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

I love you guys.

I mean, not enough for a boat ride, but I love you guys.

I've been there a few times and I don't believe I've EVER been on a boat ride there.

I knew better than to get on the boat at Condello's that night........... ROFL

Yesterday, water temps were about 57/58 degrees in the neighborhood pond. All fish are still feeding aggressively.

Hope to get a several more days of feeding in the next 2-3 weeks.

Had a pretty good fisherman fish my pond last week. He caught 9 SMB in about five hours. Three were original stockers. Obviously bringing in some new lures helped. But how they were fished made a difference also. I’m still no where near pre otter days with SMB numbers, but there may be more left than I thought.
On a sadder note, our drought continues. Way behind on rain, pond is down 3’. Food plots for the deer and Turkey are doing poorly. Oh well, it has to rain again sometime, right?

It was so dry at my main pond that the bass were using the last bit of wet clay to make adobe bricks.

I believe they are creating new structure for the lake on the hopes that some fall/winter rains will bring the water level back up.

We in the same dry boat. Hope it rains soon or we won’t have a pond or trees

I fished in the pond for about 10 minutes. Caught 2 YP about 10: and one CC about 12". Either a CC swam out the overflow of the fish holding tanks or I had reproduction in the pond from the OLD CC that are in there. I have only seen 1 big CC in the pond in the last few years so I'm guessing that it was a 4"-6" CC that grew from this Spring. The CC was removed, the YP returned to the pond.

Fish still feeding in Western PA, but yesterday evening, it was a bit slow compared two days before.

Still expect a few more weeks of feeding.

Fish still feeding a little although not as voracious as they had been here in Central MO.
After stocking BC twice, as the first time didnt seem to have any in the pond so stocked again and still hadnt been able to catch one for nearly a yr, all of a sudden I am catching them regularly and looking really healthy and fat, then I caught one that was 14.5 inches long and right at a lb and a half and another that was just slightly smaller a few minutes later in the opposite end of the pond that must have been from the first stocking. was tickled to death!

14.5" is a nice crappie!!! Congratulations!!

Very nice! I still can’t get them started in my 6 acres…. Yesterday hung a 12” bass and a jumbo bass took it off hook but small guy looked like a mullet jumping out of water and escaped. Jumbo was the reason I can’t seem to get the crappie going

Just hanging out at the pond. I’ve got a cold, so sitting around is the order of the day. Lots of weeds grew up as the water level dropped. Pond is down 3’ now. We do have rain in the forecast for the next five days. Fingers crossed.
All those weeds had nice pretty white flowers. Note to self, those pretty white flowers all turn into stick tights. Agh!

Thanks!
Ive caught quite a few 15s 16s and even a 17 one time, but this was a nice healthy looking fish, thick, my cousin that was with me had a fit, he hadn't ever seen a BC that big.

PW, you are probably right about them big bass hurting your BC populations but in the past I haven't noticed that problem too much, the BC hang out further out in deeper water so they dont seem to be decimated too bad by the LMB, I have seen some trophys of each species coming out of the same not real big BOW.
Them big, high single weight class of LMB are a lot of fun to catch, but the older I get the better I love my 12 13" mess of BC to catch and eat, damn they are good eating! I can only imagine how much fun a double digit LMB would be, Ive never hooked anything over 8 lbs.

G big bass are a blast to catch but I still would rather be able to catch more than maybe one crappie in a few hours of fishing. There for a while you could catch dozens on less than an hour but no more. Will remove every LMB over three # when water cools down so I can release in my. Neighbors lake

G big bass are a blast to catch but I still would rather be able to catch more than maybe one crappie in a few hours of fishing. There for a while you could catch dozens on less than an hour but no more. Will remove every LMB over three # when water cools down so I can release in my. Neighbors lake[/quote]

I know that feeling, I have 15 acres with tons, almost too much, cover and brush piles, and love my BC fishing but haven't been able to catch any for two yrs, not even one to let me know they were there, till all of a sudden, in the last months, I been catching them regularly all the time, and haven't changed any fishing strategy or baits.

I consider myself to pretty decent at catching them, and have had several buddies that are real good at catching them, help me, fished them hard many times and never caught one, to the point I was pretty sure they weren't in there, then low and behold, one day they just started biting and now I can cast to a brush pile or two from the dock and catch a dozen in an hr, just small yet, around 9", most of them, without even getting in the boat. That was my goal, or dream.

