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

That's the plan, and a 300 win mag dialed in at 400 yards does a decent job as well:)

After I got back onto the main highway, I saw a very nice bald eagle in a tree overlooking a distant neighbor's 5-acre pond. (They eagles are relatively rare in our area, at least away from the large State reservoirs.) We are just starting to get a skim of ice on some of the smaller ponds in the area, and this large pond now has an abundance of ducks and geese.

I believe I saw a bald eagle on the same pond at almost this same date two years ago.

When it becomes more difficult for bald eagles to get fish, do they switch over to eating ducks and geese? I assume the wounded ones during hunting season would be pretty easy pickings.

Watch this...

Nice flocks of snow geese. I wonder how many you'd drop with one shot of 3" 12 ga BB? Title is misleading though. Eagle never chased after a snow goose. The last part of the video shows it going after coots.

With weather like this, not much was done at the pond(s) today.



We DID stock the last of the TGC in a pond on Tuesday. Customer said just sit on the pier and stomp on the ice to make a hole. Yeah, right, I asked him to show me how to do it. He ended up chopping a hole in the ice with an axe. There was about 3" of glass clear ice on the pond.

Don’t believe I’ve ever seen 3 inches of ice

Dave, stack 3 ice cubes on top of each other. LOL

What is this ice stuff you speak of?

I always knew DD was a neat guy.

I wish three inches of ice was all Id ever seen, unfortunately I get to see much more.

We have had a little this past week but not much, just a skiff, and its gone now I do believe.

We have 2-3" of ice here today; temp is above freezing (for a week???) and I have shallow water aeration on to blow a couple holes through.

Last time NW Texas got 3 inches of rain, everybody got to take a bath.

Derogatory comment omitted due to my respect for all things Texan.

Theo, you can keep that ice.

I caught 3 HBG and 2 GSF yesterday afternoon while trying to learn how to use a fly rod. Enjoying the 60 + degree weather before the cold sets in.

My first attempt at fly fishing, Oklahoma wind and first time fly fishing is not a good combination.

Not seeing the 1/2" + water loss from the pond due to evaporation from the heat is nice.

Made the attached dense cover to put beside the new spawning beds. these are flowers from Temu, they are very sturdy so hopefully they will last a while.

That is likely the prettiest structure I've ever seen.

Looks very good Learnin . Wonder if GSH will spawn over it ?

Thanks, I was a little hesitant to post it, figured I'd get lots of laughing faces LOL Only about $70 total and a couple of hours of my time.

I have not added any GSH. May add some in the spring with some CNBG and RES.

I've got lots of snails.

Those snails are Physella aka the common pond snail that has a relatively thin shell and a favorite food of redear sunfish.

Learnin , I had thousands of those snails , added RES and 2 years later , can't find a snail . RES love them and not a single parasite ever detected on my fish .

Checking water clarity with the drone. I was at my house on lunch break. The pond is about 200 yards from the house.

Visibility looks to be about 4 foot. Will have to get the Secchi disk to confirm.

There are 3 ducks on the pond if you look closely.

Major change since September.

That's awesome!!!

Agree with Sunil, that is awesome!

Before your first bloom in the spring, do you think you can fly much lower and actually count your fish when your visibility is 4-5 feet?

During the BG spawn, will you be able to observe them on the spawning beds you made?

There is a little ring of better vegetation around the pond at what looks to be a constant elevation. Did your new pond previously reach full pool, before the extended drought took it back down again? If so, would seeding a little rye around the pond in the fall have saved you some erosion on the banks and sediment going into the pond?

P.S. I like to follow your posts since I am almost exactly 50 miles due north of you. The underlying geology for our two properties are very similar, as are the historical rainfall patterns. So I can probably copy almost any of your successes on your pond projects. You are just a bit warmer.

Rod

The pond did reach full pool and was flowing out the pipe 3 different times. When at full pool, the pond was about 50% covered with vegetation. Southern Naiad and American pond weed. Only 1/3 of an acre was deeper than 4 feet at full pool. That's why I added the Flashboards to bring the water level up about 3 feet when it's full. As Mr. Lusk say s we only borrow the water so I needed to figure out how to raise the water level as much as possible. I'm constrained by a county road on the intake side so don't have much to work with. When it gets low again I plan on removing more of the dirt so I have less shallow water. I'm looking forward to Spring rains.

I planted Triticale last year to prevent soil erosion and grass has established about everywhere it will so not sure planting again would have helped. When they built the pond they took it down to Shale on one side so I'm going to have to fix that to get some vegetation growing. (Dumb tax paid even though the pond was basically free)

If I can maintain clear water that is not covered in Vegetation I'm confident I can get some good video of them on beds.
Here's a video of me feeding back in September. I'm able to be at the pond almost every day so I feed by hand.

Damn I miss feeding.

I'm still feeding a little and see some fish. Very slow activity. It was 61 today but the water is probably 45. Water temp was 48 2 weeks ago and we've had more cold weather than warm.

Nothing like PA though