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

It didn't look much different than the other one. I gave both of them the wire brush treatment to get most of the crust off and was interrupted by SWMBO
while I was doing the H2O2 soak and only got one of them finished. They were both wet from the scrubbing and I simply managed to grab the wrong one.

I'm not using membrane diffusers like most guys do. These are ring diffusers made from what looks like the soaker hose that's used for watering your garden.

The back pressure was more than the 30psi gauge could tolerate so I shut the pump down immediately.

No blood, no foul, lesson learned - H2O2 soak is mandatory between seasons for ring diffusers.

And yes, a pressure gauge on your airline is a very good idea. I've got a pop-off valve to install but I've been low on roundtoits and haven't gotten that done.

Read "Birdman" Mel Toellner's article in the May/June Pondboss and just had to mention my Red-Winged Blackbirds. I can't get within 20 ft of my inlet/sedge-meadow or the male is circling 6 feet above my head and squawking at me. I just don't feel welcome at my own pond! He staked out the area and got a girl to nest in the sedges and now wants to defend her. I am attaching pictures of him, of her on a post, and a drone shot of the sedge meadow where the nest is well hidden (she is on the post in the upper left). Glad to see them nest but looking forward to getting my pond back.

Awfully considerate of you to pound a t-post to give him an elevated guard station!

I went to work at my farm last weekend. The redtail hawks are clearly on the nest now. I had one circling me and screaming to go away at every single location where I did a project. At one point, I was a 1/4 mile from any large trees and a hawk was still screaming that I was too close.

I have big flocks of redwing blackbirds by my ponds. Over 100. They get use to you. I like them around because they gang up on the blue herons and chase them off. My pond work for last couple weeks has been feed training smb fry.

Feeding today from Pier #1 , Original Pond , big surprise for me , 3 years of hand feeding, this last year Optimal , the SMB finally showed up on their own ! A beautiful 16"-17" SMB and 2-3 8"-10" SMB . What a surprise. Of course , hoping many more figure out Optimal BG. The pond never fails to surprise. RBT disappeared a week ago, no LMB allowed , guessing the CC that we're constantly thinning , 18"-26" length , got a big Protein boost. Be glad when last CC 12" and longer is gone.

Not today, but yesterday, I fed my green sunfish and refilled the feeder on my bass/big pond.

That's good new Dave! You got the water levels up to where you feel comfortable feeding?

Took out the 2nd beaver in my oldest pond. They are programmed to clog the drain pipe.

Boondoggle, we got some decent rains that helped but perennially low water levels is symptomatic on my land. I own a high hilly area. When I met Bob Lusk, many years ago, I told him where my land was. He knew the area. He said, he had been watching radar weather reports for years and wondered why the clouds split at that point. My hill does that and I’m only about 25 feet higher than my adjacent neighbors.

I’m reminded of what the Prime Minister of Israel once said. His remark was that his ancestor Moses wandered all over the region and stopped in an area where it didn’t rain much. I know the feeling. Full pool on my ponds is unusual. As Fire is Hot said, ‘ Its a tad rocky”.

Spent a few evenings over the course of a week catching a fish fry.
Butchered 30 BG yesterday and one HSB on Friday.
My buddy Nick got to that one with the fillet knife before I had a chance to weigh and measure it.
Consistent with previously butchered HSB, this one had one Optimal Hand Throw pellet and two large crayfish in its gut.
150 or so smaller BG were packed off to Nick's quarry lake. Didn't take the time to weigh and measure those.

This is how the fish fry BG measured up:

Length Weight Std. Wt. wR
9.50 0.71 0.74 95.53%
9.00 0.65 0.62 104.63%
9.00 0.64 0.62 103.02%
8.00 0.38 0.42 89.20%
9.25 0.67 0.68 98.48%
8.75 0.39 0.57 68.92%
10.25 0.88 0.96 91.51%
9.50 0.76 0.74 102.25%
9.50 0.66 0.74 88.80%
9.00 0.61 0.62 98.19%
8.75 0.49 0.57 86.60%
9.50 0.73 0.74 98.22%
7.75 0.30 0.38 79.29%
8.00 0.43 0.42 102.29%
8.75 0.60 0.57 106.04%
9.50 0.72 0.74 96.87%
9.00 0.60 0.62 96.58%
9.00 0.56 0.62 90.14%
9.75 0.83 0.81 102.46%
8.25 0.55 0.47 118.14%
8.00 0.38 0.42 90.39%
8.75 0.52 0.57 91.90%
9.00 0.55 0.62 88.53%
9.25 0.70 0.68 102.89%
8.00 0.33 0.42 78.50%
9.75 0.67 0.81 82.71%
9.00 0.72 0.62 115.89%
7.75 0.40 0.38 105.71%
8.25 0.35 0.47 75.18%
8.00 0.40 0.42 95.15%

Very interesting Augie. I have some questions about this:

RW's seem to vary a little could this be male on the high side and female on the low side as BG are in the middle of spawns?

