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The first step in the transfer involved pumping the water down enough so the pond could be seined. I started the night before and pumped it down 10" just to see the rate of drop. My plan was to start pumping at 8am the next morning. When I got up it was 26 degrees outside and decided to wait till 7am to start pumping. I should have pumped a little more the night before and started a little earlier. We ended up an hour or two of waiting to pump more water out of the pond. This is my first time of doing such a thing. I'll have a better idea of how much to pump if I do it again. 3" trash pump.

While we were waiting the cast net became a popular pass time and a number of HSB and RES were captured and transferred to my main pond. Does anyone know how to rotate pictures posted on this forum that were taken vertically? I can do it easily in my computer but when I post them on the forum they always come up with the picture horizontal.

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Last edited by snrub; 11/29/20 10:38 AM.

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Payton and I had a good time yesterday. It was interesting seeing the salt dip operation. It was very easy for sure. I want to say thank to all involved ( snrub & wife, snipe, fishinrod ). Snipe also thank you for hauling fish 4 me also. Walked the pond this morning and havnt seen one floater. Snrub thank you for letting me take bout 30 some HSB and countless RES.

Daughter has videos once she gets them on YouTube i will post a link. From left to right on the picture is Snipe, fishinrod, the Burns. I think John is saying what did I get myself into this time lol.

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The people who say I can't do it can just sit the @^#% down and watch me. Friends call me Rusto I also subscribe to pond boss mag. http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504716#Post504716
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You are welcome!

The time spent while we were waiting on the pump was not wasted. Lots of discussion. Thanks to Snipe for his teaching us about salt baths, handling and hauling the fish.
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The first seining attempt was on the north end of the pond in a small section where I had expanded the pond using a backhoe. Oh my what a mess. Where there was no compaction from the dozer plus no rock lining on the bottom the mud was knee deep. Poor fish in the seine. But it was a honey hole for small RES. Hundreds of them in the seine along with lots of mud. They were washed off best we could in the seine then given clear water baths and salt water bath. They appeared to be fine. Luckily things went better in the main part of the pond. Had the whole pond been like this I might have given up.
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As the pump continued to lower the pond some exploratory wading showed that we still had about 5' of water at the deepest point. We decided to give it a try even though that was a foot deeper than our seine and we knew lots of fish would go around and under.

Snipe is about over the top of his waders. I had a wetsuit on so was not a problem for me but by the time we were done I was getting cold. Water temps around the 50 degree mark.

Lots of fish going around and under the seine. Could feel them hitting us on the leg. But we still got as many fish we wanted to handle at once in each net full.

Glad we had help! Turned out about just the right amount of people to get it seined and the fish processed. That all went amazingly smoothly. Had some good hands on hand. Thanks again to all that helped.

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Last edited by snrub; 11/29/20 11:12 AM.

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Some pictures of processing the fish.

From the seine they were dip netted into clean water and transported to the salt bath. After the salt bath they were either put in the truck for transport, a holding pen in the main pond, of transferred to 4 different ponds of mine on this property.

Note the fish in the salt bath floating. That was the sign they were ready to take out or if they had been in a few minutes they were taken out even if they did not float. As soon as they were put in fresh water they immediately took off. To an untrained eye they looked dead but instead any gill flukes or other parasites were dead and the fish were fine. Maybe Snipe will give us some more details on the salt bath process.

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Some other random pictures. Water being pumped from the forage pond to the main pond. Snipe stirring up the salt bath mix. The fish being handled from the bucket before going into the salt bath. Did I mention I had lots of good help? No way I could have done this on my own and I joked with Carolynn asking her if just she and I should try it ourselves next time. grin That idea did not fly.

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One thing that was really surprising was that there were still FHM in the pond. Some really big adults. Did not find as many babies because I think the HSB kept them consumed, but I assume the HSB had not quite got big enough to tackle the biggest of the FHM yet. Snipe noted that they had spawned even recently because of the wear on the adult fins meaning they had been nesting. Another inch or two of length on the HSB and the FHM would have been gone. I was pleased to still see some and we transferred them out to other ponds along with the RES and HSB. The fish floating in the bucket that looks like a little shark is an adult.

I was ask what the feeding regimen was for the HSB. I had stocked FHM as early as I could get some in the spring (2 or 3# I think) and fed them fish pellets so they would grow and reproduce rapidly. By the time the HSB were introduced the pond was teaming with FHM. So that was a big part to their positive performance.

As far as commercial feed I started them out on Optimal starter (they were fed Cargill starter at the hatchery). 10# total and about half way through it when the HSB had large enough mouths mixed in Optimal Jr. Fed one 40# bag of Optimal Jr and as it dwindled down started mixing in Aquamax MVP as their mouth gape grew. The local dealer had some Aquamax 500 and that is what I finished out feeding them. The amount total? I did not keep track. about 2/3 the way through I was feeding a standard size vegetable can (like a can or corn or green beans) about 10 times a week. More later in the process and less earlier on. They fed really well except after a big rain and an influx of water or towards the end when the water was getting cold. When the water got cold it seemed they were only interested in eating commercial fish food on sunny warm days so that is the only time I fed them. I quit feeding them several days in advance of the seining.


