David, my flooded grass took less than a month to die, but as it does, it will mat on the surface until it rots and sinks. Stemy plants like goat weeds took much longer.
Im loving this rain!!! As I left for work this morning the pond was exactly 12" from full pool. We are getting a good rain this morning so there is a chance it could finally be full when I get home this evening.
My spies tell me I am getting good rain and we got over two inches before today!! I'll get out to the farm this week and let you know. An update is far overdue. BTW, I got my new solar charge controller and my trackers!! Time to get welding again now that I have my welder back!!
If I don't make it to full pool this spring I will cry publicly.
Brian
The one thing is the one thing A dry fly catches no fish Try not to be THAT 10%
Dave, The big pond is about 11 acres-ish. The last time I was out there, we are about a 16 inches to full. Since then, we have had about three inches of rain before today. If it rises normally, we should need less than a foot to full pool after those rains, so today's rains could really make me impatient!!
Brian
The one thing is the one thing A dry fly catches no fish Try not to be THAT 10%
FYI David, we will be in your area tomorrow if you would like us to take a look at your new lake. We would love the chance to bid on stocking and management of this new project.
Im glad I made this thread 2 years ago. I had it in my head that I stocked 4 acres worth of CNB and RES until I read back in this thread to realize that I only stocked 1 acres worth. That could've been a big mistake. Im meeting with Overton Fisheries today to get a quote on the remaining stock needed.
Really beautiful lake with nice surrounding area. My wife would have liked even bigger than the 3.5 acres we ended up with, but land available near the house did not allow it without damming up a seasonal creek and that would have involved the Corps as well as probably other government agencies I did not even want to talk to. So we ended up with as big as what would fit the space and still classify it as a stock pond. Nine acres is a nice, big, BOW.
Early on I had read that under-stocking leads to over population of fish worse than stocking the recommended amount. Don't remember where I read that. May have been a Kansas or Missouri publication which I relied on pretty heavily before I discovered Pond Boss forum. That never really made complete sense to me, but I guess they had a reason for saying it. I can see where it would get the balance off early if the forage fish did not populate enough to fill the space in the pond before the bass got big enough to eat the forage, maybe leading to bass over population without enough forage rather quickly. That is all I can surmise anyway. If that is the case it would seem if a person was going to under stock, maybe let the forage fish go a couple of years????? before adding predators??? I don't know.
I would sure like to hear some of the experts advice on under-stocking because that is probably what I am going to end up doing with my son's and daughter's pond. I will probably take larger forage fish in smaller numbers out of my pond and let them reproduce for the forage base, then add the larger LMB also caught from my pond a couple years later.
This is not exactly the situation you have, but it might be similar, so I am interested in what you learn from Overtons as well as other people here on the forum about bringing up the population to proper numbers from the original under-stocking.
I would imagine a fishery that sells fish is going to look at it from the perspective of selling you fish and getting the BOW up to productive fishing speed ASAP for you to enjoy. I will be looking at it from the angle of spending little to no money but taking more time to get the fishery to where it is optimum. The son and daughter will not have a lot of money to spend on stocking fish, so it will be up to me to do it out of my pond on a little longer time line. I know that is not the way that most pond owners will look at it or the optimum way, but we all have to work within our means. Most want to get the fishery up to speed as quickly as possible. I don't mind if it takes a few years longer. If the son or daughter want different, they can buy the fish they want.
Anyway, interested in what you find out in the way of managing your situation because of similarities I may face.
Have you added any structure? A 9 acre pond obviously requires a lot of forage and I would hate for you to pay all that money to stock it properly only to have the bass wipe out the forage since there is nowhere for the forage to hide. Make some big rock piles and/or rip rap shorelines. Get some PVC structure and concentrate it in several spots at different depths. Perhaps cut a shoreline tree or two and make it fall into the lake. Put a long pipe in the bottom and then stack Christmas trees on top of it to a few inches under the surface. Get some lilly pads or other vegetation growing in shallow flats. You want to have structure in 20% of the pond which doesn't sound like much but actually is a huge amount!
I would sure like to hear some of the experts advice on under-stocking because that is probably what I am going to end up doing with my son's and daughter's pond. I will probably take larger forage fish in smaller numbers out of my pond and let them reproduce for the forage base, then add the larger LMB also caught from my pond a couple years later.
Time is the key with understocking. I believe TJ stocked his pond this way.
There is plenty of structure. Tree piles, brush piles, Flooded timber.
I will be adding man made structure later to suit how I want to fish, But im waiting till full pool so that I can place the structure in the locations that I see fit.
Speaking of Overton's, I was shocked to see an Overton's Fish Truck at Park and Preston in Plano, Texas yesterday. I honked but he was already turning.
My son is 14, I feel like im running out of time lol. Im stocking the pond the recommended way for faster results.
I understand. My kids are grown adults and it is as much the grandkids I am targeting for having fishing available even more so than the kids.
Most people don't want to take a slow approach for good reasons. When I stocked my pond at recommended rates I did some supplemental feeding. Adding some food for the fish will sure speed the growth and reproduction results up significantly.
That approach was done at one of my clients ponds. Unfortunately when the pond was dug, there were a few GSF in the wet area that he didn't know about. The slow approach let the GSF multiply rapidly, so much that the RES and YP that were stocked never had any recruitment. The plan was to stock RES/YP at about 50% of the recommended rate as fingerlings and let them grow and multiply for 2 years, then stock SMB. The pond was rotenoned because of the high % of GSF in it. I think that if the correct stocking rate was followed from the beginning, that the GSF would never have been a problem.
It would have been less expensive in the long run to stock the correct amount of fish.
Just like the purchase price of a puppy is most likely the smallest amount that you will spend on the dog, the $$ spent towards stocking your pond will be the least amount that you will spend on it. Yes, I AM in the business, and I DO sell fish, but I feel that you will be money and more importantly TIME ahead if you stock it with the correct amount of fish in the beginning.
That approach was done at one of my clients ponds. Unfortunately when the pond was dug, there were a few GSF in the wet area that he didn't know about. The slow approach let the GSF multiply rapidly, so much that the RES and YP that were stocked never had any recruitment. The plan was to stock RES/YP at about 50% of the recommended rate as fingerlings and let them grow and multiply for 2 years, then stock SMB. The pond was rotenoned because of the high % of GSF in it. I think that if the correct stocking rate was followed from the beginning, that the GSF would never have been a problem.
It would have been less expensive in the long run to stock the correct amount of fish.
Just like the purchase price of a puppy is most likely the smallest amount that you will spend on the dog, the $$ spent towards stocking your pond will be the least amount that you will spend on it. Yes, I AM in the business, and I DO sell fish, but I feel that you will be money and more importantly TIME ahead if you stock it with the correct amount of fish in the beginning.
That approach was done at one of my clients ponds. Unfortunately when the pond was dug, there were a few GSF in the wet area that he didn't know about. The slow approach let the GSF multiply rapidly, so much that the RES and YP that were stocked never had any recruitment.
I may get to learn that lesson first hand, because I suspect that to be my situation. Fortunately it is my refurb pond and not my main pond, so not quite as big of deal.
I have heard others say that with BG they reproduce enough to eventually crowd out the GSF to a lower level. But I can see with the RES and low reproduction rates it could be a problem.