Possibly the area of the pond they were caught? Thinking about my BoW (1.5 acres) there is a section of the pond on far side from the feeder that we regularly had feed but not near the frequency that the auto feeding hits. I haven't sampled any RW's yet but I'm guessing the fish that don't come to the feeder may be a little lighter than those that do. This is a complete guess on my part.

My pond is small - 1/3 acre. They come from everywhere at feeding time.
They've already spawned at least once this spring. The males are fairly well beat up from nesting activity.
Several of the females that we butchered were full of eggs ready for the June spawn. A few others were spawned out.
Some of these fish had been caged for a solid week and were fairly stressed out. Two of them had stab wounds from the *&%^#$% heron.

I'm still waiting to record the first BG over a pound. I think it will happen yet this summer.

I think I saw LMB frye in my neighborhood pond yesterday.

If so, these guys spawned through some very low water conditions. We had a leak in our stand-pipe, and maybe 2-3 weeks with very little rain to make up for the loss from the leak and evaporation. I was doubly saddened by this as I had just stocked LMB, HSB, and YP.

Last Thursday, we found the leak, sealed it, and then re-wrapped the standpipe. Then, the following Monday and Tuesday (earlier this week), we had some torrential downpours which put about 20" of water back into the pond.

I never saw any floaters/morts, however, I've yet to see one massive HSB but the water is pretty murky due to the rains. I hope he didn't perish in the low water event; he's my buddy.

Not my pond, but stocked some of these into a customers pond last evening. They are feed trained and will eat floating fish food. These are roughly 10 months old.





Surface water temp was 74°F when stocked.

Darts!!!

Was out trying to trap the small fish I've been trying to identify in them in the fry identification post and had this guy show up in the trap. Looked to be in pretty good shape and if I had to guess he's been on the nest as his tail is a little ragged.

Other than that, we worked on deer prevention to the small pecan trees and tomorrow we'll be working on the small orchard with some extra mulch on the trees as well as protecting them too.

We ate walleye last weekend....just walleye for dinner and it is so good! I'd love those in my little lake!

Caught a dozen or so BG and GSF today. All were healthy.

Had the family over the other day and let the little guys fish.





It was pretty hot so turned into a swim party, didn't take any pics but pulled this off the barn camera



Got my order of papershells in and spread them out around the pond. They tucked into the rip-rap right away so hopefully they will breed, eat plants and feed the smallies and other fish.

Made it out to the pond today for the 7:30P feeding. Pretty light action on the food overall. Not sure if this is summer doldrums due to heat or by BG's are busy on the nests.

Nice looking crays H20!

Not as cool as papershells but I did get some habitat put in this morning.

Looks pretty cool to me. Does the rebar help to keep the tree upright pretty well?

Ya, the rebar helps keeps it vertical pretty well. Of course if someone gets snagged on it and starts pulling pretty hard it will fall over. It also helps add weight. I kind of like making structures without having to mix cement or deal with wrapping 9 wire around everything.

Checked water quality. DO at surface 14+ppm, 4 feet down 7ppm, 13 feet (bottom) 3ppm.

PH 7.3 Clarity is 3.5 feet and thermocline is about 16 inches.

Water temp surface is 21 degrees, 2 feet down 19 degrees, bottom is 15 degrees.

RBT are hanging around all over the lake at all times of the day that I can see (because of jumping/surface feeding).

RBT bellies cut open to reveal just bugs. RBT about .5 to .75lb.

Had a load of new sand shot over the beach yesterday, made it twice as big and twice as deep. We knew that it would need more sand after the first year and we could see how it acted. I sprayed off the grass last week to get it ready.
Of course, the wife had to stick with the white sand that has to trucked from over an hour away, whatever keeps her happy, I guess.
It's ready for some good summer beach time now and the grandkids can dig and play in it to their hearts content.