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

any sign of your HSB? Are there some left from your 2nd stocking?

Nope, but I’ve never been particularly adept at catching them. So far I think we’ve caught three. One was one of the original stockers (should I show the picture again hahaha!)
Two were from the most recent stocking and released. I did see some pretty good sized swirls when the feeder went off. I have no idea if they were large YP, SMB, or maybe some of the HSB. If they were taking feed, or taking the golden shiners that are taking feed. I actually sat there wondering why I’m running a feeder. I’m not sure the YP take feed (they were not feed trained when I stocked them) and the YP are the ones I want to grow, and eat. Hopefully I’m not feeding g the HBG/RES cross swimmer biters.

Channel Cats are feeding good again. Several Turtles joining in.

Going to kill out the FA and sein them out.

Agree on CC going , putting in buckets for nesting / SURPRISE trap. basically "noodle" them out . Haven't "Noodled " Cats since 14yoa, when we lived close to Arkansas River in North Central Oklahoma. If they won' bite a hook , there's more than one way to skin a cat. The Saugeye and SMB come first.

Went fishing for BCP and caught mostly LMB and a few large BG and to my surprise one fat female red ear! Was happy to see one as haven’t caught one in several years

Went bass fishing with a pop-r top water . Caught quite a few with a three# er as the largest . One large BG and of all things BCP! That’s a first for me in my pond. Also saw a pod of hundreds of I think LMB fry back in the flooded timber area. They were about 3/4” or so long

I got the banks mowed yesterday. Trying to push all the leaves that had the banks buried, back into the woods. So, today, I’m just enjoying it a bit. When the feeder went off the e food was gone pretty quick. I can’t tell what’s taking the food. Water is cloudy from recent rain. There was one very big swirl. Must be one of my original SMB taking some of the shiners that are taking the feed.
Just a few more inches to full pool. But this is the best it’s looked in years.

Setter, your pond looks fantastic. The grass and trees look awesome. Great job!

We're supposed to start getting some rain this week.

I've been taking advantage of the low water.

I finished up spawning beds, added a couple near some reeds which should make some good dense cover. Pond is about 3 feet low so they should be the right depth.




You can see 2 water level flags that Mike Otto and I placed last week in this one. One is at the bottom of the picture and one is circled on the far bank. The water will be about 1 foot above them.

All of the things that you can control look pretty good, Learnin.

Now you just need the rains that you can't control to cooperate!

We had rains go through our area tonight. Just missed the farm and just missed our house in the city. My wheat is starting to look a little thirsty.

Back up at the farm this week. Getting ready for turkey season opener next Monday. Took some time yesterday to look for mushrooms. Too early, and not enough warm weather. But this is the first time in years we’ve had enough moisture to even bother looking. Inside this morning listening to more rain on the metal roof of the barn/house.
Sat on the dock last night with the boss. Listened to turkeys gobble, frogs croaking, whip-o-wills call, and owls hoot. Bats darting around, wood ducks tried to come in three times and flaired off. A few splashes in the pond as bigger fish ate the little ones. No otters..
An evening to really enjoy our little BOW.

This is only distantly related to our pond, but informative for nearly anyone. And, it's somewhat in praise of the often maligned green sunfish.

6 weeks ago I pulled 2 GSF from our pond, one abut 3" long, the 2", and introduced them to my 25 gallon aquarium. In less than one week they were coming to the glass when I walked by and were eagerly taking earthworms from my fingers. Meanwhile, the 11 month old tilapia were still darting for cover any time they could see me. Tilapia are ridiculously timid, even after living in captivity their whole lives. They were 1/2" long when I got them last summer.

A few weeks ago I removed the tilapia to a much larger tank as they'd out grown the 25 gallons. While I was away at the aquarium supply store getting goldfish and rosy reds for the 25 gallon tank, the GSF both jumped out of the aquarium. I found the larger of the two desiccated on the garage floor, stone dead. The smaller looked to be as dry, but before I trashed it, I noticed a bit of gill movement, like one partial flex per 3 seconds. "I'm not dead yet!" he tried to scream. Returned to the tank, he lay nearly still for a full day, started to uncoordinatedly swim on his side for a day, then returned to normal after a few more days. The end of his tail fin fell off. It had dried enough while on the floor to have died. He began trying to eat again, unable to swallow anything other than red wigglers for a bit. After a few more days rosy reds started disappearing! 2.5 inch long GSF swallowing 1.5 inch rosy reds. "Dang, I bought the minnows for my enjoyment, not for you to eat!" When a 1 3/4" long goldfish showed up with torn dorsal fin from being attacked, it was time for the GSF to move on to a different neighborhood.