[Linked Image from forums.pondboss.com]FHM of spawning size.
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Last edited by snrub; 11/29/20 12:02 PM.

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Lots and lots of RES

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Lots and lots of discussion. And finally pumping some water from the main pond back into the forage pond so the remaining fish (LOTS of fish remaining) would have some more water and not be so stressed. Raised the level a couple feet and that should be good till rains refill the pond again.

All in all a good experience.

I think for next year the remaining potential 100-150 HSB along with the RES and FHM will just let be grow out in this pond till the HSB get big enough to be fun to catch. maybe 12-15", then catch what I can.

Might end up doing this again three or four years down the road as I get the HSB fished out of my other ponds. We will see. Might do something else with this forage pond.

Anyone who has a big pond I would encourage make a small pond to experiment with if you enjoy such things. Small ponds are a lot of fun and if a person screws up are not to difficult to start over with a clean slate as this pond did for this year.

Sorry about the orientation of some of the pictures. I have not found a way on this forum to turn them. Other forums I am on allow for manipulation of the photo after uploading. If someone knows how I will go back and edit the posts. I can correct them in my computer but they still upload raw how they were taken.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=16834&filename=The%20Crew.jpg

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Last edited by snrub; 11/29/20 05:21 PM.

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Great seeing all of the pics. I rotated the last two John, if you like just link their pond boss address in your post and I will delete this post.
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Last edited by jpsdad; 11/29/20 02:37 PM.

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I can rotate them in my computer and any other place I need them. For some reason I just can't seem to do it on this forum. I'm sure it is just something simple I am overlooking or need some code added in the IMG link.

One other thing I will mention. I did not hog all the seined fish to myself. Three other PBF members took some home. smile


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YouTube video my daughter made. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BAWsr2Av3j8


The people who say I can't do it can just sit the @^#% down and watch me. Friends call me Rusto I also subscribe to pond boss mag. http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504716#Post504716
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Great job on the video Payton!

That shows the action going on so much better than the still photos.

Not only can she throw a cast net, she is a great video producer also! grin

What talent!

Last edited by snrub; 11/29/20 08:37 PM.

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Very interesting and informative forage pond harvest.
What was that hump / dirt mound for in the forage pond???
There are PTO driven water pumps that will make short work of pumping down and refilling a forage pond.
https://www.ruralking.com/sigma-tra...pump-6-inch-with-gear-for-tractor-sgpwp6

Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/29/20 09:15 PM.

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I asked snrub the same thing about the hump in the forage pond.

That is actually the old "edge" of the pond. He dug the original pond with his dozer. He later decided that he wanted a slightly larger pond - so he dug out a little more on one end using only his backhoe.

We found out the hard way that the bottom of the original pond that was compacted with dozer treads was much firmer for walking than the bottom of the portion that was excavated with a backhoe on the bank and never compacted at all!

If the muck had been any deeper - we would have needed to go on a Snipe hunt. laugh

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FishinRod explained it.

That pond was expanded on the east side with a dozer where you can see the "shelf" and on the north with a backhoe. Mud was knee deep in that area where the backhoe did the digging. If a person is a glutton for punishment I think you can scan back through the dozen pages of this thread and I think I documented when I expanded this pond. I think I added about a third to its size from what it originally was. I think the expansion was done only a year or two after the pond was originally built. Originally it was shaped like a paint roller tray based on suggestion from Esshup. But when I expanded it (with water still in the pond) more bottom features became a part of it.

In that little north part I have always had good success catching small RES with a cast net. For some reason, probably protection, the small fish like that area. When we seined it no exception. Loaded with small RES and quite a few adult FHM that the HSB had not wiped out yet.

After this seining project if I were building a pond specifically to be seined I would be sure and compact the bottom well (our clay here holds will without much compaction). The rock lining in the bottom sure helped. But I would not make the pond so deep. It is about 8 feet at the deepest and that makes fish winter survival good. But if a person was going to annually harvest it I would probably only make it 6' or so. I like it the way it is for my purposes.

The water was a muddy mess when we finished seining but the next day it had cleared up pretty nicely with the addition of water from my main pond. There is at least 6' of water in it now and that should be fine till a rain comes along and fills it the rest of the way. That very tip of that "hump" in the picture is just barely sticking out of the water now. Water is all the way around it.

That is a really nice looking PTO pump. I bet that would work well. I used what I had on hand. Thanks for the link to it. I knew there were big irrigation PTO pumps but that one is not outrageously priced compared to a good 3" gasoline pump.

I don't think I am going to make this seining an annual event though. eek grin

Last edited by snrub; 11/30/20 08:38 AM.

