Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction What did you do at your pond today?

Truth to be told I spent today the whole day cleaning my pond.

My koi made it thur the deep cold spell...

I caught a surprise.

Nice WE!

Was it a surprise to catch one, or was it a surprise to catch one in your LMB/BG pond?

I had a week of really hot weather last summer, surface temps got to 90 degrees and I lost at least half of the WE I stocked the previous fall, I found 23 of the 55 that I stocked floating. I figure I lost all of them and the ones I didn't find never floated, this was the first WE I have caught since that happened. My pond is only 1/4 acre so there isn't a good cold water refuge area in the summer. 90 degrees is the upper temperature limit for WE.

So that WE is definitely a GOOD surprise!

How did it compare to the size you stocked? It looks like a healthy fish, that is just waiting to put on some spring weight.

Hi Shorty, I have a similar situation with small pond and lack of cold water refuge for WE. What angling technique did you find worked to catch this WE?

Slip bobber, micro jig, and a small piece or worm in 2 1/2 feet of water on the wind blown side. WE were 5-8" when I stocked them. This was an experiment to see if they would fair better than YP did with the summer heat. 50 was the smallest quantity my supplier would sell me which was more than I wanted.

I bought two bags of Jr. last summer. One bag was the varied length pellets, the other bag was all little round pellets.

The fish didn't seem to prefer one over the other.

Got a bag of BG last week. My fish are sizing up so I figured it was time to size up the pellets too.

How many of the 50 did you expect lived till today?
Do you ever get to see them when walking around the pond?
Do you know what they are feeding on in that pond?

Looks like that one is 3-4x the original stocking length already!

The last bag of BG Jr I bought last year was all round as well. I was about to call Dustin when I seen something on the bag showing the new shape.

Had a blast last few days out at the pond. Friend from Ft Worth fished and caught a 6 and 7 pound LMB, along with several very nice HSB and one he couldn't stop. Trout are biting, too. I joined in the fun with a 4 lb LMB and a big momma at least double that who jumped twice and spat the lure. Also caught some trout, but lost one that looked more like a salmon. Next time!

Only negative was that when a fellow pondmeister showed up to get harvest some CNBG together, the durn things wouldn't bite. Of course, the next evening they came in like gangbusters, but too late.

Two trees felled in the pond, would like two more. Cormorants still leave the entwined forage pond alone, looks like success. By clapping loudly, I've even kept in the dirty birds away from the main BOW. Geese, on the other hand, scorn my best efforts.

Hummingbird feeders went up yesterday, so far no takers. I fertilized the pond today, saw bald eagle, six wood ducks and a kingfisher. Geese didn't approve and let me know it. Don't know if the one I hooked recognized me, but I noticed that one of them stayed far away.

I bought two bags of Jr. last summer. One bag was the varied length pellets, the other bag was all little round pellets.


The last bag of BG Jr I bought last year was all round as well. I was about to call Dustin when I seen something on the bag showing the new shape.

Hmm... My bag didn't mention anything about it. It was an all black bag. The diameter was narrower but I had a mix of long, medium and very tiny extruded pieces. I wonder if there is a date of production on the bag?

anthropic,
Sounds like your pond is a beautiful thing with all those sport fish and all that wildlife in one spot! Very neat that you have wood ducks and kingfisher as well. What kind of kingfisher do you have in Texas?

Ringed, green, and belted here in east Texas. Pretty sure I have a belted. What about in your very different neck of the woods? Are you still fighting snow, ice & cold?

I try not to cut down dead trees unless strictly necessary, as they are home for wood ducks and woodpeckers. Also, eagles love to perch there for uninterrupted view.

Honestly, it's been a long struggle to get my BOW up to snuff. Still not 100 percent where I'd like it to be, but the perfect is the enemy of the good. At least it's fun for my guests when the feeders go off!

Wish I could stock & keep tiger muskies to control LMB numbers. For that matter, I love smallmouths, too!

That's weird. All the Jr is/was varied length. I wonder if they shipped some starter food by mistake? Those are all little round pieces.

I will find out soon enough, I should be getting the food I ordered shortly.

I fished my pond today. Made all of 2 casts. First one got whacked by a 3# HSB, 2nd cast this one slurped down the 1/4 oz. gold blade/chartreuse body chatter bait.



