Looks like the weather is going to be good but chilly.
I will get the pump set up and ready to go Friday afternoon. Then get out about 6 or 7am and start it up. I think even if I only pump it down a couple feet it will greatly aid in our seining success. I don't want to get it horribly low so there is adequate water for what fish are left.
I could only find a 2" suction screen (to keep the fish out of the pump) so will just have to throttle it back to about what a 2" pump would pump. I'm not going to try and remove my multi-layer pallet structure till the water is down a little as I think it will be much easier that way. There is not that much of it if you recall seeing it floating around the edge.
So if anyone wants to join us, maybe around 10 am or a little earlier if you are a glutton for punishment. I think everyone that has shown interest knows where I live but if not PM me and I will give instructions.
Ponds are overflowing with the last rain we had so water is in pretty good shape.
Every fish we seine I will take out. It will either go home with someone or into one of my other ponds. We will miss enough to be plenty left behind for next year. If we do enough good job of removing fish I might even kill it off next spring and try a new fish raising experiment. I think the HSB experiment worked pretty good for no more effort than I have put into it.
I think the HSB experiment worked pretty good for no more effort than I have put into it.
Pretty good indeed, John. You've stretched our expectations from 6" to 9"+ at the end of grow out. The FHM I think helped with that boost, if not finally, at least increasing growth in the early going.. You achieved really good growth. So you thought only 200 of the original 500 remain in the grow out. But at 9" and .35 lbs/fish (standard weight) that's 70 lbs of HSB. If your pond is 1/20th of an acre, that is 1400 lbs per acre in what remain. Who knows you may have produced >2000 lbs/acre of HSB or at least in HSB and RES combined.
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I might even kill it off next spring and try a new fish raising experiment.
Should be fun seeing where this leads.
Last edited by jpsdad; 11/29/2001:32 PM.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers
Anyway you could pump it down to low real good seining level and discharge the water into another pond. Then when seining is over pump some of that original water back into the pond to aid winter fish survival?
Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/26/2006:55 PM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
I was wondering the same, Bill. It has to be low enough to be effective for seining yet enough water to support remaining fish if so desired. My seine is 1/8" mesh on my long seine so I'm guessing we'll sample everything present.
I have been following this line of posts and I have to say, You guys make my heart feel so good at the hand you are willing to give to help each other! This is just one more thing I love about this group!
half-acre pond, LMB, HBG, BG, GSH and CC ....goal is to have fun fishing. And I subscribe!
Anyway you could pump it down to low real good seining level and discharge the water into another pond. Then when seining is over pump some of that original water back into the pond to aid winter fish survival?
I thought about that Bill. The water will be pumped into the main pond which is where this forage pond naturally overflows into regularly anyway.
My only reservation about pumping water back is fish contamination. To date all there should be and all I have ever found in the forage pond is FHM, RES and HSB. That is what I stocked. If I pump water back I was concerned that most likely some small BG or something else would be pumped back thereby contaminating the pond.
If I kill it off I would not care though. But if I kill it off I really don't care if the remaining fish survive or not either.
We will see how it goes. I might even be able to pump it down so low and just let it dry up and kill the population off. With several other ponds it is not like I particularly need the fish anyway.
Since I have never done this before it may come down to a final decision when we see how the whole operation goes. If it pumps easy, seines easy, and I can pump it all the way down may just pump it mostly dry and take every fish we can. If it turns out to be quite a challenge may just pump it down half way, seine enough to get whatever fish people want, and leave what is left to fend for themselves.
Just going to see how it goes.
I figure I have already got my money's worth out of the fish I have already transferred to my other ponds, (probably around 100 HSB and hundreds of fingerling RES along with several pounds of FHM) although I would not mind another 50-100. So anything we get through this operation is just bonus.
LOL, yes a bunch of good people on here. On the other hand some may just be coming to see the "hold my beer and watch this" scenario. I'm sure Snipe is very professional on how this plays out but I am definitely not.
Not looking forward to crawling into that 50 degree water and pulling out my floating FHM structure and the aeration diffuser. They may have to hook a tractor on me to pull me out. It is surprising how hard it is to get out of a pond with steep sides and a muddy bottom.
Snrub I have no problem getting in there and doing the dirty work for ya. I dont drink beer either (I'm a bourbon man) lol. But tiein a rope 2 me might not b a bad idea either.
Thanks for the offer. I'll supply the towels and a place to change. I may be able to use some help. A couple of the pallets are about 3' thick multiple layers of boards, not just a simple pallet. So they will be heavy and old enough they are starting to fall apart. Time for them to be out of there anyway and make some new ones next year.
I may try to pump the pond down a foot or so later this after noon just to see how the pumping goes. I found a 3" screen for the intake hose so it should go pretty quick. I just have to be careful and drain the pump fully because supposed to get down to 27 degrees tonight. Brrrr. Don't want the pump to freeze and bust tonight.
