Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction What did you do at your pond today?

Rusto,

I knew you were looking at some more building projects for your pond.

However, the mountains you have built in the background are magnificent! Keep up the good work.

It has been really difficult to stay in the office all day with the warm weather and low winds this week.

Dont fish very often but this weather begged me to. Caught like 5 little crappie and 2 bass. Does this looked stunned? I culled all of them but this one. Always heard that your supposed to throw 1st one back.

Rusto, I wouldn't say 'stunted,' but I would say it's not a hog.

Maybe a 2-year old fish?

Well, first one is usually a very aggressive fish, and you want to keep these genes in the pond. Sometimes I'll throw back a so-so fish if it is super aggressive in terms of biting & fighting.

Nope, not stunted by any means. We still have ice on the ponds, although I don't know if I'd trust walking on it.

I tossed out some feed for the first time today and was pleased to see them hitting it as soon as I did. I would of liked to been able to stayed and watched but had to get to work.

I thought about trying a little feeding but didnt have any with me when I was at the pond, we had a few really nice warm days earlier in the week, good to know they are starting.

I did some real X-mas tree work at my neighborhood pond today. 68 degrees in Western PA.

I threw some feed, and it took about 20 minutes, and then there was light but steady feeding. Water was kind of muddy. Saw a few bluegills.

I didn't take the water temp. It was in the 20's last night, I believe.

I fed again today and had a lot of action. Today I had time to walk down to the shallow end and was surprised to see how hard they was hitting it.

Found another thing interesting on reddit today.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ReallyInte..._medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Snipe can fill us in how that happens with Walleye. Most of the organizations that I know that do that don't kill the fish, they are just stripped of the eggs and milt and released back into the BOW.

There's a whole lot of science that is done in the video that isn't explained, to do that would probably double or triple the length of the video. I'm pretty sure those are Chum Salmon.

For information about gathering, collecting and fertilizing walleye(WE) eggs see this article in Pond Boss Magazine Jan-Feb 2020.
HATCHING WALLEYE IN KANSAS. Sanderson and Lusk team up to show how KS DNR spawn walleye.

Yeah, we try and keep everything alive. Maybe 25-30 morts a year but that's out of several thousand walleye in 3 weeks time.
Fertilization techniques have changed Thanks to aquatic invasive species but for the most part the article in Pond Boss still stands true as far as walleye.

It finally warmed up enough here in Misery to melt some of the ice off of my bait pond.
Until last week there hadn't been any open water back there since the end of December.
I took a look at it before the ice was completely gone, and noticed several dead BG.
Also noticed a few not dead BG that swam up to see what I was doing.
Went back there again yesterday afternoon. All of the ice is gone now, and I didn't see
any dead fish. Saw one live fish, a ~6" BG that was badly infected with that white fungus stuff.
I tossed a couple handfuls of Optimal BG, but nobody came up to eat it. Shallow as that pond is,
after 8 weeks under ice I'm a bit surprised that any of the fish in that pond are still alive.

Haven't found a free minute to drop a line in the cow pond since the ice came off of it.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing what the Snipe strain YP are looking like now.
There ought to be a dozen or so that are >16".

Augie,

I am hoping to build a bait/forage pond this year at about the same latitude (Kansas) as you.

What is the depth and surface area of your bait pond? Sounds like BG can overwinter in it but with heavy stress. I would probably need to get 1-2' deeper.

40'x80', ~4' deep for most of its length, then a gradual slope up to the bank.

8 weeks of ice without a break is very unusual for my part of Misery.

I don't think I lost any fish in that pond last winter, at least none that I noticed.

Thanks.

I think I will do the paint roller pan for the shape and try to get the deep end down to around 6'.

Chased a dzn geese of it today. Will keep an eye on it tomorrow.

I've been seeing ducks so I know the geese will be showing up soon.

I would have liked to gone a couple feet deeper, but the soil conditions at the time I built that one simply wouldn't allow it.
That creek bottom gumbo was getting super punchy by the time I called it good. I was afraid that if I kept digging I was going
to break through and wind up in the soup. That would have been embarrassing because I'd have had to call good neighbor
Dave to come over with one of his big John Deeres to pull me out, and then for the next 20 years I'd have to listen to him tell
the story about that time I got stuck and he had to come save me. lol

Thanks again Augie,

My plans are generally based upon; determine the optimum situation from Pond Boss, and then apply that as much as the actual ground conditions will allow.

My planned ponds are mostly out in the middle of a grass field. The final pond dimensions will be accommodating to either favorable or unfavorable soil conditions.

At some point I will be excavating on wet clay. I have already arranged with my "big HP tractor" neighbor to pull me out if (when) I get stuck.

I will be much less embarrassed to make the call since I have given him prior notice that I was going to push the limits and almost certainly get stuck!

Have been riding my pond of LMB 3-5# to help keep a few more BCP from being munched. 7-8 so far and all the 10-15” ones that I catch- about 20 so far, most being released in my neighbors 25 ac pond.

Pat, sounds like a win-win situation for both ponds to me.



P.S. Only on Pond Boss do I see 3-5# LMB considered an undesirable fish!

Trying to rid of bigger ones also 6-10# , seems to a bunch of them. Seeing lots of explosions in shallows. It’s a problem that lots of folks would like to have…. Lol