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#21138 12/29/04 04:36 PM
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I just found this great site. I live 30 minutes south of redding california. In 1996 I bought forty acres with an existing 3 acre pond. In 2000 I drained the pond and started over. I added lots of manzinita and oak laydowns for structure. I also built a very large pier, for the purpose of structure and a place to hinge the 22ft walkway for the dock. water comes from runoff and flucuates 8-10 feet during the year. 22ft at full pool. I stocked bluegill and bass. Started floating food feeder jan 04. amazing bluegill growth. bass are doing well. Is their some pond owners on the west coast that have some experience in adding other forage species??? fish and game told me to consider the japenese pond smelt. soft spine and does well on the west coast. I want to plant threadfin but im told they wont survive our winters?? water temps of mid-forties?? I also want to explore introducing crawdads?? my goal is to develop an extreme private bass fishery with 1-3's common with great chances at 5-8's, with a ten showing once or twice a year. I would really enjoy the opportunity to send someone some pictures for some feedback. Thanks, Allen Cordy in Nor-Cal

#21139 12/29/04 05:17 PM
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I have a similar sized pond in Mendocino County with a similar draw down in the summer. I have LMB,and Bluegill and have attempted to add other forage. The only thing that has survived is small quantities of mosquito fish. The bass and bluegill are pretty effective in wiping everything else out! I have very good growth and production and I would guess that if your bluegill population is healthy you have adequate forage for your bass. My pond is 5 years old and I have lots of large bluegills and a pond record of 6.5 lb LMB. I know that is not spactacular but I'm pleased and I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few larger ones in there. My biggest chore is culling the bluegills to avoid overcrowding and stunting. I have also stopped feeding - didn't seem like it made a lot of sense to keep it up, but I may start again if I notice a drop in size.
Jim

#21140 12/30/04 02:13 PM
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Allen,

Many folks may disagree with the following comments, but I base this on my own experience:

I fully understand your goals and at one time had similar ones. I built a 3.5 acre bass pond, outfitted it with great structure, established forage, and spared no expense to achieve those goals. Now, four years later, I have learned that my goals were not realistic in a couple of very disappointing aspects. First, LMB "learn" especially in a closed pond environment and become virtually impossible to catch (on artificials/flys) if you fish for them. Some of the experts here have said you can only fish them once or twice a year if you expect to minimize "learning". Second, establishing the forage base required to support and grow large bass in a small pond virtually guarantees that the bass are well fed and will not be tempted by the regular fisherman.

What's the answer, I haven't found it. I like to catch fish from my ponds, not observe them. I'm building more ponds, in an effort to reduce pressure on individual ponds...and I'm scaling back on my expectations. I do not choose to scale back on fishing, another possible alternative.

Best of luck to you and I do hope you achieve your goals.

#21141 12/30/04 02:38 PM
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I completely agree with Meadowlark's assessment, but it does seem that on some of our less pressured ponds we can rotate presentations annually and still keep the catch rates reasonable. I believe it is absolutely true though, that ponds that are managed for maximum growth rates are significantly more difficult to produce high CPUE's (catch/unit effort). Keep in mind that fish which attain large size on artificial feed can be "induced" to bite by turning off the feeders. ;\)


Holding a redear sunfish is like running with scissors.
#21142 12/30/04 03:05 PM
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CPUE's...I like that term Bruce and it certainly has relevance. Turning off my feeders simply makes my BG hungry and easier for me to catch, but doesn't do anything for the LMB...now Hybrid Striped Bass, I'm hoping that technique will work on them.

#21143 12/30/04 04:08 PM
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I agree with you guys about the LMB learning baits. In my case, I have to use new stuff every year to catch the veterans. Have to admit that they do get harder to catch, but then that's part of the fun of it. I also find that varying the hours that I fish can improve the catch, top water baits at sunset have been pretty dependable over the years.
Happy New Year ALL
JIm

#21144 12/30/04 07:48 PM
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A friend and I learned a good lesson recently. We were ice fishing for y.perch. My friend changed from a jigging rapala to a Swedish pimple. Perch went "nuts" for it and were hiting it even without bait for about 4 or 5 hooked fish, then they started getting hook smart. We could watch them on the fish finder. More and more gradually, fish started shying away from the lure. Until after about 12-20 minutes of using the Swedish pimple, numerous fish would just approach the even natural, bait, tipped lure, fish would pause, get a good look, and then turn away. These fish were not just previously caught. These fish seemed to have become cautious from watching the other fish get "jaw jerked" and dissapear. Some think a scent is released by some types of fish that others recognize and this affects behavior. It didn't take neighboring perch long to "figure out" they now did not like the once attractive lure. The water was even clear enough that we could watch the fish's behavior when the lure was re-lowered to the bite zone. When they became cautious several fish would quickly approach the reintroduced lure and when one fish decided to turn away others would also turn and swim away from the lure. What we don't know is how long fish are able to remember their experiences. I personally think this ability or condition is an individual by individual variable among fishes similar to humans or other animals. Some "forget" quickly (dumb) and a few others take quite awhile longer to forget (smarter) while a lot of the others fall in-between the two extremes. I also think it has to do with how often the fish are conditioned or exposed to one type of lure or fishing method.

It is thought that the dumbest and or the fastest growing / most aggressive fish are the first to bite in a new fishery or year class of fish. Often most of these fish are harvested and the gene pool for this feature or behaviour
is then removed from the breeding population. This then tends to produce over time ever increasing smarter fish in that body of water.

In the past, I have seen similar behavior with LMB and bluegills.


aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine -
America's Journal of Pond Management

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