But supposed to be sunny and nice tomorrow at least.
Hey that is not a problem. Since selling out my large farm equipment (got about a third to half of it gone already) I treated myself to an early Christmas present. Less than 5 hours on it. You could say I am downsizing. From 600 hp tractors to 44.
Just grab me by the nap of my wetsuit with the 4 in 1 bucket. Try to miss the head though.
Well I got the floating pallets and the cedar tree out. So we should be good to go there. Wife helped but it was an easy job as it turned out. Just put on my wetsuit and booties, waded out and tipped them up on the bank. Way easier than I anticipated.
Pumped the pond down 10" which exposed 2-3' of bank. Figured that would be good enough till morning. Will pump a couple hours in the morning and that should get it down enough to get the aeration diffuser out of the middle and to seine depth.
4 in 1 buckets have been around for at least 50 years. But usually on large TLB or crawler excavators. Fairly new concept on this small of a tractor and loader. I also have a grapple that I like really well for brush. Both will fit this new 4044 tractor as well as my 5083E JD tractor. Takes auxiliary hydraulics obviously.
Note - for the best seining efficiency the water depth should be around 1/2 the depth of the seine. You can always refill the pond if you save the discharge water in an adjacent pond.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
Good to know. Not sure what height of seine Snipe has. As the pond gets lower and smaller in diameter, it should not take too long to pull it down lower if need be.
I am pumping into an adjacent pond but everything was full to capacity and at overflow level so whatever I pump in will go out the other pond overflow. But that is not really a big deal because filling the 1/20th acre forage pond out of the 3 acre pond would only barely drop it anyway.
Well the seining is completed and was a success! At least successful enough to suit me.
Wife took a bunch of pictures and I will share some of them but not tonight. I'm pooped.
But I will give just a short explanation. Ended up getting 200+ HSB that appeared 6-9" long with most 8" or better. And untold numbers of RES with a few of the original stockers from this spring at around 5 or 6" and hundreds and hundreds of 1" on up. Lots in the 2-3" range. That makes an estimated total of 350 HSB taken out of this pond from the original 500 stocked. And it would not surprise me a bit if there are 100 left in there because we could feel them hitting us going around the seine.
The fish all were very healthy in appearance. I was really pleased.
Took longer to pump the pond down than I anticipated, but we finally got the deepest part down to about 5' depth. We were using a 4' deep seine and not as wide as the water so we left lots of fish behind.
Thanks to Snipe, Rstringer and FishinRod for all their help. And especially Snipe that corregraphed the operation as well as provided and showed us how to use the salt bath to cleanse the fish. All fish (other than a few we caught with a cast net) went through the salt bath.
We all, along with Rstringer's daughter and my wife, had a really good time.
Man I am feeling some new muscles I did not know I had though. Slogging through mud and muck dragging a seine and climing up and down muddy banks ain't for sissies. When you pay those big bucks for the fish you stock from commercial fish sellers, those guys earn their money.
That's all for tonight but will try and get some pictures up tomorrow.
Sounds like you guys had a productive day! I would of loved to have seen it! For the last year or so I've been looking and dreaming about what new tractor I would buy if and when the time comes and the 4044 has always been at the top of my list. Please keep us informed on how well it does.
I've had a JD2620 bought new and really liked it. Thought one a little bigger would ride better and be easier on my back so traded it for a JD3038E. Liked that tractor a lot too. Sold it recently to a guy that was tickled to get it. Decided I wanted to stay out of the dust, heat and bugs in the summer while bush hog mowing around the place so decided on the 4044 with cab. Started out looking at the 4066 and the 4052 but in the end decided the only place I would ever use the extra horsepower was in tall grass mowing and I don't particularly need to get that done in a hurry. So for the price difference in the horsepower for essentially the same tractor otherwise I would take the money saved and spend it on attachments. I hope I like it as much as I have the other two small hydro tractors. I can already tell the loader is a lot stouter than what I have been used to with the others. And I put the optional air seat on it so that is a dream on my back compared to the two others. I have that same air seat suspension in my JD5083E and it works good.
Thanks for the info John. I inhairited a little 20hp 4wd 4110 hydro with loader and mmm that so far I just use as a lawnmower here at the house. It is a nice little tractor and I like it and anything bigger would be to big around the house, but for over at my property I wish it was bigger. Until I get moved over to the new property and have a place to keep it a bigger one will have to wait. I think I will go ahead and get a small brush hog for the 4110 and see what it will do for now.
When you get ready to upgrade it will not likely be a problem to get rid of the old tractor, at least in the current marketplace. Right now the little tractors are in high demand. I sold my 3038E and attachments with no problem and got a couple thousand dollars more than my dealer was offering me for trade off of a cash deal price. On new ones they run seasonal promotions with some good cash or financing deals.
On the other hand, if it is a good little tractor you can't have too many! Just keep it and buy another larger one. You will find the small one is much handier in some situations and the bigger one much better for other things.