Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations A Dream Turned to Fruition (and Mas Questiones)

Bruce- I'm estimating 4-5 lbs, but we didn't have a scale. Not real long, but she was very shapely!


Theo,
The little "island" to the right will be an underwater island. The actual peninsula with the beginnings of the dock will be underwater at least to where the clay ends and the black dirt begins, and hopefully farther. The water line should be just below the "deck" of the dock. The deck will be where the highest horizontal pieces are located. That should put the underwater island at about 3' below the surface.
We're still trying to decide what type of structure to put and where, so any other ideas like the one you gave are much appreciated!
We have whole trees, cement culverts, and large pipes ready to be placed. I'm sure we'll add porcupines and Christmas trees at some point.

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Great job - that's out PB guys in action.

Those are very nice CNBG. That skinny fish may have just spawned ( can account for 30 % weight loss) . LMB fry in the pond?

I nominate AL for the "Structure King" award. Take a box of gold stars Al - that beats even the slide show pond.

For crappie you will be glad to have that deep vert drop. A great place to catch them as they move up and down in the water col (they do that a lot).

davatsa, if you or your Dad ever want to call and chat, leave me a PM and I'll get you my cell number. I'd love to talk fish and fish management, in particular your desires to grow a trophy bluegill. I have some new ideas that I'd like to kick around with you. Maybe we can do a three way conference.

Bruce

Thanks, guys, for the kind words. We’ve put in a lot of time and labor, and we’re starting to really enjoy the ponds.

Eric, there are a lot of fry in the big pond, but I can't tell what species yet. It is possible some of the LMB have spawned-out and are much skinner than before.

Here's another update on our progress. We finally got some rain! It wasn’t much, but it will help. We got ¾” on Thursday evening and another ¼” this morning.
I’ll tell the tale with pictures:

First, before the rain (thankfully!), we planted seed all around the crappie pond to prevent erosion and help filter/clear the water. We planted sahara bermuda grass, switchgrass, side-oats gamma, bee-wild bundleflower (developed by Texas A&M for deep south Texas), klein grass, “bird buffet,” and various forbs.

Of course, since my dad and I are involved in the process, we didn’t plant seed how most sane people plant. We do it the redneck way: With a Sweeney feeder controlled by a remote/clicker hitched onto the back of a 4x4 jeep Cherokee with mud tires, the back-half of the roof cut off, and a high-rack bus seat. The jeep is also great for riding around and viewing wildlife. I’ve yet to successfully get this jeep stuck in the mud. For seeding, one person drives, and one person sits up top, holds the remote, watches the seed distribution, and yells at the driver to speed up or slow down. Guess who got to drive, and guess who got to sit up top in the dust?

The jeep:



Me with the clicker:



My dad was able to come back through with the tractor and the roller harrow to get the seed and fertilizer buried. The birds were already starting to rob us.



Here is a good view of our “water highway.” Basically, we diverted the water that comes across a county road from a 200-acre watershed. Instead of funneling toward the creek on our place, it is now headed for the crappie pond.
The spillway is the faint line of rock in the back of the picture, and the water will curve around into the pond:






Second, we added structure to the crappie pond.
First order of business in this area was the cement culverts.
Theo, we wanted to build a culvert condo or a sunken ship like you recommended, but it was too muddy to get the tractor in there and stack 'em. Unfortunately, I just can’t deadlift cement culverts like I used’ta could. I must be getting old. I can shove ‘em around, however. Here are the before and after pics.

NOTE: The culverts were placed off the end of the peninsula on the first drop-off before the underwater island.







Next, we staked a few whole trees with fence posts and a driver. To bend the posts back over the trees and anchor them down, I used a sledge hammer.
Here is a before and after with the trees.

Before:



After:






Finally, we added our FH stakes.
In the interest of alliteration, we decided to name this the Future Fathead Fornication Fort.







Our silt catchers are already working as intended:


The pond is slowly starting to fill!


We also got a new dock on the CC pond. It’s nice not having to slip ‘n slide down a wet clay slope anymore.



Now for a few fish.
This week was full of surprises. First, I caught a crappie in our CC pond, and then I caught what I’m fairly certain is a GSF or a GSF x in the big pond. We stocked none of those species.







If this is a greenie, can we obtain membership into the GSF Alliance?


Our LMB in the big pond are doing well. Todd Overton & co. delivered ~50 lbs each of TSH and tilapia, along with about 30 more feed-trained bass. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any stocking pictures because 1- we were too busy chatting and 2- the stocking took place after dark. Todd’s got good folks helping him out.
After all the work, we took a little time to fish:








Finally, we’re starting to catch more young, healthy HSB.

