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

I don't fish my ponds. Only friends do that. I measure the fish by the size of the smile on the person who catches them.

Got a game camera up for turkey season.

I am always impressed with the resiliency of nature. Lots of turkeys on camera, despite the long-term drought conditions.

Also, many of the does on camera are visibly pregnant. Tough conditions for deer? No problem, we'll make more!

That is a far better measurement than a ruler or a scale.

I just figured RAH made marks on his loaner fishing rods for 4" smile, 5" smile, etc.

Obviously, on the kid rods he needs to adjust the ruler down a little bit. Of course, I have seen gigantic kid smiles for a 4" green sunfish brought to the bank!

We deployed the fyke net in my bait pond Friday evening. Pulled a couple hundred <6" BG Saturday morning and sent them to my buddy's quarry lake.
Then we moved the net to the front pond, reset it there, and retired to the dock with fishing poles and some cold beer.

On rod-n-reel we caught and later fileted 20 BG >7" and one YP 12.25". Ended up with 3.75lb. of filets.
We caught and caged over 100 <6" BG for later transport to the quarry lake.

Yesterday we pulled the net from the front pond. The hi-light of that soak was a pair of egg-filled 9.5" female GSF and their 8.5" boyfriends.
Also caught ~25 YP ranging 4"-12", and 75 or so <6" BG. The GSF went to the knife, the rest went to the holding cage.

One observation that tracked what I've been thinking with regard to the decline in wR of my HSB that I noticed last summer - there were exactly
zero crayfish in the net when we dumped it. I think it's time to drop a trap or three into one of the local creeks and catch a few to add to the pond.

The storms here over the past couple weeks have helped tremendously with the water level. Only need another 16" or so to be full again.

Impressive production with your fyke net!

Can you deploy/retrieve by wading, or do you use a boat?

Can it be done by one person, or do you need two or more?




Congrats on getting needed water to your ponds!

I'm sure you could deploy using a boat but it would be tough without some help.

We just dragged the net in and out by hand. Wasn't terribly difficult. I'm going to attempt a solo dump/redeploy operation after work today.

About what I expected.

May all of your footsteps this evening be secure and never fall into any boot-sucking muck!

One benefit of a recently-renovated pond... the shelf where we have the net deployed was covered in crushed limestone before the pond filled.

Excellent plan.

When I build our new pond, I just might put down pavers in a good spot for a fyke net.

Erosion control day today! I've been working on a clay loaf that was left when the pond was initially excavated. Managed to get it pretty close to leveled out, today capped a portion of it with 52 tons of AB3 which is still short of what it needs and one of the arborists dropped of (3) loads of chips/logs. Hoping to get the clay capped with chips, till it and then cap it again with another load of chips before we final cap it with topsoil for some grass.

The clay loaf has been slowly working it's way into the waterway that feeds the pond. I suspect this is part of the turbidity issue with our water.

I was able to get water samples while at the pond yesterday which were sent off Texas A&M today for final baseline water clearing testing. Should have a report back in a couple of weeks.

Feel like we are making pretty good progress toward better water quality.

Pond is full after being 4’ low for a long time

Congrats!

I assume you are going to post video of the exact steps and moves required for a plus 4' rain dance?

If not, then if you sell the DVD in Pond Boss Magazine, then I suspect you will get a lot of takers!

I’m thinking that if I showed that rain dance I would bee banned forever….. lol

The reason you buy acreage is so that the neighbors can't see these things and shooting zombies of course.

I shoot zombies on 10 acres up to 370 yds away and that also keeps the zombie wannabe's away.....................

Been catching a few fish. Pond is almost going out the overflow pipe, but not quite. Water is low visibility right now. About the color of the dirt in this area. Ha
Kids love to drag a net around the banks and see what they catch. Lots of BF tadpoles, some glass shrimp, a few HBG that are still showing up, and lots of crawfish my daughter caught 7 plus a tadpole. And 2 glass shrimp in one swoop with the net. Can you have too many crawfish??


Not sure what generation this SMB is, but definitely not a stocker. Ha

Dems some nice mudbugs!

Recruitment of SMB is probably the second greatest joy.

FishinRod: "I'm not sure?"

Smallmouth Bass: "H*ll no!"

I didn’t think so.

Dressed a few SMB and YP a while ago. Surprising to me the YP had a lot more crawdads in them than the SMB.
This SMB wasn’t kept. A little damage to her tail, I thought maybe she was on a nest. She was out too long for pics. I did not get length and weight.

That looks like one of fish measured by the smile on her face pics. Well done SG!

Congrats Pat, glad it finally filled up.


I know y'all got tons of rain. Todd had one of his big pond's dam blow out. Shelby was running pumps on other ponds when we got there.

I'm not jealous, I'm not jealous, I'm not jealous...

My personal opinion is that Saturdays are made better by filling the fish feeder with more food. Sadly we did it in the heat of the day so we didn't get to see our little swimming friends but then again....Saturday nights are made better by watching the fish feeder going off and watching the swimming buddies eat. Maybe we will put that on the schedule for this evening.