Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Rotenone - Nothing like that smell

Nothing like the smell of rotenone in the mourning (play on words). We have been renovating pond 3 for a while - more on that later - a lot of work. With the pond drawn down to about 20% of its full pool size (its been there off and on for several years) it was time to nuke the unwanted residents. As Sunil would say - oh the carnage. Here are some pics. There were thousands of dead fish and I only netted a few for pics.


Bunch of BG




The whole bunch (less biggest LMB)




Another view (less biggest LMB)




First blood




Perspective




Biggest LMB




Big cat and LMB (LMB about 10 lbs)they both drew blood even near dead






Try to id the fish in the whole crew.

Oh, the humanity.

Oh, the brutality.

"..in the mourning."

Harsh.

Great pictorial lead in.

Then the 5-gallon bucket! What a smack into reality!!!!!!!!!! Those are some big fish!!!!!!

I have been on one rotenone sample. The first day wasn't so bad, it was the second day of sorting that was . I am not squimish in any way but that was almost to much for me.

I ended up collecting the fish that didn't get caught the first day and dealt with snakes the rest of the day.

Any guesses on the types of fish in the second and third pics ?

You can't fool me, ewest. The 5-gallon bucket is a 12" high plastic water pail, and you wear a size 5 kids' shoe.


Seriously though, those are some fantastic fish. If the biggest LMB in the pic was 10 pounds and the pics are "less biggest LMB," how big are the biggest ones not pictured? Did you know you had fish that big in there? Were you hoping to transfer any pictured fish prior to rotenone?


As for species (in addition to LMB, CC, and BG), I think I see a few black crappie in there, and it looks as if you've got a world record yeller bullhead. I can't tell what the lepomis is just north of the largest crappie's mouth.

Those look like white crappie to me.

Yep some WC some BC , cats and GSF and several mixed lepomis as well. There is one big WC and several scrawny BC and WC. There was one bowfin shocked out of this pond (transferred to Bass Pro by Greg) but none showed up today. There were gams and lots of 2-5in BG and some strange tiny 1 in looking cat of some type in an upper pool. There were no BG over 5 in. , way to many mongrel perch (lepomis crosses) and lots of scrawny crappie. Now you know why the pond was nuked. I had caught a 12 LMB there a couple years ago - so yes we knew some big ones were there. From the shock survey / BG transfer we knew the types and problems.

So this was an oxbow lake?

Nope a pond. The 3rd one at Star.

That's grim, but thanks for the photos. Now what do you do with all the dead bodies? Do you try to take the remaining ones out of the pond, or do you leave them for the scavengers?

Ken

Don't think of it as a tragic end, think of it as a new beginning. Still sucks, those were some nice fish.

It was what was expected. Went back today after work - what a nasty mess. Natures clean-up crew was hard at work. Buzzards , herons , crows , turtles, coons and others were gorging while the flies were buzzing everywhere. Smell was not much worse than yesterday. There were a lot more fish however. No sign of any live fish - even the edge hugging low DO tolerant gams were history.

whats the pond size eric, and yer plans for it going forward....sorry if i missed this somewhere. i assume it was a leaker based on yer top description.

had you considered blocking nets in yer other ponds to save any of the nice larger bass before nuking?

DIED you did not miss anything. I have a bunch on this process.

Basically we bought a foreclosed property a few years back that had a rundown pond of about 5 acres. Hole in the dam with big trees growing out of the dam. Junk everywhere including in the pond. We fixed the dam and then raised it to 12 acres based on faulty survey elevations. Back 4 acres was 10-12 in deep at full pool when it was supposed to be 3-4 feet. So we drew it down - shocked out about 300 4-5 in BG and moved them. That led to the discovery of all the unwanted fish types above. Beavers messed up the water control system and the pond went up and down for 2 years. We finally fixed all that and deepened the back and changed up some stuff. Pics below. This story could take up a whole issue of PB mag.

Generally not a good idea to move big LMB to a new home as it throws the system out of whack. We kept out what we could use - 300+ medium sized BG which Greg shocked out and we moved last year. We have a nice growout area on this pond to be blocked with a net. A lot of this pond has a sticky clay bottom and lots of stumps etc. - way to hard to seine for large fish. A point of interest - when Greg and I shocked we only got a few LMB over 12in and no big LMB - go figure. Same for another shock event earlier. I am sure there are a couple large cats and carp at the bottom now decaying.

Here are 2 berms for the growout area - to the right is the main pond all the way to the dam and far trees



Here is the part of the pond to the left of the berm



Here is the growout blocking net location at over full pool - max water level

wow eric..thats a cool project and a gorgeous looking place. looking forward to hearing and seeing more.

I will get a better pic this weekend. The second pic above is the most northern berm (it runs back to the green trees).

The pic below is during construction from standing on top of the 8ft northern berm looking back to the dam. You can't see the east part from these pics.

ewest, So this pond will now be a total of 12 acres or 5 acres? I didn't quite get that part as I contemplated the photon torpedo devastation!

12 acres at full pool - was 5 acres when we bought the property.

From the north berm ( 8 ft high)looking toward the dam





and growout area berms ( 2 green berms in a V with a 50 ft opening

Wow...this is gonna be a biggie! I expect a multi-thousand-viewer in the making. You gonna use this thread to keep us up?

I'm looking forward to the "after" picture.

This one's gonna be a bit too big for ceadmin's $24 rocket with a cam in the nose cone.
This might be a job for an outlaw shuttle jockey and his point-and-shoot.

Yoo-hoo! Cody!

Due to the odd shape (you can't see the east part in the pics) and my limited photo manipulation skill (5 pics to make a total perimeter shoot) you can't get a good look in total.

I will post more pics and updates here.