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I wanted to add a couple comments to the above info.
A question was brought up about how it would be handled if the subject pond would have contained zebra mussels. Which is a good question but something I don't deal with in a pond environment but something we do face on larger impoundments and I'll give a quick run-down of how that's handled. First, we do not move fish from known infected water.. But lets just say for the sake of argument that snrub's forage pond had zebras (it doesn't).
The water supply from a well would be used (and should always be different) for the transport tanks. fish from seine would be rinsed while in dipnet with fresh, known clean water, such as the hose and showerhead we were using to rinse each handful of fish to clear veligers. From there they'd go right into salt solution, netted and rinsed again with fresh water and tanked. If fish are properly rinsed with adequate water there is no place for the veliger to exist as they DO NOT attach to gills like other mussel larvae do. To transfer the veligers it takes water in any amount probable in the process to make the pass. If fish are handled correctly and nets, buckets, etc, do not contaminate the transfer water it's very highly unlikely to carry any on the fish themselves.
About the above forage pond seine project,....FUN!!
It was a bit tuff but not too bad. Had some good help on hand and that always makes things work better.
snrub has a beautiful place there and in general, his waters are of such quality the fish grow very fast in a natural state.
Our process was pretty much explained on how everything went but I changed up a few things on the transport side I'd like to explain.
When we filled my 200 gal tank with water I knew we'd be hauling those fish to Rstringer's place so I used 50% of the electrolyte/sedative I normally do and the reason is that the fish coming out of the salt bath are already in Lala land and I wanted them to partially come out of that state vs being heavily salted.
I'm hoping that Rusto's fish all done well after release. I used a 50/50 mix of tank water with Rusto'd pond water for obvious reasons of temp/chemistry but also to bring those fish out of their semi sedated state at a nice slow rate as we transferred those into buckets and after a short period of time, then netted and dropped right into pond.
I don't know how many fish we moved total from seine to transfer but several thousand would be my guess. of those 1000's of fish maybe 6 or 7 were touched by hand and I think the guys involved caught on to my desires to never touch the fish if possible.
I think we did the best we could to insure a near 100% chance of survival for everything we moved. I actively practice "all fish matter" :-)) in my efforts to not introduce unnecessary slime removal that induces more stress and the dreaded "fuzz' saprolignia.
I feel this effort was well planned and executed and I'm glad we could make it all come together!
Thanks guys (and Gals!)

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That PTO driven pump that Bill provided a link for is rated at slightly over 52,000 gph. That will empty a pond pretty durn quick!!


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RES are active mollusk eaters. YP are known to eat snails whole as I have seen this. YP eat zebra mussels probably mostly as whole or intact individuals. What happens if a RES-YP eats a small 1/16"-1/8" zebra mussel whole. I assume the mussel will possibly survive intact the digestive tract process. Has there ever been any research published on movement of intact zebra mussels via the digestive tract of being eaten by a fish that is transported??

Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/30/20 07:46 PM.

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I'm hoping that Rusto's fish all done well after release.



Took my normal stroll around the pond again tonight. Zero floaters so far. Not even 1 little RES. I thought at the very least there would be some small ones. If anyone is thinking about transporting fish on there own they need to read above discussion. That was a learning experience for me.


The people who say I can't do it can just sit the @^#% down and watch me. Friends call me Rusto I also subscribe to pond boss mag. http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504716#Post504716
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Originally Posted by Bill Cody
RES are active mollusk eaters. YP are known to eat snails whole as I have seen this. YP eat zebra mussels probably mostly as whole or intact individuals. What happens if a RES-YP eats a small 1/16"-1/8" zebra mussel whole. I assume the mussel will possibly survive intact the digestive tract process. Has there ever been any research published on movement of intact zebra mussels via the digestive tract of being eaten by a fish that is transported??
That has to bring up some interesting questions Bill.. I have asked my lead Bio in the past about RES eating Zebras and at that time he didn't know of any proven results from anything yet. I would have to think with the fact YP are present in decent numbers where these first appeared that there would be someone, somewhere that could answer that.

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It all looked suscessful but also looked like some hard work when i see walking through deep sludge. I enjoyed the story and the pics. Good job i think. And Bill Cody, Thanks for posting the info on the pto pump, i might need one of those.


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Originally Posted by RStringer
Took my normal stroll around the pond again tonight. Zero floaters so far. Not even 1 little RES.

Good job Rusto! (And Snipe!)

Did you guys estimate the total number of RES when you put them in your pond? How many of those healthy adult RES got transported?

Rusto, you may have to start a new thread next spring to report how they are doing in your pond.

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I was guessing at 200-300 total on RES. Most were .75-1.5", several 2-3" and a handful of 3+"...Guessing. I think there was 4-5 fish closing in on that 5" mark.

Last edited by Snipe; 12/01/20 11:06 AM.
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