Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Superb resource---thanks

Greetings. I stumbled across Pond Boss recently and spent hours engrossed in the wealth of information you share. It was like Christmas morning because I recently converted a 1/4 acre pond into a 1.5 acre pond that is now fed by a constantly-running stream.

Located in central WV, far back in a "holler," my farm came with a small man-made, leaky pond that was fed only by a wet-weather stream. During wet seasons, water flowed through for weeks, but in summer, the water level fell as much as four feet, leaving a muddy, ugly hole that was very stressful on the fish who had to survive in only 4' of water.

In the same holler, a small stream flowed through, but was not a water source for the original pond. So, after much planning (and saving $$), we contracted an experienced pond builder to move a million tons of soil and use the natural sides of the ravine as the sides of the new pond, which is now fed by the stream as well as the original wet-weather runoff source.

We totally rebuilt the original dam, making it much larger (250 ' wide at the bottom and 60' wide across the top) and added a 12' wide X 4 ' deep concrete spillway with a bridge across the top. The dam is about 180' long.

The new pond has a pier which is 8' X 42' with a 16' covered T at the end, and we roped off and added sand to a small area beside the pier for family swimming. All this took place in late August, and thanks to a series of heavy thunderstorms that came through the area in September, the pond filled completely within several weeks of completion. The muddy water soon settled, leaving a beautiful, clear pond that reflected all the color of the fall leaves from the surrounding ridges.

We took great care to save as many of the fish as possible when we "cut over" the old pond into the new, and it appears that we have a small population of channel catfish, bluegill, and largemouth bass that survived.

The new pond averages about 6' deep with a few places close to 8'. Where the stream feeds in, water is about 4' deep and backs up 40 yards into the stream bed. There are now trees, stumps and grass submerged in the feeder stream which will offer great cover for the fish.

Natural minnows live in the feeder stream and I quickly began seeing them making their way into the pond. However, I need to supplement this with an abundance of FH minnows and shiners prior to stocking LMB and perch this spring. I'm not sure if I can accomplish this over the winter, so feedback is appreciated. Can minnows be stocked during winter months?

During the construction process, we added some structure to the pond basin, stacking several piles of rocks in certain areas and submerging two big tree stumps with rootballs in the center of the pond. I plan to send a couple Christmas trees to the bottom after the holidays.

It is our hope that within several years, we can have a pond full of fish for the kids and grandkids to enjoy, as well as a place of serenity and beauty for us to watch sunsets and observe wildlife.

Now that I've found Pond Boss, I'm sure the information you offer will help make this dream a retirement reality.

Thanks.
Dave
Wild & Wonderful

Welcome and hang around. Got any pics of the pond?

Welcome Dave. You will find a friendly and helpful group here. Plus, you are amongst neighbors.

I'm about 20 miles west of Winchester, VA in High View, WV. We also have Todd over in the Clarksburg area. There are a number of others close by in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Photos would be great.

Again -- welcome.

Ken

Welcome to PB and posting. One way you could help is to post a few pics of your pond showing what you explained. Others here might get a new idea or two. You can stock FH now. What size were the LMB , CC and BG that were left and how many ?

Here are a few photos of my pond, spillway, bridge, dam, and the feeder stream. It was a big project but turned out great. Now it's time to grow some fish.
Dave

You can stock fatheads now but they won't reproduce until next spring. If you stock them now what predator fish you do have may deplete them a little before they get a chance to spawn. Personally I would wait.

Love your pond! However you may want to consider some aeration next year to counter the annual influx of decomposing leaves.

nice package; love the spillway...terrific job

I would second what Cecil recommended on the aeration. You will have lots of leaves. Awesome pond looks great..

Beautiful location and great work. Thanks for the pics - some good ideas on the spillway system.

I would add some FH now and be ready to add more in the spring. The fish there need some food so they can be in condition to spawn this spring. How many and what size were the LMB, CC and BG that remained?

Beautiful place! Welcome to Pond Boss, we're glad you found us.

Ken,
Thanks for the feedback. I hope you were able to see the photos I posted. I'm still new to this process and unsure whether I am going about it properly. It was great to get so much feedback so quickly. This really is a great group.

Dave

Dave,
I posted some pix of the pond yesterday. I hope you were able to find them. I'm still new to this process.

Thanks.
Dave in
Wild & Wonderful (WV)

Thanks for the kind feedback. The spillway got far more expensive than planned and ended up taking 36 cubic yards of fiber-concrete (ouch $$). But I told the contractor not to skimp on the spillway because it is probably the most important and most vulnerable place on the site. By all estimates of those who have lived in the "holler" for 50+ years, this spillway will handle more water than they've ever seen coming down the small feeder stream.

Based on my visual inventory of the fish in the original pond (before we cut it over to the new part), I estimate saving the following:
2 CC in the 25" range
2 Grass Carp about 25 to 30"
6 LMB from 6-12"
8 SMB from 6-14"
12 BG
2 goldfish about 14"

I netted and added about 100 minnows from a stream pool during the construction process because the hold-over fish didn't have much food. We also supplemented that with fish pellets.

