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

Beautiful CNBG Al.

Friday morning I was sitting near the pond when this guy came by and attacked my jake decoy.

Nice!

Saw 2 toms in the woods today. We have too few birds for me to hunt them yet.

Beautiful bird Setterguy. Congratulations.
We are allowed here in Colorado to have our dog with us when we turkey hunt. So my turkey CRAZY Australian shepherd sits at my side as I call in the toms. We called in a beauty with his harem two weeks ago. Gypsy gets to race to the tom after the shot and begin the plucking process.
This morning was opening day in Utah. We travelled over to some habitat we'd wanted to scout. I haven't bought an out of state license yet, but after this morning I'm thinking it's a good idea. I got responses from 8 gobblers and saw 3 others that were spooked by the truck because they were 35 yards off the road. What a productive morning. The very best thing is not one hunter was out there. This is all public land. Incredible.
I'm hoping to go back and actually hunt.
BTW, I'd have to say your bird is "all wet".

We have been continuously discouraging possums and raccoons from hanging around our place, and turkey numbers have increased. Most mornings we could hear five or six gobblers, and the game cameras showed groups of up to a dozen. They had a decent hatch last year. Hopefully even better this year. After the big wind storm last winter knocked down 100s of trees, there’s a lot of cover. We’ve even got a few quail.

Ha! It was raining pretty good. They don’t seem bothered by the rain at all. Unlike myself.
That is amazing to find that many birds on public ground. I was in western Nebraska last September. Lots of birds out there. Missouri’s turkey population is actually way down from 20 years ago.

With fur prices so low, our trapper friend can only sell the large raccoon pelts. Too many raccoons, possums, and skunks! We too have a lot of dead trees down due to ash borer. Will lose all the ash.

Well after two long years, our renovated lake can officially be declared full once again after last night's heavy rains. I am a bit worried that our overflow may be too high. I have less than a foot of depth left until water is over the far end of our dock. After work I am heading to the other end to get a look at the spillway which takes care of our overflow. (we don't have a pipe)

The guy we hired to do our work swears he didn't touch the spillway but he did push trees and brush across it which may have dropped some dirt and leveled it off a little higher. I'm hoping we won't have to make an adjustment and dig it down now that the grass is established and growing strong there.

It used to work perfectly and never cut into the ground with the grass growing there. I hope we can maintain the same thing. There's more rain coming and sooner or later here this Spring, we should know for sure.

Nice Bird! I have heard that the rain actually does mess with their vision, its so sharp that their eyes actually pick up the raindrops thus impairing their vision.
We definitely have fewer birds then we had 15 yrs ago, I have made a huge effort to reduce the number of varmints in the area, I had a huge flock, over thirty birds, get together in front of my game cameras last Dec but hardly see more then a few at a time since, all winter, and even less during the turkey season.

Added 130# of crawfish today, lowest price this season & it's probably not going to get much lower. Maybe this will help feed my LMB, as they are still a bit underweight, relative weight is 90. One plus: Wr is lowest for my smallest LMB, steadily improves as they get bigger. 107 for 21 inch plus...but there were only three of them in that size range shocked up last week.

Double liming really helped bloom and alkalinity. First time I've ever had alkalinity over 50, though it took two truckloads of lime to get there.

Now looking at (too) expensive artificial habitat. I can see huge numbers of YOY CNBG that I'd like to help survive to be a full LMB meal. Maybe the crawfish will help divert LMB predation for a while. If not, I'll have to eat some spicy boiled crawfish myself to show them how it's done!

Pulled some weeds, caught a couple of fish.

Nice RES and SMB Shorty.

Nice healthy looking fish Shorty, do I see a Charlie Brewer slider jig in that redears mouth? thats my exact setup for panfish and have caught nearly everything on them with a variation of colors.

It's a Strike King "Ned Rage Bug", it's 2-1/2" long and I was targeting smallies. It looks like a small crawdad.

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Strike_King_Rage_Ned_Bug/descpage-SKRNB.html

After stocking crawfish, I gotta use some of those lures

Strike King rage tail craws is my go to for bass, they kinda pricey but by golly the LMB seem to prefer them, your hits will slow way down if you switch over to another brand of fake craw.
I will have to try some of those, theres somthing about the shaping of the flappers on a Strike King that give it an extra life like flapping when pulled thru the water at a proper speed,, very realistic looking.

Didn't actually do anything physical with the pond this weekend other than marveling at how nice everything appears while sitting on my deck with some cold beer.

The massive rains we got during the week super filled my pond. The water came up over the dock for a day or so. More was coming in than going out. Our curiosity was finally satisfied as to how full it would be once the outflow equilibrated the surface level. When it settled, it's about one inch below the platform of the dock. You could literally ride a kayak off the water on to the dock. Its a bit higher than I am comfortable with but I will see how the water settles from here and ride it on out for awhile.

The algae seems to have lessened but right now the water is brown from the heavy inflow. I've noticed this Spring as the pond has been filling that each time the level would rise, we would get a burst of algae. I think the newly inundated shoreline must be pretty fertile. I am not going to worry about it for now. Only once did it seem to get pretty extensive and after treatment with Cutrine and installing the aeration it has yet to get like that again.

We walk the banks and look for any sign of fish life. We started feeding right after we put the fish in a couple weeks ago but after a few days and no takers, I decided to pause for awhile. I finally spotted two fish after the flooding. One was a bluegill or redear fry that was in a spillway puddle. I tried to chase it back into the pond but lost sight of it. The other fish was a dead FHM laying on the dock when the water receded off of it.

My oldest daughter stopped by yesterday. She's itching to go fishing. I told her to bring very tiny hooks if she's that desperate. I will be trying to catch a few as the summer goes on though. I want to check their growth and health.

SherWood, you must have done a good job raising your oldest daughter if she likes fishing!

Doesn't sound like you lost many fish to the overflow. Typically, small BG are most likely to try to escape during flood events. After my first flood receded, we saw literally hundreds of small panfish drying on the spillway. No big ones, no bass.

I was a single parent when she and her twin brother were very young. If I wanted to fish, I'd have to take them with me so they started at about age 3. It was hilarious how well they could handle a rod and reel. Then my second wife, who won me over by being a skilled angler, had a daughter with me and we had her fishing very early as well.

With the kids in tow, our allowed family crappie limits were so much more generous, LOL.

I put another 100 4” YP. We still don’t see as many as we used to. I tried adding in some more shiners to help the YP survive. (Even though we have a lot of shiners in there now).
I didn’t see any ribbons again this year, but pond level was coming up at that time. From 18” down to full)
We just used to catch a fair number of them, and they were our favorites on the table.
So I keep trying.

Sounds like a good addition to your pond.

Hopefully you can get a good number of those YP up to table fare sizes!

Throwing feed in on pier in about 4’ water there is a 5-7# lmb that gives the bg what for…. Knocking them out of the water…. Not sure she is catching any but she has been there almost every day at various times … wanting to rid of a bunch of bg…. Fun to watch

Picked up some feed and started the season hand feeding. Had good participation in all the ponds except the sediment pond where recent rains made it pretty turbid. Lots of 2-3# CC that need harvested this year. The SMB pond had good activity. Even the forage pond that had quite a few of the HSB we raised last year quite a few came to feed. Took them longer than fish in other ponds and was beginning to wonder, but once a couple hit the top of the water it was game on. My fish have not forgot the thumping sound of the Polaris as the dinner bell.

Run the aeration for an hour of so, then turned it off. Will spend some time tomorrow bringing it on line.

John, did the SMB learn to feed pretty quickly, or did it take longer than the BG?