Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Yellow Perch Spawn 2021

I don't think it will work as well for crappie because of their spawning and YOY fish habits, but it would work for BG, not for the eggs, but for YOY fish.

Thanks esshup. One more potential tool to add to the pond management toolbox!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M9T7ZF8?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details

The only complaint I have with it is that it's very slow to update the display.
I expected the probe wire wasn't going to last very long, but I treat it gently and after a year and a half of use it still works great.
Haven't even needed to change the battery.

That looks like it would be perfect.

Thanks for the thermometer link Augie!

I trust one person I "know" on Pond Boss more than I trust a thousand bots in a seller's reviews listings.

Water temps are rising very quickly with this warm weather we've been experiencing.

3/6/21: 47.7° F surface temp, 42.8° F @ 8'

3/8/21: 53.7° F surface temp, 43.9° F @ 8'

All species are now in full attack mode when the Optimal pellets hit water.

I still don't have full attack when I throw out the Optimal. I'm getting more and more takers but it usually takes a few minutes or more to get them going. My water is pretty cloudy so I'm not sure if the YP are coming up or not. I have seen a few LMB near the surface.

Augie, you're close...real close.

Yep, and naturally, there's a cold front moving in. We're about to drop 20° air temp and get a bunch of rain.

I'm hoping to do a bit of hook-n-line sampling after work today. I put a holding cage in the pond Sunday afternoon. Just in case...

Had a lot more activity when I fed today. Some of them hit immediately and then more kept joining in. Now we've got rain coming in so it will probably slow back down. My pond needs the water so I won't complain to much. Lol!
I still haven't seen any ribbons and the rain will probably make it harder to see them if I get some. If we get a lot of rain I may need to add more branches.

Sharing the link that was just like this from last year.
You will see what locations had ribbons on what date. When I review the reports it isn't clear to me if it is water temp or air temps, or date of ice out or location in the pond that controls it. It has been suggested that amount of sunlight per day (photoperiod) is the thing that determines it but we don't have data on that for each location.

I guess pondmeisters this year could google their exact location and figure out the photoperiod on the days leading up to and on the day they see the first ribbon?

Looking at this link it appears that my first ribbon was on the 14th or 15th of march and I posted on the 16th. That means I could be 4 or 5 days away from ribbons? I would be shocked if that happens this year as we still have ice floating and water is so low that the usual beds of leaves that YP like to leave their eggs on are all high and dry. I probably should collect some dead fall branches and lay them in for them this year, or fire up my house well and try to pump the water levels up.

here was last year's post:
Yellow Perch ribbons 2020

Thanks for adding the link Canyoncreek. I've gone back and looked at that a few times so that will make it easier. Going by last year someone should be seeing some soon.

Last year we stocked our new pond on 3/26/20 with perch. On 4/5/20 we ribbons in the rocks around the edges. I didn’t think they was big enough to spawn but apparently there was a couple the right size.

Where there's a will, there's a way!

52.9° F surface temp, 45.3° F @ 8' in my pond this morning.

I haven't spotted any ribbons, but there's a lot of tangle in there that can't be seen without putting the boat in.

Augie, I don't know where you are in boone county, but picking Columbia as the middle of that county, your sunrise is 6:24am and sunset 6:13am so you are just under 12 hours photo period. It seemed to me that at least for us northern folk that we needed about 12 hours and 15 min or so to get egg strands. Someone with spare time could look at the 2020 thread and see what dates each person had and look up sunrise and sunset for that locale to double check if daylight hours is the real trigger.

Your water temps should be plenty warm

That extra hour of sunlight we are going to gain on Sunday should really get the YP spawn going.

That would be spot-on for my place. I'm five miles east of the US63/I-70 connector in Columbia.

I was at Wally World today so I picked up a very cheap pool thermometer. I don't know how accurate it is but it said the temp was 58° F at about 6". Way warmer than I thought.

We went from them saying Tuesday night 2"4" of rain by tonight to the last I heard last night was maybe another .15" tonight on top of the .60" I got yesterday. We still have some chances over the next few days but it doesn't look like I'll be seeing nearly as much as I thought a few days ago.

Daylight savings time doesn't affect how much sunlight we get per day, it'll just move the sunrise and sunset ahead by an hour.

I believe it was a joke. Lol!

Steve,

It is not just any day that a guy gets an opportunity to make a "photoperiod" joke.

Let's just say that my kids got me a daily "Dad Joke" calendar for Christmas.

(Obviously, they know me pretty well. However, they have decided that the jokes in the calendar are EVEN WORSE than my jokes!)

Interesting...
3/12am had this: 52.9° F surface temp, 45.3° F @ 8'
Then we got ~6/10" rainfaill.
3/13am had this: 51.8° F surface temp, 48.2° F @ 8'

The drop in surface temp I expected. +3° F @ 8' in 24hrs leaves me befuddled.

More rain and quite a bit of wind over the last two days. Water is fairly stained now.
Still have not seen any ribbons, but I haven't put the boat in to do a serious search.

I think the rain may have helped turn over your surface water with some of the deeper water. (Or the gusty winds during the storm did it?)

Either way, thanks for posting your data points. Very helpful.

Just went for a walk around my pond. I have the first YP ribbons on sunken Christmas trees. Today was the first day since Friday that I walked... so I'm guessing they dropped them either Saturday or Sunday. We had nice warm sunny weather in the low 50's the past two days. Central Ohio. Didn't get a water temp.