I suggest that we have a new heading under the category of "Stocking the Pond".

This category would be "Raising forage and bait". Included in this category would be raising fathead minnows, worms, bug zappers and all of the other things we do to enhance our fishing. Right now, these things are scattered all over the place and can be very hard to find. Also, there seems to be enough threads to justify a category. Any comments?

I like the idea, I am amazed how fast a topic can drop out of sight if there are alot of things going on.

Norm Kopecky – Apparently “Raising forage and bait” as a sub category of “Stocking the Pond” didn’t strike a cord.

Perhaps a sub category “Food Chain Enhancement” under the same “Stocking the Pond” category would gain more response (same story, different name).

I just thought a good idea needed to be brought back to the top for another chance.

I agree that it would make a nice new category heading. This sort of thing came up once before. I think Bill Cody expressed some frustration that so many threads ended up under "Questions and Observations". This particular category could be enhanced by breaking it down a little. It would make for much more efficient searching of old threads. I'm not sure what it would take to do it. I PM'd J.P. to see what he thought but I don't think he ever got it. I think Lusk is too busy so maybe we need to all PM J.P. Greeson and see if we can get him to recategorize a couple of things.

You can find him under "directory". He's member number "2".

Let me see if I know how to do it....bet I can.

There ya go...have fun with it.

Lusk is king.

Great! Thanks, Bob!

There is a great deal of information on the forum about this subject. Is anyone out there able to find these threads and move them to this topic heading?

Norm Kopecky - I knew you had a good idea!

I can find all the threads that contain that information. Only someone with a higher level of security could move or copy them to the new sub-category.

Bob Lusk - I see you are also a tech guru!

One of you guys find the threads you think go there and post the links. I will go through them and if I agree then I will move them to the new heading.

I just added worms... Hows it look any questions or unclear things? I can fix it or add it

In case you missed it above .


One of you guys find the threads you think go there and post the links. I will go through them and if I agree then I will move them to the new heading.

I added a few pictures of the Euro worms into the original post. One adult, a few intermediat and 2 babys.

ewest - I wrongly assumed that a person could search the whole PBF database. The search engine is set up to search by category, which is a tedious process. Perhaps Bob Lusk or a designee could add a search category "All Categories".

If that isn’t possible then each category will have to be searched individually using key words such, as “raising forage bait”. Norm may have some ideas on other key words that could be effective.

i second dwights comment about category specific searches is a pain.

all categories

surely ewest does all categories....

Just like you guys I search them as I think best. I try to narrow the search term to the most accurate and smallest field I can think of. If that does not work in the target category then try the next most likely one. At times there are things I can't find.

Another way is if you can remember who started the thread. Then look up topics they started from the directory.

Oh one trick is if you can recall the poster - narrow the search to their # or name and a key word.

That's the best advice for now.

ewest - ALL CATEGORIES search?

The vastest area you can search is all the topics in a group, like all 3 "Stocking a New Pond" topics or all 4 "Pond Construction" topics.

Of course, after you run a search with rather loose parameters and get a full limit of 300 hits (with ewest knows how many more NOT displayed), you realize it's not always a bad thing.

No all categories search that I am aware of - sorry.

ewest - The entire database of posts can be searched using Google's site search. As an example use the words "food bait chain" and you get 50 hits all at pondboss.com It is still a job, but looks like it can be done.

Thanks Dwight. I had not thought of using an outside search engine. I will give it a try.

ewest - Did you have a chance to try Google's site search?

Are Fatheads raisable in a tank or something seperate then the pond either with or without pond water or something like that? If anyone knows if fatheads are able to be raised I would be interested in finding out how.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000379#000000

Try this, Joey. If you put something they can spawn under and get the water temp right I'll bet you can raise thousands in this contraption. They'll eat floating pellets of any size. I'd like to see you try it.

Humm that tank looks good, either exact or something similar looks easy enough to make. But will they spawn? Well worse case senareo I got a good holding tank for the tiny fish or to feed train something. This pond has got me totally nuts. Its kinda sad that winter is just about here, I was just geting into it big time now I have to slow down. I got my little dock fish feed trained. I know to all you this is old hat but its amazing that when I started feeding the dock there was only a dozen ot so BG, now I got thousands at the dock waiting to eat. Its hilarious when they see me coming there are hundreds of wakes swiming to me.. heheh

A few weeks ago i bough fatheads, let half go and half went into a pen I made. I would say about 1/4 of those died but were sickly. The rest are striving in the pen and love the GFC, there getting fat and looking healthy. I want to try to raise Fatheads for my pond. In the spring and am going to make a sancuary out of 3/16 roll of SS pen roll, I will put all they need to spawn and see what happens. I am also gonna try something like the tank. I have well water here to but its kinda cold, would like to use pond water. First things first I will make a tank.

There are lots of good pictures and good information on construction in that thread. I will give you my personal guarantee that if you get the water temps right the fatheads WILL spawn. They are reproductive machines.

I was reading some of the threads on the mosquito fish. Maybe I should try to raise them first? Sounds like they could be a plus in the pond.

We kept Gambusia (MF) in a 70 gallon trough one Summer for mosquito control (go figure). They do live birth and had multiple batches of young there no problem. Since they were not fed, they ate most of them. If feed were provided, the number of MF should be higher, although I have no idea what their maximum density could be in a small tank.

Thanks Theo,

My thought is with my pond is to keep boosting the forage. Not really knowing exactly what I got in there, I have a good idea and feel I need more forage. If there comes a day when the forage is over crowded I wont harvst any bass till its resolved. Listen to me... heheh its all your guys info that makes me THINK I know what I am doing. If I can get the MF established that will be a small base then if I can get fathead somehow going its another, and I am focusing hard on boosting the sunfish, plus I am suplimenting the food chain with the pellets and harvisting all the unwanted species and 8 - 13 inch LMB, so hopefully I am making a dent twards balance.