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Made more effort at thinning the heard and managing the population in my 1/10th acre sediment pond. Caught probably 75 fish. Hybrids big enough to eat went into the holding cage. CNBG either went into the main pond or back in this sediment pond. Half a dozen RES went into main pond. Bunch of small hybrids and a few GSF got tails, one pectoral fin and the dorsal fin cut off with scissors and put in main pond for LMB.CC prey. LOTS of hybrids in this pond.

I kind of like just standing there and jerking out fish after fish with a fish on 3 out of 4 casts. Most "casts" were actually just flipping out the line a few feet from the bank without even opening up the bail on the reel. Might as well been using a cane pole. 1/64 oz jig hook with a Gulp green waxie for bait. They were definitely biting. Barb mashed for easy removal although it does cause me to lose one once in a while. Ever once in a while catch a SMB or something bigger. Only fished a short while.

I much prefer "catching" over fishing.

Last edited by snrub; 06/30/20 11:19 AM.

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I think that we have the drain installed and stabilized in our newest pond construction site (will be 4th pond). We seem to have a thin sand lens that runs between 2 clay layers all over our place requiring a bottom drain to remove the inflow of water. It was touch and go on getting this in and having it work after heavy rain, cave-ins, and a mud slurry filling in the hole. Very stressful, but with a 6' extension of the pipe into an expanded hole, it seems good now. The pipe is over 280' long and 13' deep in places. Plan is to cap it in the pond once construction is done. I left a closed slice valve on my last pond just in case it was leaky, and that still worries me. My son gets the credit for digging the longest and deepest part of the trench and getting the pipe in (14 hour marathon in the backhoe with one 15-minute break), finishing at midnight. Still have a lot of work filling in the trench and holes required to clear cave-ins. Did some yesterday. I am not really fond of dozer or backhoe work, but I love ponds!

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Surface temps are almost 90 degrees, I still have RES actively spawning in 6" to 10" of water this afternoon. Sechi disk reading is 14" so there may be RES spawning deeper that can't be seen.



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Not today but yesterday I had to replace the motor and wheel to my Texas Hunter feeder. The problem was moisture getting to the feed. I "clumped up", stopped the wheel and burnt out the motor. I caulked everything and let it set up for a day before adding feed.

Nice warm(hot), super humid day.


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Originally Posted by Dave Davidson1
Not today but yesterday I had to replace the motor and wheel to my Texas Hunter feeder. The problem was moisture getting to the feed. I "clumped up", stopped the wheel and burnt out the motor. I caulked everything and let it set up for a day before adding feed.

Nice warm(hot), super humid day.

I've had the same issue. Used duct tape to seal up the edges of the feeder, no problems since then. As you say, clumping is deadly to the motor. A warning to new pondmeisters: Do NOT throw the clumped, moldy feed into the lake. Can kill your fish!


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I've noticed I have one small spot in one corner that will mold maybe a cup of feed each filling. Guess I should silicone it or something.


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Bushy pondweed removal continues almost every day. It's work and not something I enjoy doing but it seems to be necessary or I would not do it. Alot of it is dead or dying and floats as a large free floating matt. But in other areas of the pond it is green and lays on the top of the water and is about 6 to 10" thick with strands of it growing from the bottom up. I use a heavy grass rake that brings the thick layer to the boat and then hand pull this thick blanket into the boat. I will load around a 100 lbs of it per boat load, And when I unload it there will be around 10 gals of water in the boat or around 80lbs of water. So I really wind up with about 30 lbs + of actual plant. And that ends up with me clearing an area about 15' by 15'. I find that there is alot of life in that thick blanket as I pull it into the boat. I find 1" lmb fry, 1/2" cnbg or res fry along with other things that look like crickets but not crickets. They live under water in the thick blanket. I also find tiny worm looking things that have tiny heads along with some things that look like little beetles along with some other insect looking things. But all of them live under water or on the waters surface. Some of them will sting me or bite me like a bee sting. And that's not something I care for.

I also increased my diffuser run time and added an hr to 4 1/2 hrs from 3 am to 730 am. I have been slowly increasing run times in an attempt not to over heat the water. I am running 3 out of 6 diffusers with me using the ones in the deeper pool area. To run the others, they would be in the really thick plant area and get little to no water movement so I don't run them. After increasing the run times I found 2 dead HSB that were in the 4 to 5# range and my other HSB were not actively feeding so I am guessing they are stressed, I hope they pull through all of this. Another thing is I saw was a grass carp that must have been close to 30" long and weigh about 6 + lbs. Blew my mind that I have seen such a fast growth in these fish that went from 14" to double that in just 10 months. They have alot of plants/food to eat. I am hoping that all ten of them survived last fall stocking along with the other five I added this past spring so they can put a dent in all the Bushy pond weed.

One more thing, the ponds seems to be loaded with 3 to 4" cnbg

Last edited by TGW1; 07/05/20 07:31 AM.

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I siliconed the inside edges and around the inspection "windows". Hope it worked.
I went there yesterday to check on it and everything seems OK. HOT and super humid. Walked about 150 yards to the feeder. When I got back to the house, I was drenched.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

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I see they same with my feeder but have thought that maybe a new bag of fresh feed that seems to have some moisture might come into play for some of the clumping in the corners of the feeder.


