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

When you look at the mouth of a HSB, even larger HSB, I really question what size fish they can actually fit in their mouths.

My biggest, and one of only two ever caught at our pond. But I never miss an opportunity to post it. Haha! Can’t see it eating a very big fish.

I put in 2 clumps of 3 Christmas trees tied together in my neighborhood pond.

I hope I didn't miss the YP spawn.

I have my pond down about 6' trying to get some cattails out and re-seal and it looks like my perch are going to do their thing before I get water back up.. Time to transfer some feed-trained YP I guess. I have managed to build 6 new piers now out of chuck concrete and limestone, added some extra smb nesting areas.
Some days I feel like I'm going backwards.

Snipe I understand. I keep adding cedar/pine brush piles, lots of work, no sign last 3 years of a spawn. Sunday made up for it, 3 families out to fish at our RV Park / Pay to fish ponds. One family, Uncle nephew team , nephew 10 yoa , a joy to watch. 2nd family,
Mm / Dad , and 18 yoa "mentally challenged " son spending afternoon together , the excitement , whoops and hollers of the son pulling out his 3rd Rainbow trout on power bait was just beautiful . Seeing kids catching fish , some catching their 1st fish is fantastic. I pray that my ponds are helping keep kids out of Handcuffs. Makes the hours of upkeep well worth it.

FA, I remember an old saying “ Take your son hunting and, later in life, you won’t have to be hunting for him.”. Same with fishing, cutting firewood, etc.”.

About 66 degrees ambient temps today with some wind. A bit brisk out with the wind.

Water level was high and murky with visibility maybe 6-8" or so.

Fish took to feed pretty quick.

Water clear to 40", rolled up on upper pond bout 40 minutes before sunset, fish feeding everywhere. Started scattering 6-7 lbs of Optimal mix of Trout & BG, Trout went into overdrive, a beautiful sight. As I left, turned on high beams and swept across a part of pond, fish locating feed in very last bit of sunset , rings covering pond. Worth every minute.

I helped a customer harvest fish yesterday. He's been lax about doing it and there is a tremendous biomass in the pond.We will have to do it again in a week or two.

Here's what we removed yesterday, all caught on a #8 hook and redworm under a bobber or on a 1/64th oz pink jig head and wax worm fished under a bobber

2 HSB 21"-22" right around 4# each
8 or so LMB all between 18"-19" and between 3.9 - 4.4 pounds
35 HBG 9"-10" between 15 oz and 1.25 pounds
12 YP between 1# and 1.25 pounds. All right around 13" give or take 1/2"

I had a fish hit a small white twister tail jig, or rather suck it up while it was swimming and it never changed it's swimming pace until the 2# line popped. It was like hooking to a boulder that was moving. Either a big channel cat, a big TGC or ???

esshup,

(I think a psychology question?)

Why has customer been lax about harvesting fish? It sounds like a great fishing pond!

Is the problem that the customer has been busy with "life" and has not been able to commit any time to harvesting at the pond, or is it that the customer thinks that more fish in the pond is always a better thing?

A little bit of both but more the former than the latter. He runs his own business and he really needs a secretary and bookkeeper.

There are SMB and WAE in there, along with IIRC 40 Koi that are 20"+ long now. All in a roughly 1/2 acre pond. He really has to work to keep the water quality up. I don't want Mother Nature to harvest any fish. Luckily the banks are really steep once below the waterline so there isn't much (if any) reproduction in the pond. No reproduction habitat.

Thanks for the update. Thought it was probably a blend of both, but also wanted to see if you had a problem of clients just not listening to your advice.

I also fail to get important work done at my property because I also need a good secretary and a good bookkeeper. Perhaps one of the new hybrids of chestnut trees will produce $20 bills as leaves and I will be able to be a "property manager" full time.

Finally got down to the water’s edge. Been a while since I took the time. I found one YP ribbon. Don’t know if that’s the first or last. Also, water is still pretty far down. Lowest I think I’ve seen it with YP ribbons in place.




I’m sure I still have a very small leak, but the water is down from pure lack of rain. When we do get some rain, it’s 1/4 to 1/2” and takes its time coming down.

On a leaf is not the optimal place for YP ribbons.

Do you have any better structure for the YP to "hang" their ribbons?

Yes. Lots of branches. But I would guess they lay them in the leaves 75% of the time. Possibly the deeper ribbons are on the cedar branches. I can’t see?

If they aren't laying them on the branches, maybe there is too much space between them, or the branches are too deep. How long have the cedars been in there?

Several years. They’ve always just ignored them. I do have a few pics of the ribbons in the branches. But most are just in the leaves.

Put dense cover in water deep enough so it's covered by 18"-24" water for them to drape their skeins on/over. Without that you will need to periodically re-stock YP.

I have read discussions of people on the forum pellet training their YP.

This is the first discussion I have seen of "branch training" the YP for the spawn!

SetterGuy, have you documented YP reproduction in your pond?

Yes. But numbers have continued to decline over the years. I’ve always thought it was possibly the large number of Golden Shiners we have in the pond. Before last seasons battle with the five friendly otters we were still catching little YP. But each years we’ve seen fewer and fewer ribbons. I think one year we had 20+. As esshup suggested above, I restocked last year. Still not catching YP like we used to. Maybe they’ll pick up again.

Thanks for the update, SetterGuy.

Hopefully, your new stocking will help. I still would like to hear about you having lots of ribbons next spring. YP are good forage for your bigger predators, and good eating when they themselves are large enough to be culled!

I forgot about your otter invasion. But I have read threads on Pond Boss detailing how brutally efficient the otters are at clearing out a pond. I suspect I am not the only creature that likes to eat YP!

Didn’t take me long to realize YP were my favorite fish to eat. It’s not just because they are so easy to clean, they taste very good.

We've got a few cold days in Western PA this week, so there's going to be no pond activity until the weekend, hopefully.

SetterGuy must have the same kind of YP I have. They ignore the branches. I have put all types of branches in all sides of the pond and in different depths. I may get a random egg strand on a branch but most are laid in the oak leaves in the shallows, very shallow looking just like SG's picture above. It always is on the South or SE side first. The date changes by a few days depending on factors I can't figure out. It may be photoperiod but it seems it is more like a combination of temperature, weather and other things tood.

I went around the pond yesterday and no ribbons yet. Like SG, I have less and less YP total (they are getting old), less ribbons, less successful fertilization. But the few large adult GSH I have left may be part of the issue. We'll see if our Pekin ducks will ignore the YP eggs or vacuum them up as fast as they can. They vacuum everything else out of the shallows leaving beautiful beach sand behind. Their favorite 'adaptation' is to become diving ducks now (google says they can't dive but ours have become experts at underwater foraging). They are seeking out my bumper crop of trapdoor snails and pop up with them. They must be a delicacy with the effort they put in to find and eat them (and squabble with each other over who gets to eat them).

I agree with Setterguy that it might just be time to restock and keep feeding them.

Glad to see your ducks enjoy escargot. I wonder if they would be decent alternative to RES for snail/parasite management in low fertility ponds?

Very interesting to hear your YP also place ribbons in leaves on the bottom. You also have poor recruitment like SetterGuy.

I was joking upthread about "branch training" YP for effective spawning. I wonder if you guys do have YP from a facility that harvested the eggs. Therefore, a poor spawner (in nature) could be passing on their genetic traits? Or could it even be a learned behavior? Young YP observe the larger YP leave ribbons on leaves on the bottom, so they do the same nearby?

Fascinating problem.

Agree that some new YP stock in the future would probably be a big benefit to your pond.