Two years ago we had at least 15 CC bigger than 20" in the old pond, but in the past year that population either died off or was poached. I never saw any signs of dead CC or evidence that anyone had been fishing there in my absence. We always catch and release so I really don't know what happened to the other CC. I know the old pond had too many CC and probably not enough minnows to support them. The CC never reproduced because we never saw any small ones. They must have kept the bass population down, because we never seemed to catch LMB bigger than 12" and the bass population didn't seem to increase in the original pond. With that in mind, I don't plan to add any more CC to the new pond, but instead will concentrate on building the LMB population.

Thanks again for your feedback.
Dave

CC are very smart. The more times you catch them the less likely you are to catch them again. Some people say if you hook one you'll never hook it again. So your catch and release policy with the CCs might mean that you still have most of the 15 you had earlier. They're just too hook shy for you to catch them anymore.

Even if the CC can't be caught a 2nd time, their shyness rubs off on the ones that haven't been caught already. I'm having a heck of a time getting the 100 out of my pond that I stocked Spring 2009.

Did you do catch and release with your CCs, esshup?

I caught and released two that were 14#-15# (there should be 4 like that in the pond and when I released them I tagged them with a numbered floy tag). The same year that I stocked the 100 CC (Spring)at 6"-9" I C&R 4 or 5 of them earlier in the year. Towards the end of 2009 (after I found PB) I decided that I wanted to stock HSB, but was concerned about the biomass of fish in the pond, so I decided to catch out all the CC (which were a PITA to catch) and replace that biomass with HSB.

This year I tried to hit the CC hard, but didn't go to the extent of buying a fyke net. I had an 80 hook trotline in the pond most of the year, had people over to fish strictly for CC at night, etc. I ended up removing about 25 CC, which still leaves about 80 CC in the pond. This pond varies in surface area from 1 to 1 3/4 ac depending on the water table height.

I feed and aerate, the CC went from 6"-9" in the Spring of 2009 to 13" to 6# (didn't measure it) this year. I fin clipped all the stocked CC in 2009, so I can tell if there is any reproduction in the pond. If I hadn't fin clipped them, I would have thought the 13" one was a spawned fish. I guess that one just didn't have the "grow" gene in it.

I pulled the trot line today, and took off one last CC. It's 19.5" long and weighs 4.3#. I hadn't re-baited the trot line in a week nor checked it after going almost 3 weeks without a bite.

I used Hotdogs, beef liver, shrimp, dip baits, cut up BG and GSH, crayfish and nightcrawlers. Hotdogs caught the most fish this year, followed by beef liver and shrimp.

The plan is to catch all the CC out except the 4 biggest ones -those are easy to determine, they should be around 30" and 15# now.

Thanks for the background info, esshup. Have you found that the CCs are easier to catch when you haven't fed them in a while? Or maybe you never turn the feeder off. Just wondering.

Dave,

I looked at the photos. You've got a beautiful place.

If I can be of any assistance, please let me know.

Keep posting.

Ken

Mom -- is that you??

Hello, Dave, and welcome from another West Virginian! I'm in Clarksburg, so perhaps not too far from you. You've gotten some great input so far, but keep coming with any questions you've got. Consider posting them in other threads on the forum for better exposure and more answers. I love the pictures you posted - absolutely beautiful looking place! And that's one heck of a spillway! Welcome to Pond Boss (make sure you subscribe to the magazine right away, too!).

Nathan:

I found that having the feeder on seemed to *maybe* incease the catch rate on the portion of the trotline that was by the feeder by a slight amount. Stopping the feeder actually dropped the catch rate, but I was catching them so infrequently that it was hard to tell.

Next year I'll put the trotline back in and keep a written record.

The trotline was roughly 300' long, and had hooks approx. every 3 feet. I ran it from shore to shore across the pond, from right by the feeder, to the furthest point away from the feeder. In the center of the line I placed a 1/2 gal milk jug to pick up the line from the bottom. At that point it was suspended 3' below the surface. I caught that big one in the pic mid way between the float and the furthest point away from the feeder.

I caught CC in 18" of water right next to shore to the deepest part of the trotline. I caught CC on a hook that was right beneath the float in the center of the pond. I found that CC used the whole pond in their travels, and the whole water column as well. I did aerate during the summer, so good O2 levels were thru the whole water column. The most CC that I caught in a day from the 90 or so hooks that I had out were 5, and I could go 2+ weeks without a bite. I was using Gamagatsu and Owner 2/0 and 3/0 circle hooks on the trotline. I will need to replace the hooks for next year, they rust and lose their sharpness when in the water for that length of time.

Todd,
Thanks for the reply. We're southwest, about 65 miles from Clarksburg. I will do as you suggest and post on other PB threads too. I have many questions that need to be answered before spring.

Dave

Well, as we both know, 65 miles in the Mountain State could take hours to drive!

Dave, if you take a look in the Archive section, you can attain almost a Graduate degree in this stuff.