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Two weeks ago, we put 4/5 bottle of Airmax Twilight Blue dye into our pond which had been a light brown stain; Secchi visibility was 15" prior to placing the dye.

One week ago, we checked the pond after some wind and rain and the pond had a nice green color to it, but Secchi visibility was still 15".

Friday evening, Secchi visibility was about 24" following a week of mostly hot/dry weather and the aerator running 30/min day in the evenings.

Yesterday, one day later, Secchi visibility was 28-30". My 7 year old also took his birthday present Ryobi trimmer out to knock down some tall grass close to the pond where I can't get my Fastrak.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

I also ordered another Moultree directional feeder and more Optimal, this time Bluegill instead of Junior.

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Beautiful pond, Paul. Did you line it with limestone?


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Originally Posted by anthropic
Beautiful pond, Paul. Did you line it with limestone?

Thanks!

Yes, we did...wife and I (and boys) loaded 22.5T of rip-rap into the bed of a Ranger 570 by hand, drove it to the pond, then unloaded and placed it by hand over the course of about 17 days. I was able to get 4 rows of rock around the perimeter, and more in areas where erosion was a greater concern.

Water clarity went from 5" to 15" within two weeks of placing the rock...VERY noticeable improvement.

In reality it could probably stand another 4-5T of rock along the dam from above my son's head right to the drainpipe...but my wife says we're done :-)

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Tracy, when I put everything back together on my feeder, I siliconed the seams on the inside and the inspection windows due to water leaks. They had caused the feed to clump up around the edges. Then they broke loose and went to the spin plate. They stopped it up and burnt out the motor.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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Oops, I put five, five to six inch Tilapia in my pond.My wife and i were watching and a huge bass garbed one of them like a cigar and took off with him.I wish I had my Phone.

Last edited by john kelsey; 07/06/20 07:46 AM.
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Originally Posted by Paul FNG
Originally Posted by anthropic
Beautiful pond, Paul. Did you line it with limestone?

Thanks!

Yes, we did...wife and I (and boys) loaded 22.5T of rip-rap into the bed of a Ranger 570 by hand, drove it to the pond, then unloaded and placed it by hand over the course of about 17 days. I was able to get 4 rows of rock around the perimeter, and more in areas where erosion was a greater concern.

Water clarity went from 5" to 15" within two weeks of placing the rock...VERY noticeable improvement.

In reality it could probably stand another 4-5T of rock along the dam from above my son's head right to the drainpipe...but my wife says we're done :-)

Here is an old thread talking about rock lining a pond and improvement on turbidity.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=391619&Board=26


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I hear you Dave, and know that clumps can do damage along with you have to pull all the feed out of the feeder plate, spinner funnel area and the box itself. Pain in the arse and I could see where it might get in a bind and burn the motor up. I have an extra TH feeder right now and have thought of selling it and buying the feeder that will throw the Purina LMB feed or going back to the Cargills 1/4" sized feed. Which I would gladly do if I had a place to store it and keep the mice away. The mice problem I ran into when storing feed is the main reason I changed feed to Purina where the feed and seed store stores it for me.

Last edited by TGW1; 07/06/20 09:55 AM.

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Since Texas Hunter is a sponsor of this site, and they command a premium of at least double what other feeders cost, would they not care that folks are frustrated with their design, having their motors burn up due to water penetration? Why should you have to rebuild and resilicone their feeders if they are the best? If people are not finding the premium cost to correlate with premium results then someone else will move in and take their customers. I would hope they would read this and work immediately to change the design or the materials used to avoid any future possibility of motor seize or burnup due to wet food. I would think a proper motor size could easily spin some moist food or even pop through a crust of old food in the corners?

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Even my TH deer feeders catch a little water in where bolts hold legs

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Mine was in a seam on the hopper


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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i have three of the large sized TH Feeder and they all have clumped feed in a corner or two. And some clumping will also happen around the viewing windows with one or all of them. It is not a perfect system but it still works pretty good when it comes to feeding my fish. i would like to explore a different brand because i would like to throw out some larger sized feed.


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I have a 25 yr old Sweeney feeder that has one small damp clumping spot right under the lid handle bolt top center, I just haven't got around to sealing it with some industrial polyurethane sealant, the clumps never made it to the motor but did block the rest of the feed from getting to the fan for a small period of time.


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The lid came off one of my TH feeder during a thunderstorm which totally soaked all the feed in it, but that was not the fault of TH. One of the handles had been damaged during shipping and would not latch properly.

My other problem feeder got that way because the lower housing got flooded. Again, not TH fault, I just had it too far into the pond and an extreme water event happened.

But it is true that they do sometimes leak around the edges, especially after a couple of years. Not a hard fix, though. My biggest fears are that this will jam & burn up the motor, or that the moldy feed will kill fish. Neither has happened to date.


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Ugh sorry to hear lid blew off , does yours have a wire to keep it from going into the drink?

Last edited by Pat Williamson; 07/08/20 12:18 PM.
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Yes, but that didn't matter after the feed got soaked. On my rarely visited forage pond, so it went several weeks unnoticed. The stench was incredible!


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Originally Posted by anthropic
...The stench was incredible!

I use pellet feed to bait my trap and..one day in the pond makes it stink...2 days and it's bad...3 days will never happen again...ATROCIOUS!!! I can't imagine weeks worth of damp feed in the sun.


Fish on!,
Noel
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