Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Skinny LMB in old pond

Thanks Lusk.

Thank you very much for chiming in!
As I stated, for my problem, the first stage will definitely be the construction of cover.

I'll continue to post here with progress.

Thanks for the great site!

Now we know why Bob Lusk is THE Pond Boss...

Between reading Bob's words in this thread and the informative posts in the "carrying capacity" thread I have come to the stark realization that if my fish are relying on my knowledge and experience to manage my pond they are doomed.

I'm beginning to think that I did not have a fish kill back in 2007.

I think it was a mass fish suicide.

Well sounds like skinny bass has a battle plan, now we wait for results. Although I always ask what is your intent, or try to get clearly stated goals, I just assumed what was desired here, fatter bass. Little different throwing around opinions or advice over the internet then standing next to a pond discussing it with it's owner. Made note to self.

Eldorado Jeff. I hate to see you carry the burden of guilt, mass suicide like lemmings jumping off a cliff. There are horse whisperers, dog whisperers, even pizza whisperers. Well I am a fish whisperer. And being I have a couple ponds in that area my fish whispered to me in 2007, we have never seen a drought like this. It's very hot, the water temp is too warm and we can barely breathe. I reassured them in a soft calming whisper everything is going to be ok.

On a slightly more serious note. For fishing and pond management I keep a working journal on ponds. When I visit I record surface water temp, water temp 3 feet under the surface and water level. Other brief observations. 2007 was the first year of a three year drought. I had all time highs in water temps and lowest water level to that date. 2008 was even worse. I've seen worse. 1976-77. Those years were complete die offs, like no fish left. Once that water temp hit a certain point, everything floated up. In one pond I had 30 bass five pounds and larger float up in one day. It's twue it's twue.

Always good to get a reality check and basic principal reminder like Bob gave. There is no silver bullet, no quick fix, and each pond is a ecosystem in itself. What works at one may fail miserably at another. Great learning thread.

This has been interesting reading for a number of reasons.

I think the most important piece of advice that I've seen on here in the past year is "it depends". That perfectly fits into what we do, and try to achieve.

Near my pond, there are 2 other much smaller ponds within 200' on my neighbors property. Each pond is completely different from the other, and it would be a disaster if each pond was treated the same. Even spaced that close together, each is its' own little ecosystem.

Jeez, I probably should have listened to DIED.

He told me that leaning over in the boat, sticking my head underwater and shouting "GROW OR DIE" into the water wasn't going to work.

You know I probably should listen to DIED more often.

Of course, one never knows with green sunfish. And I, for one, would treasure the mental image of JHAP trying to staunch the bleeding from a tongue lacerated by swarms of voracious GSF. The old GSF-induced "Purple nurple" would pale by comparison.

Pong Frog,
I am intersted in your format for capturing data on the ponds. Since I am only beginning this quest for creating a pond on the home place and if you don't mind sharing, I would be greatful.
If anyone else is willing to share their valuable tool, I am receptive...
Couppedeville@aol.com

Well, I can only tell you some pretty basic what I do things. But better than nothing I suppose. Since my ponds are non moving water most of the season I have a thermocline, or stratified water. I try to take two readings, one at surface, one in the thermocline. I don't go to bottom and I have several depths. If I really was to be a perfectionist, I would do all three. It helps me find fish to some extent, and also when feed is on or off. I have a floater and then attach a weight with a marked rope and float. I do take a couple of reading when inflow is there, but they are fairly consistent throughout the pond, generally.

Next if you were to do it professionally is clarity. Secchi disk is the way to go for clarity, turbidity. I don't go that far, I jot down what I see, murky, crystal clear, plankton bloom, whatever I see. I keep it brief but try to be descriptive. All of this goes in my little black journal book, and I have one for every pond I regularly visit.

At the end I add fish catch totals, average size, species and what caught them. Sometimes temp, but I can look that up and it varies throught the day. Wind and clouds are a bit more important to me.

It is something that really helps long term. I could take it to an extreme, or just say why bother. I try to get a middle ground, keep it concise and brief. Might take 10 minutes of my time if that. It sure does help as far as season to season variances. And I hope I helped you.

Sure did Pond Frog, thanks for the info. I do like details and think this will give me a good start.

Please read the portion of Pond Frog's quote above and keep it in mind. There is a lot there to make note of and one I want to specifically point out.

The concept of "It Depends" is a critical principal. You guys are great and collectively we help a lot of people with questions. New and interesting ideas are discussed as well as long trusted concepts. In most cases we try this without ever seeing the pond in question – that is a tough assignment.

With regard to the above I want to emphasize one axiom and one rule.

The axiom - every person has the right to do or try what he wants with his pond (hopefully on an informed basis) ...

The rule - we have an obligation to unknowing pond owners including lurkers not to give them bad unproven advice without disclaimer or limits that may harm their ponds.

This is not hard to do. Qualify your information and state it is experimental , based on limited results or just a brainstorm idea. There is nothing wrong with providing information which is not fully tested and proved. Include warnings so those with very limited experience can make good fully informed choices.

With that said lets now go out and solve every pond question we can - inquiring minds want to know !

update:
on the third day of ice fishing today.

So far: 15 largemouth, only 3 have been emaciated like we saw last year and what my dad has b een reporting. Not too many above 16 inches, but all had full bellies.

and It looks like tiger muskie won't be an issue, I've gotten 3 baby pike. 15" 13" and 19". My guess is they are 2 years old.

Crappie are, in fact, huge. one even came in at just under 3 lbs, lol.

Skinny bass, were they baby pike or chain pickerel?

That is one big crappie!