I fished my pond for the first time 2 nights ago (constructed fall of 2022) for about 15 minutes with my girls. We caught 5 YP (11", 11", 10.75", 10.75", and 10") and 4 SBS (9", 9", 9", and 8"). The 11" YP and the 9" SBS were both a pound on the Boga (I need to get a nice digital scale for better accuracy). I started out with a vibric rooster tail and caught the first 11" YP, then switch to worms under a float and it was fast and furious! Culled all fish except the fattest 9" SBS, they made wonderful fish tacos last night!

My pond is between and 1/8th and 1/4 acre, currently trying to see how big I can get the YP and SBS. YP should hopefully be all female and I should be down to 32 of them, and down to 17 SBS. The YP started at 6-8" in March with 7 bonus bigger ones from Bill. I believe these that I caught to be from the 30 6-8"ers. The SBS were about 6-7" and went in in May, and are considerably fatter than they started.

This has been such a great experience learning from this community, and the family got to find out last night why I chose those tasty (not so anymore) little buggers.

My side by side Mule has been down for about 2 weeks, so I have neglected to feed.

Neighborhood water temp was 51 degrees, and the fish were ready to hit feed, but in lower numbers, and on the less aggressive side. Saw bluegill, some HSB, and possibly some catfish all hitting feed. Saw a LMB also.

At my neighbor, Lee's pond, water temp was 48/49 degrees, and there was little to no feed activity. I fished with meal worms and small night crawlers, but never caught anything. Had three bites, but couldn't seal the deal. May try again tomorrow over there.

My water temp was 51 at the surface, 52 three feet down last night. Some BG were feeding kind of lightly.

If you can't ride around on your Mule, maybe Al will lend you a goat to ride around on between your ponds?

Lee's pond has aeration that they run 24/7, and I think that accounts for the differences in water temps between his pond and my neighborhood pond.

That would work!!! Need to rig up some saddle bags....

Fish are still feeding in Western PA as of yesterday, Nov. 5, '23.

Feeding was light but steady. I saw Bluegill and HSB hitting the feed. LMB were present but not feeding. Can't say I saw any Channel Cats or Blue Cats feeding.

I didn't make it back to Lee's pond to fish.

I put the boat in yesterday and pulled the deep diffuser. I shut the air down a couple weeks ago.
Later today I'll re-rig the diffuser in shallow water. When the surface temps to hit the low 40°s
I'll start it back up.

Yesterday we cleaned out the pump house. Deflated all of Mrs. Augie's float tubes/rafts/etc. and packed
them away for the winter. She had three old bicycles and some kid toys in there too. We pulled that stuff
out and some other misc. junk that she had shoved in there over the summer and moved all of it to more
appropriate storage. For the first time in awhile I can see the floor in there. A colony of japanese lady
beetles moved in for the winter but I've got a surprise planned for them later today... a good coating of
seven dust and a thrill ride into the shop vac will send them out in style.

Surface temp is 54°, 49° at 10'. Fish are still feeding with slightly less gusto than they were a month ago,
but they are still cleaning up a gallon of Optimal pellets in <10 minutes.

There are a few sprouts starting on the dam that need to be lopped and given a Tordon bath.

anyone in northern Indiana or Ohio or southern MI still have living tilapia in their ponds? We had a little warm spell this weekend and I saw one lonely turtle basking on my turtle floats. I've been a bit late in bringing them in hoping that the turtles might still use them.

The other strange observation is that our peking duck pair enjoyed the whole pond this spring and early summer but then mid summer only would swim around the edges. My observant daughter insisted that this behavior change happened at the same time that we spotted a new snapper in the pond. We were not successful in spotting the snapper often and could not catch it while fishing. However once water got cold enough that we didn't see turtles anymore the ducks are back to swimming around in the middle of the pond. They also enjoy climbing up on the turtle floats sometimes too.

I wonder if they sense the snapper or get harassed by it sometime. I wish I had been able to remove the snapper now, maybe next spring.

As much as I'd like to see it, I like Sunil too much to put him on a saddle. Merle's already got his winter cashmere in full bloom, and we bought him a really nice Australian horse blanket for our Jan/Feb subzero temps. He wasn't happy when we put it on to say the least.