an inch, and then pulling it back. There are lots of them whatever they are.

These really do not look like fish at all. Could they be some kind of frog?

sounds a whole lot like turtles grabbing a breath. Are there predator fish? if not maybe frogs but they will appear to be flatter to the surface with two prominent bumps where the eyes are.

Bull frog tadpoles at a certain time have to surface to get air also

There is definitely no shortage of turtles in my pond, but these guys move so quickly and the shell would roil the water in a way it is not being roiled. It might be turtles but I really don't think so.

The tadpole idea sounds promising. My pond is teeming with frogs of all kinds, I thought of frog but not of tadpoles.

Thanks everyone for the ideas!

X 2

Great video, Tbar!

Your LMB and large BG must be absolutely stuffed. The tadpoles appear to be very easy prey at this stage since the fish get to observe them sitting on the bottom, rising to the surface for a breath, and then drifting back down to the bottom.

Do bullfrog tadpoles have any defense mechanisms? (Bad taste, mild toxins, etc.?)

When I see tadpoles, they frequently seem to be in mass swarms with all of the individuals at approximately the same stage of development. Is their reproductive strategy to all hatch at the same time and then the predators can't eat ALL of them?

That's it (the video)! Looks like I'm going to have a noisy summer!

I had heard that fish don’t them till they’re frogs. Takes two seasons to complete a frog…. So I hear

That is kind of what I had heard too growing up - but not from anyone that I would consider an expert.

I figured I might have better luck fishing on Pond Boss for an expert opinion.

Lol

Bullfrogs take 2 years to metamorphosis into a frog, other frogs/toads only take one season.

I've never seen a pond with a normal to high bass population to have a high population of tadpoles, be it frog or toad tadpoles. Many, many get eaten by the fish.

Bullfrog tadpoles have an offfensive flavor but real hungry bass will learn to eat them. Once LMB develop a flavor for them then it is like esshup says, not many survive to make it to frog stage unless the pond is weedy to provide lots of cover and structure. .

My SMB pond always has a bumper crop of Bullfrog tadpoles. My LMB pond never has any to be seen. The two ponds are about 75 yards apart.

Based on Bill's comment and your comment - we can conclude that SMB have a much more sophisticated palate than LMB!

Or - LMB will essentially eat anything in the pond that moves.

It may be that a bullfrog can more easily outgrow the gape of a SMB than that of a LMB. All it takes is a couple large she-bulls to heavily populate a pond. I had horrendous amounts of bull tads for a few years in my pond. I have nothing against them until you can walk across the pond on their backs. Two seasons ago I culled 6 big frogs and few puny ones. The top 6 were large enough to make a big dinner for two, and the amount of tad poles dropped off greatly by the following year...like 100 to 1, maybe more!...there were tons of them. I once threw a 7 foot net for 45 minutes of the end of the dock and was able to transfer 400 of them to the creek. I'm not sure where they go after turning into frogs, but cutting the number of eggs that get laid drastically cuts down the numbers of tads.

As far as taste goes...a friend deep fried a tale once and said it resembled a pork rind. I don't care for rinds, I passed...lol