D - yes LMB can lose a lot of weight during the spawn. 20 to 30% is not uncommon.

My guess is that is a HBG. Was the pectoral fin long and pointing back or roundish. The pic looks like it extends well back and is somewhat pointed. That would indicate a HBG. Shape and size look HBG while coloration looks GSF.

Y'all shoulda put some inspiring slogans on them fathead signs.

Nice HBG!

Love the FFFF. We'll need to eventually move that photo into the archives under structure. Really cool.

What a great post, Dave!

Those 4-F shingles are awesome.

Side note: The LMB you have tagged...some look like they are not doing so well where the tags are placed. Any info. on that?

Good catch, Sunil.

I've caught one LMB (the one pictured) that looked like it was having difficulty with the tag. I showed the pic to Todd Overton's guys and asked them if they knew what could be going on. They said that the tag can irritate some LMB more than others, and it's fairly common to see similar sores to the one in the picture. The fish was otherwise healthy, very shapely, and fought hard. I think (and hope) the fish should be fine.

Thanks for the i.d. help, Eric. I don't have much experience with greenies, but I knew that fish wasn't all BG.
I think you are correct--the pectoral fin was more long and pointed, IIRC. I'll remember to get a better look if I catch another one.

We've now caught one crappie each in the big pond and the CC pond. Hopefully that is not a sign of things to come. They belong in their own pond, not the others!

Sunil, I want to note the LMB Todd brought this week were tagged different. Maybe he'll chime in with more info. They arrived past my bedtime.

Al & Dave, thanks guys. I was curious about the tagging process as I've wanted to try it myself for a few years now. Look forward to seeing you guys in a few weeks!

We tagged our broodstock this year with some small operculum tags, but they did not stay put well, so we tagged Al's fish with a simple pelvic fin clip, which should grow back "crooked" and provide an easy way to identify them later on. I would have tagged them with internal anchors but did not have any in stock....as I was counting on them retaining their operculum tags.

The last fish we tagged for Al were done with internal anchor tags, requiring an abdominal incision, which seemed to work great but was somewhat invasive in my opinion. Even so, this type of tag seems to be the best for me so far, considering all the pros and cons.

Here's a little update on the BG pond. I'm really amazed how many fish are in there. I took out 30-40 and transported them to the big pond, and then I removed another 12 to eat. All were 4-10+" inches with most of them in the 6-8" range. Judging by the action at the feeder and how fast they hit small lures, I didn't even dent them.

Here are a few "after" pics:





Here are a few pics of the haul:
Nice female BG


Male CNBG





Iced-down ready for cleaning. They sure tasted good!

Time for a new update. We went down to the place yesterday to begin stocking the new crappie pond and finish many other projects.

It was hot. This is in the shade, unfortunately. It's worse in the sun.



The crappie pond started filling while we were at the conference. We checked on it when we got back Sunday, and it had 12' of water.










Although it's premature, we decided to do a bit of preliminary stocking anyway. I transported TFS from other ponds on our place, and we bought a few pounds of GSH and FHs. My b.i.l. helped us throughout this process.












Here are a few shots from the front gate. The big pond is downhill on the right, and the new crappie pond is just to the left across the road (just out of view).



Another shot of the big pond:




Of course, since our ponds are so low, we added more structure. I recall James Holt (in another thread) mentioning that he catches his best LMB off big rocks. We don't have any big rocks, but I hope cement will work.



It's nice having another big guy (b.i.l.) to help.












Finally, what's a day working around the ponds without a little fishing?

Awesome post, Dave!

What are those three fish in the net with a hand for reference? Don't tell me those are golden shiners.

You know, if Al would adopt me, we would be brothers (even though we already are brothers).

You know you're my brutha-from-another-mutha.

Those are threadfin shad...nice ones, too.

Those look awful big for threadfins.

Awesome place & ponds. Adopt me, too. Only in the cooler months, though.

I assumed they were threadfins, since that was the only type of shad we stocked. I don't have much experience with gizzard shad...could those be gizzards??

Those are Gizzard Shad. Gizzard Shad have a nose, Threadfins do not.

Dangit! I thought we had huuuge threadfins.

sweet pics mandingo

That last shot of the pond beginning to fill really puts it into perspective. Way cool, 'Vatsa family.
Great forum'ocumentary, Dave.

I agree with Bski. Thanks, I know it's tough taking pics during fast action. I'm sure you have something in that pond to partake of the gizzards.
My 1st time to read and view all the thread. Well worth the time.

Nice place. A little redneck work can go a long way.