6.75#

I invited that 2nd one to the house for dinner.

I took my (14) year old son to our property where our main pond is, and we took a 125cc dirt bike, his 90cc quad, and a Honda Monkey 125cc up to ride the trails.

Our property is 75 acres with a 4.5 acre pond at one end. I truly hadn't been in and around the remaining non-pond acreage for years, maybe a decade or more.

I had a rough time even tracking the property lines of my land as so much plant/tree growth has occurred since I've been through the area. There's a lot more trails as people are riding through that acreage fairly regularly.

After riding for a few hours, we came down to ride some trails around the pond. We stopped at a 'flat' area next to the pond and got off the vehicles to look around a bit (kid was on the quad). My son walked away from his quad for about 10 seconds, and when we turned around, the quad was rolling...towards the pond....and then into the pond. My kid was basically watching it as it submerged and then rolled on its side as a current started to move it 'downstream.' I told him (yelling) to get his ass in the water and get it. He did...after the shock wore off.

Of course, the water temps was around 50 degrees, and he had no change of clothes, so the riding ended as we built a fire to warm him up.

I then tried to shift him to the 125cc dirt bike, and myself on the Monkey. He took a few laps around our dirt road, and determined that he was too cold to continue riding.

It was about 60 degrees out, so a nice day for March in PA.

Quad is going in for service today. Water in everything.

So I fished and caught my first stringer of CC from the pond Sat, the biggest one weighed 2.6 lbs at just short of two yrs from stocked fingerlings, I have a feeder out but with the vast amount of fish out there the feed doesnt reach very far but obviously you will have some that tend to hang out right in that corner of the pond. I was checking what they were eating and several had little young crawfish in their stomach, which is good to know,, I was able to get several batches from Quarter Acre last fall but these were younger smaller then any of them so I must have had a population present already.
Also seen Wood Ducks, many King Fishers, and a pair of beautiful Bald Eagles perched on a dead tree over the pond, witnessed one dive down to the water and catch a fish or something and then seemed to drop it or lose it before he got back to his perch, was surprised usually they take off when a person walks up to the lake but this time they didnt, were still there when I left.
I stocked 300 WE and 500 YP a week ago, hopefully see what they will do.

I wondered about that. I still have half a bag of it. Wouldn't be any trouble to measure it and know for sure.

The Optimal web page still shows Jr. as varied length pellets. Starter #4 is almost double the price of Jr., so you'd think that they
would be careful when labeling the bags.

WOWSER!!! 300 WE and 500 YP? That is a boat load of WE!!

I'm wondering if WE would prefer to use YP as their forage as your pond hopefully will have successful YP ribbons turning into millions of young YP. With 500 YP and depending on stocking size, perhaps at any spring time 100-150 could be laying eggs, it seems you will have an explosion of 2-3" baby YP which the WE should be able to feast on

Anyone with a YP/WE only pond know how that dynamic works?

When I first opened the bag I thought it was the #4 as well and was getting ready to call them. It's been about 6 months or so, so my memory is a little iffy but I think I was looking on the bag for any information I could give them before I called and found something on it about the change. I'm thinking it was a small tag but I could be wrong. I know I found something somewhere that made me not call. Also after looking at it more it did look bigger and with different sizes than the #4. I still have the bag and will take a look at it again.

Is there a good quality fish food for everything? I know it's not 1 size fits all type of thing. There everything from koi, catfish (dont care to feed them anymore), bass, Hybrid striped bass, perch , bluegill, crappie, crawdads. Just a mutt pond really. Like seeing all the action. I only hand feed also if tht matters. Normally just get the crap at local farm store but thought I would order some better quality this time. Any suggestions?

I have a multi species pond and am mixing Optimal Jr and Optimal Bass this year in my feeder. If I remember correctly esshup knows someone who had tested different feeds in cages. The results of that test showed that the fish fed Optimal had the best survival and the cages grew less algae on them. Hopefully he will see this and respond. I was using Li’l Strike before and switched.
Heppy

I have a mutt pond. I feed a 50/50 mix of Optimal Bluegill and Optimal Bass food. ALL the fish seem to be doing really well on it.