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

I did let her do it but she still has to work a little on the finesse of the whole thing, instead of a little jig or twitch she would jerk the damn thing several ft at a time, they still came after and hit it, she was able to catch several. granted mine are just 2 1/2 yrs old, no really big ones in there but they are still fun.
My next challenge is going to be the CC, them damn things look like they upwards of 5 6 lbs and I cannot get them to bite on anything. Im wanting to eat them and get them out of the pond pretty bad. but no luck yet, I have caught them in the past, seldom releasing any for several yrs now but they seem smart as heck, that and A lot of the standing timber around the back half of the pond is starting to drop big limbs and whole treetops and some whole trees, and it seems the wind blows them up to the front half shorelines of the pond before they sink, so now I have tons of brush on the bottom around the shorelines, harder then ever to get one out if you do hook one, they will take you straight into the brush.
Oh well, I guess if it was easy women and kids would be doing it.

Today I filled the feeder with Optimal. Thanks to Chris for ordering and delivering it to me.
Then 4 wheeler ride to the back of the place. Wife tossed feed to the green sunfish in our 1/4 acre pond.

Then 4 wheeler Ride to a place where I dismounted
and looked for pigs. Appears that they have left my place. I won’t miss them.

Next to the power line area and picked/ate some wild black berries. Back to the house for a nap. Then back to home in the Fort Worth area.

That sounds like one where you can definitely check the "good day" box!

P.S. Glad to hear that your piggies are gone.

Rod, I expect that they will be back. But, neighbors are saying the same thing.

Mine are back….. killed a234# sow that had never had babies and was absolutely beautiful when we butchered her …. Fat and no smell at all. We ate one side of ribs and like emerill says pork fat rules!

If there was ever a place for the quote, "If you been handed a lemon, make lemonade" come into play that has to be it.

Maybe you and the neighbors can shoot the "pioneers" of the next invasion before they get re-established in the area?

Like having a Neighborhood Watch for hogs, where everyone lets the neighbors know when they see hogs or hog signs on their property.

Just heard from another guy who has land kinda close to mine. He said that most of the pigs in Texas have moved to his place.

Dave, I seem to recall reading that LSU has developed a bait that kills hogs but not desirable game or pets. Might be worth a look for your unfortunate neighbor.
https://www.lsu.edu/mediacenter/news/2023/03/wfl-pigs.php

PS You can still consume the pigs killed by the bait, totally harmless to humans.

Interesting stuff. Need to give it a little more time

All of the other Texans should start a Gofundme to build an 8' fence completely surrounding his property!

I figure they are here to stay. Will just wander in and out.

Would dig under it.

The M.E.W.S. was activated on my pond a few days ago. So far the guilty criminal remains at large.
Mr. Conibear and Mr. Ruger are being brought in to deal with the vermin before too much damage is done.

1) As I drove back through my SMP pond field after baling hay on the North 45, our local Osprey flew off holding a fish.

2) At my LMB pond, I saw a CC "hoovering" pellets for te first time since I reintroduced channels cats 3 years ago.

Saw a few bladderwort in my SMB/YP pond which I hope means there are some excess zooplankton in there keeping the food chain going.

Not at the pond, but the past few days have been interesting....

I'm watching the neighbors chickens (21 birds) until their house is closed (they already moved to Florida) and the new owners take possession which is supposed to happen the end of the month. Well, Tuesday night the coons chewed a hole in the chicken wire about 3' off the ground and got inside the pen/coop. 9 birds were either killed and dragged out of the pen or dead & partially eaten inside the pen/coop. The hole was about 18" dia. I patched the hole and reinforced some other areas that looked iffy. Wednesday night they pulled hard enough on the chicken wire at the same height that they opened up a hole large enough to squeeze in, but not large enough to get a bird out. 5 more dead, partially eaten birds. I said enough is enough, blocked off the door to the coop just enough to put a live trap in the doorway, and set five Z-Traps (Dog Proof coon traps) outside the pen and baited them with Optimal Starter #4.

Friday morning I had 4 'coons (one boar, 3 females that all showed that they had a litter) waiting for me and none had entered the pen, so there was nothing in the live trap that was blocking the coop door. I felt better, but reset the traps, found two more areas that they had torn the chicken wire AND one wire from the 2"x4" galvanized inner wire that was around the perimeter of the pen at ground level. I reinforced those areas, closed up the hole that they had made Wednesday night, and moved the live trap outside of the pen. So now there were 6 traps outside of the pen.