All of this is to indicate just how tough GSF are. If you renovate a pond and have anything other than dry dirt for some period of time, do not be surprised if the glorious green sunfish survive the drawdown. It's been said a tub full of water remaining in a drained pond could harbor GSF survivors. That I certainly believe. They might be able to survive wet mud!

Bill Cody Note - This is a very good testimony about the toughness, durability and predatory nature of green sunfish.

I believe the only animal tougher than a GSF is the Norwegian Blue Parrot!

I was going to add to the sentiment above. I would suggest that states that fear the almighty tilapia (like Michigan and others) and forbid stocking them should take heed and instead take measures to control the stocking and spread of GSF. Certainly the aggressive predatory nature, fearless attacks on man and fish, and its incredible ability to survive even a nuclear winter should put it on the list of species to forbid stocking and even to kill on sight. It seems it is every bit on par with the Snakehead and the Asian Carp. While the tilapia has a perfect built in control mechanism in that I don't believe it has ever happened that an ice fisherrman caught a tilapia.

Gotta agree, Mo is one of the states that dont allow Tilapia, no idea why, its not like they gonna take over the state, they dont survive our falls, much less the winters.
I think everybody has GSF, whether they like it or not, I dont know of anybody that has stocked them on purpose, they just show up!

I did catch one of the biggest ones Ive ever seen last weekend, that sucker was huge! caught him off a crappie bed where I was catching a bunch of really dark male crappie that were prepping the beds for the ladies, that were out in deeper water out from the area, gravid with eggs.

Caught a whole bunch of crappie over the weekend, hopefully they will have a decent spawn, but we are supposed to be getting 3 to 5 inches of rain over the next four days that may drop the water temps too much again for them to spawn.
Probably ruin most of our turkey nests again too, we had a really good hatch last yr and I attribute a lot of the success to virtually no rain during the nesting stage.

None of the ponds around here have any GSF in them. Some have warmouth but no greenies for what ever reason.

Over a long time, green sunfish have taken over one of my ponds. It’s about 1/8 to 1/4 acre; and a mile from the house. I don’t live there. But, every time I get a chance, I get on a 4wheeler and go feed them.

About 40 years ago I stocked it with bluegills, fatheads, channel cats and bass. I also trapped some fish from my creek that I thought were bluegills but were actually GSF. Over the years, low water and cormorants have eliminated everything but the greens.

That’s ok. I seldom fish it but on occasion, I drown some worms on a hook. Haven’t caught anything but greens in years.. Mucho heat plus rain shortage have turned it into water for wildlife and a swimming pool for wild hogs.

In this case, the limited spawns of the greens have been a plus to keep the water from being fouled resulting in an O2 shortage.

I still think that the hooked greens outfight a bluegill every time.

I snelled a bunch of hooks yesterday, getting ready.

I agree with that one, they put up a great fight, good eating too, but they don't make much of a filet, gotta eat them whole.

Got about 4 inches of rain and ponds came up a bunch. Small pond needs about 6 inches till overflow. Big pond needs about a foot or so. But, it came up about 3 feet. Over a couple of acres, that’s a lot of need. Storm took down a couple of big oaks. Gotta get the grown grandsons busy cutting and splitting.

Grandson got a Jake this morning. Happy boy. (Not very far from the pond, which is flowing out the overflow pipe this morning)

We are slated to pick up another inch of rain this week.

Setter, that Grandson is what it’s all about to me.

Took a break from turkey hunting to do a little fishing. Son in law catches original SMB stocker. Measured 21”. Grandson is back at barn taking a nap. He’s going to be mad he missed this. We’ve caught several YP also.
Turning out to be a nice day.

One more.

The old man got a bird too.

Quite a hunting/fishing time for you and your partner