Does not sound that bad after all. I'd still put in forage cover. I think you may have a lot of fish competing for the same forage, and the bass are last in line. Did you get any bg? Any photos of those pike? Sounds like you had fun, I have never ice fished in my entire life. That is a very large crappie. They have to be eating well to get that size. Are you keeping everything or c and r?

yes, took a pic of the bluegill we caught. Got a closeup of 2 or 3 of them, I'll get them posted on here somehow.

C&R mostly, but kept about 10 little, skinny bass & had a fish fry @ the end of the day sunday.

My friend nathan got a walleye on sunday afternoon. Who'd a thunk it.

This is the 3rd annual year of what we've dubbed the "viking fishing escapade" (we all grow out our beards, apparently, before we go), and it was by far the most diverse catch of the 3.

In the summers we've never seen this much variety either. Never seen a pike or walleye in the lake, just skinny bass and fat gills.

How would i tell the difference between chain and pickerel? Very dark green, spotted pattern (spots seemed small and sparse, honestly, compared to pike i've caught farther north).

Will work on the topo map and uploading the pics on here tomorrow.

http://www.ibnature.com/images/BLUEGILL.jpg

that is very accurate. That's the species.

i'll still work on getting my pics online.

How to Post Photos

ok....to put the trip in perspective as far as the species present goes....

by far more bass than anything else. A total of about 40 by the time the trip was done. 1/4 of them were emaciated. Removed them, released the ones that had been eating well, longest was 19", caught around midnight on Saturday night on a tip-up with a thick night crawler, the rest were caught on roaches....night ice-fishing is fun, seriously..all you folks in the southlands might not understand.

caught dozens of panfish, more BG's than crappie, and the BG's were as a general rule smaller, the crappie were enormous. Small shiner minnows were the bait of choice for the crappie.

Caught a total of 6 pike, the largest being 21" long. I'm guessing the age for all of them, based strictly on size, at 2 years. it coincides with the addition of Onezey to the lake...either there were 2 introduced, or the larger one is making an impact on the fish that would normally predate on the pike minnows, allowing them to get of size.

There are more, tip-ups would flag constantly, and a fish would be on (using massive roaches as bait, and the spools would spin out of control, very fast moving fish), set the hook and the fish would let it go...the minnows inspected afterward had the classic pattern of perpendicular attack like a pike does...deep teethmarks, many chewed in half, but obviously the pike are small, by the size of their bites (and the fact that they could bite into a big minnow and not get the hook).

Walleye....there is at least one, and it is fair sized, which means there are many smaller ones in there.

Weeds are still thick on the bottom of the lake, and after talking with my dad, this year they actually did 20% less of the weed control that they have in previous years (the lake committee was trying to save $$, to make the homeowners have to pay less...he says that the lake committee, part of the HOA, has a distrust for the consultants they have hired, because they cost so much and seem to do so little....honestly from the reports i have heard i think they might be getting scammed. You guys seem to take a much more in-depth look at a lake than the people the HOA hired for the past few years...I think they test for bacteria to make sure it is safe for swimming, try to control the weeds, and that is it).

Found a few pieces of artificial cover in the lake using the aqua view camera. One stack of pallets, one big wire spool, a few piles of rip-rap. I don't think it will be much of an issue to convince the HOA to do more of that, especially if I can stay away from pvc or anything that could potentially harm a swimmer. I made a few smaller ones out of stumps, logs and wooden slats (anchored in a bit of concrete) and left them on the ice near my dad's property. One thing i did notice were new retaining walls instead of natural shorelines. It may be difficult to convince homeowners to plant grasses and reeds.

Now...the goal still is to improve the fishery, and maintain a healthy population of the bass, crappie (and i guess pike...although the amount of flags that went up and showed evidence of pike makes me think there are too many....there should be 2 per surface acre, right? that means 14...i know that we caught 6 distinctly different ones and there must be more...plus one very large one at least...)

any thoughts?

Pike or Chain Pickerel ?

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/efish/families/chainpick.html

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/efish/families/nopike.html

pike. definitely.

oh, and my crazy collapsible pvc invention didn't work. Way to complicated, it got all tangled up in itself going through the hole in the ice, and even the lines i had to straighten it back out couldn't untangle the mess, actually they made it worse. Good theory, bad design.

there's a giant pile of pvc and concrete feet at the bottom of the lake now.

-mike

Are the pike fat or not? You realize that your discovery changes most of the thoughts in this thread.

ewest:
Absolutely. when we caught the first one, a measly 15", it was the first one we caught on friday...on the first tip up we set up, before my buddy was done constructing the shanty, and before i had the third tip-up in the water. My stomach dropped and I thought oh crap....better call Walt, he knows what's going on

All opinions i had are out the window at this point, except that we still need cover.

Yes, they had been eating well. Not so much the small ones, but the 19" and the 21" both had good weight on them.

Absolutely. I'm changing my rec to 2000#/acre 2" green sunfish.

Seriously, though, this does have interesting implications, however. I wonder if the crappies are so fat because they're predominantly preying on very small BG, below the size of interest for the bass and NP, and also because their own numbers are effectively thinned by the same predators.

ok......so are the greenies a joke? am i missing something subtle that goes on between fishery managers? I sense that i could cut the tension on that one with a knife....

the small BG's could be seasonal...sluggish predators in the winter might not be knocking down the lil BG population.

Also, a stomach survey of the emaciated bass showed tiny minnows as what they were feeding on, and minnows of like size were the bait of choice for the crappie, while wax worms worked as well (waxies were bait of choice for the bluegill).

And i've never seen a crayfish stack in the lake. I'm thinking a medium forage species must exist for there to have grown a walleye of that size, but i've never seen them.