This morning there were 4 more coon waiting for me. Again, one boar and 3 females. All the coon were adults, and THESE 3 females showed signs of recently having a litter too. So, that's 8 'coon in two days.... These also went to feed the buzzards and I will re-set/re-bait the traps tonight. I ordered 1/2 dzn more traps yesterday from Z Traps and they should be showing up soon. I'm seeing coon keeping the deer away from the deer feeder on the trail cam, so I will be putting some traps around that as well.

There is a "neighbor" (about 1/2 mile away) that "loves" coons. He will sit on his porch and feed them dog food, even having a few crawl up into his lap to eat. He even contacted the local animal control company and told them that they could release their caught 'coons on his place. A few years ago when the neighbors had a problem in their coop I fed 31 coons to the buzzards in the span of a few weeks. I am peeved to say the least and I will keep the traps set until I don't catch any more for a month. I'll rotate different baits just to be sure I'm not educating any. The buzzards should thank me, as should the turkeys and other nesting birds.

They won the first two skirmishes, but I WILL win the war - at least this year.

Now for pond related stuff, I rebuilt a TH feeder that I bought from FireIsHot a few years ago. The spin plate motor shorted out, and it fried the timer control. it seems he had some issues with moisture getting in around the sight glass too, plus the blower motor was making a funny noise. The feeder is old, I don't know how many years old it is, but it's old enough that the decals on the outside were all sun rotted and gone. I took the feeder completely apart, fixed the blower motor noise (blower was barely rubbing on a rivet head, I moved the squirrel cage about 1/16" on the motor shaft and that fixed that problem). I replaced the spin plate motor, replaced both sight glass windows gave the inside a good cleaning and installed a new timer and battery. I also put new TH decals on the outside and replaced both latches. It's gong to be a test bed for some modifications I'm doing to see if I can get it to throw the 3/8" Triton feed reliably. (3D printers are wonderful things).

I also had some Watermeal show up at my pond, so I'm hitting it with Propeller when the wind blows it to one side.

This morning I returned a Vertex single piston compressor that I rebuilt for a customer; reinstalled it at the pond, and drove over to their chicken coop to look at it. I was half way there to the coop when this guy jumped from the back seat to the dash. Needless to say it scared the you know what out of me, as I *thought* I was the only one in the truck and all the windows were up.



That's what I get for leaving the truck door open while I was re-installing the compressor.

O.K., we are here by the birds, now you can get out, no charge for the taxi service.

esshup, them DP traps are amazing, I have finally, after several yrs of persistent trapping, had a very good hatch of young turkeys, several hens with a whole flock of young ones. something that I hadnt seen in yrs. I was getting over run with coons.
3 yrs and over 80 coons later, I am able to put some food out in the winter for turkeys and not have a whole flock of coons clean it up immediately.
I use the fishfood and then when I am trapping randomly out in the woods I will scatter probably a spoon full of anise seeds, or a drop or two of the anise oil around the trap, the stuff smells really good and draws them in from a distance.

Thanks for the tip on the anise oil/seeds. I will get some today when I am at the grocery store.

That would have had me buying another freezer.
Two years ago I put ten racoons in the freezer. Not a one last year. Now they're back and I've got something for them.

I saw another muskrat on the pond yesterday. Went and fetched Mr. Ruger who sent a high-speed 40 grain love note to the filthy varmint.


1.6" of rain this morning. Came fairly quickly but not so fast to have any runoff for the pond.

I'm going to drag the pond hopper boat out and deploy my aeration diffuser this afternoon. Should have done it six weeks ago,
but I needed to replace the mainline and I didn't have any on hand. I bought a 100' roll of black farmer pipe yesterday so now
I just gotta get out there and do it.

Why did you put racoons in the freezer? (Probably a stupid question, but that never stopped me before!)


Bummer on the rain not making it to the pond, at least you are starting to get some water deposits back into the "soil bank".

Spotted two SMB fry hanging out under the dock yesterday (1").

I'm thinking either eating, skinning, or something I don't want to hear about.

I'm glad somebody else asked, the fur isn't worth skinning even in the prime months, and I damn sure ain't eating one of them thru the summer months, several that I catch in the summer months are eat up with ticks and look semi rough.