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

This guy weighed 40 lbs. on the scale and showed signs of fighting. He was clogging the pond drain and cutting trees. Not sure if he was alone...

SSS.

Shoot, share on the forum, shovel.

Good job, RAH!

I have a new beaver down on our creek. Recently he has started gnawing on multiple trees and then quitting. It looks like he is "tasting" them to see which ones he wants to fell. Surely beavers can just smell a tree to know which one they would like?

Currently, he is just working on undesirable volunteers so we will peacefully coexist - for now.

When it comes to private ponds, the only good beaver is a dead beaver. Well done, RAH!

That's like my buddy was saying when I told him that he needed to control the cattails that were growing on one side of his pond. "You need to start whacking them because they will start growing on the other 3 sides of the pond and you will be fighting a prolonged battle if you don't start getting after them now." "Oh, they are fine, they don't bother me at all over there."

3 years later he's hiring an excavator to dig them out and he's having to be VERY careful where he sprays now to kill them because now they are growing among the marginal plants that he wants to have there. I just smile and tell him that I won't tell him that I told him so. LOL

Rod, one day you will be there looking at what's missing and realize that you just lost 10-20 years growth (or more) on a few trees........

Note that this beaver was trapped out legally as a nuisance pest by my neighbor and friend. Good job by him! Exit pipe was not clogged this morning so hopefully he was alone.

RAH,

Thanks for the clarification.

(I was just making one of my lame "Dad" jokes because I didn't see any obvious trapping marks on that big beaver.)

Head grip with a 330.

Conibears work great. I've had skunks in 220's killed so fast that they don't spill a drop of scent.

esshup,

Good point on the potential for "beaver damage" to quickly spiral out of control.

The soils on our property grade from "good farmland" to "marginal farmland" to very sandy soil as you move toward the creek. The sandy soil does not even support the adjacent, well-established tallgrass prairie. Instead, it has some scattered bunch grasses, some prickly pear cactus, and some forbs that are adapted to the very sandy soil.

The creek itself is then lined with trees. Most of those are Siberian Elms - which are usually considered an undesirable invasive in this area. One of their nicknames is "piss elm". If you have ever cut one while the sap is running, you will understand the derivation of the name!

The beaver is mostly sampling those elms, and has cut one big one. I would think they would taste awful, but what do I know?

Question for the forum: What would be my best riparian buffer management for that type of situation?

I have looked at aerial views for several miles upstream and downstream. Some landowners have completely cleared their stretch of creek banks. Others have their property grown up more densely than our property.

Eventually, I would like to establish some good native understory trees (like pawpaws) beneath some of the areas of large elms. I would also like to plant a few trophy trees (swamp white oaks, black walnuts, etc.) that can handle episodic flooding.

All of my planted trees would certainly be preferred beaver snacks, and I will have to ruthlessly suppress them at that point. However, prior to that phase, anybody have any good advice on just good stream health practices as it relates to the adjacent land?

Swamp White Oak, and Pin Oaks will do well there. PawPaw need high humus soils.River Birch will do well in the same area as those Siberian Elms.

The riparian buffer plants will all depend on the amount and level of the water. Arrowhead and Pickerelweed do not like highly varying water levels - they do better with 0 to 24" bouncing levels. Horsetail Rush or Scouring Rush grows where the water levels bounce and they don't need good soil. They are hard to get rid of though.

Most types of rush will do OK, but that all depends on the amount of water and level of the water.

Black Walnuts don't do well with flooding.......

Check the pH of the sandy soil, you might have to add lime on an annual basis.

Daughter caught a 7# LMB from pond yesterday on the deadly cane thumper, her best so far. I snared one about 6# and we caught probably caught 20 smaller ones. Good day fishing

Sounds awesome, Pat!!

I checked my neighborhood pond for any visual issues. All seemed well and it was around 30 degrees here.

At my neighbor Lee's pond, he's supposed to have been putting out some Christmas trees for the potential YP spawn, but has not. I put out a clump of (3) trees there and hope for a YP spawn. Around late summer '22, after a few stockings of smaller YP in the 2-3" range, we put in some 4-5" YP. The pond is polluted with fatheads of all sizes, so I'm hopeful that we may see some egg strands. I know Ohio has seen some already

Things should warm up this week.

There's nothing better than sharing fishing success with friends & family. Congratulations!

Pat, your pond has been showing off this spring. Congrats

If I just could get the BCP to do what they are supposed to do then I would be real happy…. But it is a lot of fun to batch big bass
Don’t think they spawned at all cause the bass are already at it and didn’t catch any BCP in shallow…..

Yesterday, it was about 45 degrees in the early evening. I got a clump of 3 Christmas trees in the pond. I also soaked and threw some feed. It took about 10-15 minutes before various fish started hitting the feed. Due to the angle of the sun, I couldn't really tell what all was hitting it, but I could smell the musky 'funk' of catfish for a bit.

I'm pumped! At least, my little forage pond is full after hours of pumping from the main pond. After the drought last year, was determined to fill fp while I still could in spring. Next step is to stock some healthy CNBG and feed them into good spawning success.

Went to pond yesterday evening after dark and went out on dock. I have solar spotlights over water that are really bright. Crappie were coming up for small bugs on surface . Was nice to see some, haven caught any this spring at all. Guess they didn’t spawn again. Used to catch them in shallow water this time of year. Maybe they wised up to the jigs I’m using…. The fish under the lights were probably 8-9” long