Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Getting ready for a new species!

Oh I'm scuba qualified so I know to watch out for divers. I will be using oars or an electric motor anyway if I fish the lake that needs a boat. I sold my 15 horse Johnson a few years ago.

Most lakes here if you don't have a boat you might as well stay home. Houses ring most of the lakes up to five deep. Really sad.

Like you said Cecil idiots (and drunks and of course drunk idiots) driving boats is a universal occurance.

Back to the PS (is that the correct ackronym? I'll have to check), it's fantastic that you'll be raising them for sale. I don't recall reading here that anyone else is doing that.

So what are the various species that will be in Baird ponds in 2009?

JHAP, is'nt everything Cecil does fantastic? OK enough ak ing (if that is the right ackronym). Cecil if you want some company/help just give a days notice and I'll be over. I'm not a great fisherman but I'll share some funny stories as you catch the fish. I was at a lake once when a jet skier was messing with a fisherman. The guy waved him away repeatedly and then waved him over. The moron on the jet sky actually went over to the guy fishing at which time the fisherman pulled out his wallet, identified himself as DNR and got in his "fishin" bag and wrote the jerk a ticket. Don't know but believe the fisherman happened to have his ticket book with him because I know there had been some complaints previously. Bob-O

Raising big PS's for fun or profit, naa your pulling our leg.

bluegill, yellow perch, smallmouth bass, pumpkinseed, brook trout.

I may stop raising the trout at some point in the future. One of these days it may get too expensive to pump the well water.

Bob,

That wouldn't be a problem if you don't mind being out all day as I'd like to get as many as I can. First I need to scout out the Grassy creek public access where an angler told me they were thick last September. According to him we can fish from shore. It would make it so much simpler without the boat. If we need the boat I need to get it out of the garage, get a sticker for it and new plates for the trailer.

Found this on the NANFA site. Interesting reading about aquarium tank spawning pumpkinseeds.

http://nanfa.org/articles/acpumpkin.shtml

Cecil, that would be fine with me, I'll pack some sandwitches. I would prefer shore fishing. The only hitch may be the timing, I leave to Turkey hunt in West Virginia one week from today and the weather forcast does'nt seem favorable for fishin till maybe next Tues. We can continue plans via pm as not to keep bringing up this post too often.

Cecil, great article. Do you plan on any aquarium breeding and what pond are you putting them in? I'm guessing the big one by the road.

Sorry to derail but how are the Smallies doing with the perch and bG as forage?

I plan on putting the breeders in one of the small ponds in the back after some of them come back negative for VHS. The big pond in the front is one big *** ugly hole in the ground right now until I can get an excavator out to repair some holes in the dike.

Which one of us are you referring to? I don't have any smallies right now but plan on starting back up with them in the fall. And the smallies will be only on pellets unless I decide to plant fatheads again. The other fish in that pond will be male only bluegills and female only perch.

Oh ok I misread your previous post. Thanks for the clarification.

I'd say something about repairing the dykes but don't want to get censored. Remember your puter mouse picture that bout got us in trouble?

Yeah Bob we wouldn't want to offend anyone here.

Cecil, are you going to keep the largest PS's separate or keep them all together till they spawn?
Also how many times a day will you feed them?

Not sure what you mean AP? I'm going to try and get breeding size fish of the largest size possible and approximately the same size.

The plan is to put spawning size male and female pumpkinseeds in the two outdoor tanks until I get negative VHS testing back from Purdue which will take 2 weeks. Then if I get a negative I will plant all the male and females I have into the ponds to spawn.

I'm kind of irked I have to do the quarantine thing as I know the tanks will stress wild fish. I wish I could just dump them into the pond and be done with it.

I thought maybe you would keep the largest ones separate to try and get them as large as possible, and use the smaller ones to spawn.
You have mentioned before that sometimes you only feed once a day, is this your plan with the PS's.

AP,

The broodfish I collect via angling I am not allowed to sell so there is no point in trying to get them as large as possible other than for brood stock. In fact my DNR suggests I tag them so I don't resell them. (I have my doubts that is necessary as it would probably take at least 3 years to get the offspring large enough to be similar in size.) However I'll probably mark them by cutting off the first dorsal spine for a male and the second for a female if I can definitely tell the difference between the two.

I'm actually thankful I am allowed to use fish out of public waters for brood fish as in some states you aren't allowed to do that. For example in Bruce's state of Nebraska I was surprised to be told it's not legal to use fish from public waters for broodstock even if you catch them legally. The DNR official that told me this, wishes it was not that way as he says that the law does more harm than good. (I found this out when I dicussed what testing was necessary to import them into Nebraska.) Obviously if someone wants to start broodfish of some species to produce them for stocking in Nebraska, they have to get them outside of the state or region if not from private waters, which eventually pollutes the native gene stock. And those fish may not be as well adapted as the native stock.

I will probably feed the broodfish twice a day as they need to get as much feed in them as possible before spawning. It may end up being redworms etc. as I have my doubts how well they will train on artifical feed at an advanced age.

The fry and fingerlings I feed at least 3 times a day. If the pumpkinseed fry and fingerlings are anything like the bluegills they should be hungry all the time!

Cecil, do you think the PS's you catch might train on pellets if you put some of your bluegills in with them.
I was thinking of trying this with the PS's I catch to put in the cage, and take a couple of the PS's from my aquarium tank to put in with them.

Cecil

I am 10 miles from Bruce and am interested as well. Please keep me apprised of your progress.

In regards to using fish from public waters for broodstock...hard to throw my wits around that one. So one can kill a live fish from public waters, but can't keep it alive? As soon as the state wants to chip in for helping me maintain native prairie, plant 3000 trees and create wildlife habitat I'll lend a more active ear to their regulations. Rant over.

I'm with you TJ. Just because laws are on the books doesn't mean they make any sense. Like I said the DNR official I talked to thought it was a dumb law too.

Well, I'm too quick to post guided by my immediate passionate reaction - and I apologize. I understand why they don't want live fish taken from public waters - white perch are a great example [although it was NE DNR that STOCKED THEM in the first place accidently and they are now present in tons of watersheds across NE]. I just get irked when I gave the DNR an opportunity to cost share in the construction my ponds they wanted nothing to do with me, but now want some SAY in how I do things there on my private land after I spent $$$$$ to build it, stock it with fish from private hatcheries, etc. I guess my rant wasn't quite over.

I am still interested in PS. Do you think they could find a niche in a pond with BG, RES, SMB, YP, HSB, FH, GS?

No apology needed TJ. I'm the king of rants. I live on a soap box.

It's funny you mention your own DNR stocked a nusiance species. One of my favorite rants is the state the federal government are the ones that have done the biggest screw ups with the indiscriminent planting of fish species. The european carp was introduced by our government! Now the same institutions are charged with preventing it? Ha Ha!



I'm not sure. You'd have to ask some of the experts here. They might, but on the other hand they could hybridize with your bluegills. They also could stunt. If I put them in my largest pond they will be only feed trained males.

That wouldn't hurt but the bluegills I have right now would probably be much bigger or much smaller than the pumpkinseeds. It could set up a dominance thing with the larger fish.

I will try Dr. Perca's (Bill Cody's) method of feed training wild fish which is start out with natural feed and wean them to hydrated pellets and then hard pellets.