Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Decrease the fish in our pond.

Hello.

To easily reduce fish in my pond I use this trap.

I put this trap in the water where I feed the fish, and when I give the food the fish come inside, and I only have to pull the trap to catch 10 to 15 fish every time.

And you how do you do, without emptying the pond.


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azteca,

It is a little difficult for my old eyes to resolve your trap in the photos.

Is your trap just shaped like a sack? Do you retrieve it by hand, or do you have it on a pole to lift quickly? What type and size of fish are you able to harvest?

Thanks!

Hello.

The Perch don't see it either.

Yes, it's like a big bag.

Yes, I pick it up by hand, you can see a little rope.

Yes, I take the big Perch, the small Perch pass through the bag.
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I've been pondering the idea of using one of the mud poles on my dock as a fulcrum point for lifting a net.
A big net, or a wire basket like Azteca is doing, suspended from one end of a pole. I think it would work.

Azteca - Would you place the trap on a dark background so the design can be better observed? Asphalt or cement background - be creative? Is that trap made from 'chicken wire fence'? Size of bag dimensions? To understand the design, the trap is just a large open bag, fish swim in for food and bag is lifted????
Is water clear to see fish in the bag or if water is turbid is bag just pulled up after soaking for 5-10 minutes?

That was also one of my plans to harvest fish at the feeder in my (future) ponds.

There are lots of excellent designs for very efficient lift nets.

The main problem I see, is that you would be selectively harvesting your pellet-trained fish.

It might really be a good idea for the "cold" water people with tilapia that have some come and take pellets that would otherwise be wasted in the winter die off.

In my case I would be selectively harvesting the undesired fish. BG <9". BG >9", RES, YP, etc. would go right back in the drink.

Ok....I know, not helpful.

We had an umbrella net suspended upside down several feet under the surface and fed gold fish over it all the time and then when we wanted to harvest some GF for river bait we would try to hoist the umbrella net up quickly, with a rope and pully hoist we had rigged up that hung out over the water, worked a little but the GF get too smart to get caught easily, one dip after feeding you would catch quite a few but not much on the second try, them things get extremely smart, probably the hardest fish to trick or catch.

When you say too smart on the second attempt, would the GF not come back to the feed when you re-submerged the net prior to the second attempt, or were they so wary that they exploded out of range and escaped when you pulled the net the second time?

I am considering this method for transferring forage fish to the main pond, but I suspect there will be quite a learning curve on the most efficient means of netting the fish.

The most efficient way to net more than a handful of fish to transfer them is with a seine. If you want to move 10-50 small fish at a time use a galvanized Gee minnow trap, or a Z-bait fish trap.

You could categorize netting fish by level of effort, or even by getting wet or not, single man vs. two men needed.

A cast net is usually a pretty effective method once you master the technique.

That is a good measuring stick, Sunil.

I am frequently at the farm by myself, so "max fish by single man not getting wet" is probably the level I am considering.

Then there is the benefit side to consider. Is it worthwhile to put 250 BG/week in a pond while trying to increase the BG population, or is there some reason that doing all 5,000 in the grow-out pond at once is preferable to the receiving pond management goal?

Very few would come back to the feed and the ones that did would bail at the slightest hint of movement on the net, as for a cast net the same way, my sidekick is pretty proficient at throwing one, and you might catch several on the first try, even after several weeks of not trying, and seldom catch one on the second throw. even tried a seine net but with limited luck, and it was a small forage pond, if one Goldfish finds a gap or crease to escape the whole works bails after him, like rounding up calves, they would frustrate the shit out of us. I dont think other species are as escape minded as goldfish are.

Since goldfish are related to common carp, maybe they have the same level of "smarts"? Common carp are the smartest fish in N. America.