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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 4,596 Likes: 36
Lunker
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OP
Lunker
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 4,596 Likes: 36 |
Any opinions as to whether or not having leeches in your pond is good or bad? We have a very small variety in our pond, 1/2" in length, dark gray, with two black stripes running down it. Every summer there is about 6-8 week period where almost every LMB has several leeches attached to the inside of its mouth. When it starts to cool down the leeches disappear and the LMB mouths start to heal up rather quickly. I am not real concerned about it but thought it might be interesting to discuss the pros and cons of having leeches present in the pond with fish.
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 20,043 Likes: 1
Hall of Fame Lunker
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Hall of Fame Lunker
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 20,043 Likes: 1 |
Shorty,
Sounds like you have the parasitic kind that feed on live fish. I've seen that a couple times in my warmwater pond several years ago but not for some time.
Draining my trout pond recenty I saw many of the kind that are used for bait for primarily walleye. Wish I could have collected them. They are excellent bait and I know the trout ate them as I had at least one spit one out after capture.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
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Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 24
Lunker
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Lunker
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 24 |
Shorty, what other fish species do you have in the pond? I would think that a strong panfish population would decrease that sized leech. Copper sulfate is sometimes used as an invertebrate kill all.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 4,596 Likes: 36
Lunker
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OP
Lunker
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 4,596 Likes: 36 |
We have lots of BG, maybe a few smallmouth, a few CC, and few grass carp. I really don't think the leeches are much of a problem, I do think the BG eat their fair share of the leeches. I also think the LMB do as well but with the larger mouth they do not get all of them get down the hatch. We also have quite the variety of weeds which I feel is more of a problem for the fish but that is whole other thread, it does however lead to fairly high denisities of both BG and LMB and possibly a higher abundance of small leeches and snails.
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Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 4,596 Likes: 36
Lunker
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OP
Lunker
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 4,596 Likes: 36 |
Here is a 15-16" LMB I caught Saturday, the dark spot on the roof of it's mouth is a small leech roughly a 1/4" in length. The bass seemed to be healthy.
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