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

SetterGuy, do you have Easterns and Rios in your turkey flocks? I ask because of the light tail tips on the jake. 2 happy hunters there in your photo. Congratulations.
I got out in the national forest here last week calling in a beautiful old Tom with his girlfriend one day, then 3 separate young adults (2 year old birds) for a buddy before he was able to see one of them to shoot it.
For me there's nothing quite like Spring turkey hunting.

It’s a blast. Pretty exciting when all that gobbling is going on, and they’re coming in. We noticed that different color on the tail tips. The gobbler I took really flopped around after I shot. Unfortunately he was in a big mud puddle. He was a mess. But even without the mud they were pretty different. I think that jake would have stayed different even when mature, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure why they’re so different.
We didn’t spook them. I could hear them gobbling again this morning.
We’ve done a lot for habitat up here. We used to hear one gobbler, I had four mature birds and four jakes come by me yesterday. We have moved on a lot of possums and coons over the years too. Although we are seeing bobcats now, just in last few years. And more hawks than ever before. Hopefully they’ll focus on the squirrels and rabbits and leave the quail and turkeys alone. (Wishful thinking for sure)

Setter Guy, not much more fun then a successful turkey hunt, along with some great fishing, with a grandson on a beautiful spring day, thats about as good as it gets, now if you had a few mushrooms to go along with that mess it would pretty much be a perfect day!

Not far from perfect as it is!

Turtles & watermelon

Someone threw the remains of a basketball sized watermelon in the retention pond this weekend. It was cut into two equal sized portions with most all the good stuff cleaned out. the melon parts were floating around the pond & I noticed that something had been naughing on the edges, I thought beaver. No, I later saw 6 medium sized turtles pushing it around the pond as each tried to get a bite. I now know what to bait a turtle trap with.

Got a 3 legged turtle too.

Got a good rain- 3-1/4” today! Had 3/4” yesterday that allowed some to soak in as it had been a month since last measurable rain. Great for the trees and garden. Good thing there wasn’t a lot of wind with it

Got 6 inches during the past week. Both ponds are full for the first time in years.

Finished up making more artificial cover and going to add a discarded artificial Christmas tree. Pond is still over 3 feet low, new spawning beds are barely in the water.



Thinned out a few undesired fish. YBH and GSF. Caught them on Shrimp and Chicken liver. One GSF was 9 inches and almost 3/4 of a pound. Bullheads weighed about a pound each.

Learnin,

I wonder if our neighbors think "pond people" are nuts when they drive past and see things like your yard art project? (Which I think looks awesome!)

Did you have a fish fry?

If so, how were the GSF and bullheads??

No fish fry yet but we've ate some. Nice white meat, very tasty.

I feed Purina MVP so they get some good nutrition.

Ponds are full after last week's rains. Ponds will probably go out the spillways this week with the predicted rain amounts.

Great news, send some North We are getting slow soaking rains from a half to 1.5 inches at a time, the pond has only come up about 4 inches. Still has over 3 feet to go to be full and 5 feet before it would hit the spillway.

If all goes as planned today, I will have about 75% of the habitat improvements that I planned to complete while the water is down finished. Maybe mother nature is waiting on me. LOL

I fished a very dead drowned squirrel out of the little garden pond. Apparently my pond heater from China was electrocuting critters that came for a drink this winter. Disgusting. I have had terrible luck with de icers.

This weekend’s chore? Trying to thin out the koi/goldfish spawn further from that garden pond. The damned things are impossible to catch, making me think that draining it may be my best option. Especially after a rotting critter has made me fear jumping in and cleaning it.

The half acre pond is doing well, the pumpkinseed I installed last spring have really enjoyed themselves and are everywhere. Great forage for the BCP and YP. Hoping to add a few SMB at some point but need to find a good source. Maybe I will try WE again now that the pond is well established. I have no top predators.

Sorry to hear about your imported pond shocker!

I wouldn't worry too much about the rotting critter in your little pond. There may be several organisms in there that will eat carrion. Also, the aerobic bacteria in warm, well-oxygenated water should work fairly quickly of any bits of decaying flesh.

As to catching the goldfish and koi, do you have a deep spot or some kind of "sump" in your ornamental pond? If you partially drain to there and concentrate the fish, can you cull as needed?

Crazy option, partially drain the pond and turn the shocker heater back on? If it briefly stuns the fish, can you turn it off and then scoop out some fish?

It's FrankenFeeder time. I've dispatched tons of raccoons because of stolen food. The corn feeder got handled, but the raccoons were still stealing fish food nightly. I had to set traps for them, and wrap chicken wire around the feeder at night, and it's just a general PITA.

So, I'm tearing one of my Sweeneys apart and adding a chicken door that's rock solid. We've used them for 6-7 years, and have had no issues, and only took one battery.

Stripping wiring down, and figuring where to put a second solar panel. I'll have to run any of the exposed wire with 1/2" conduit because the stinkin' raccoons will eat through those wires, and pvc too.


The door is set in place, but taped foam and internal wiring is next. Probably the door under the feeder's set solar panel is where the chicken door solar panel will go. I have a photo sensor that will open the gate at sunlight, and close it at sun down. If not, the door is controlled by a magnet, and can set an open and closed time without any screen or controller that can wear out. The red circle on the black box is controlled by the red magnet sitting on the lift.There's still much to do, but the hard part is over.

A nice BG and RES out of one of our ponds. It seems like the the number of nice size ones are higher this year than ever.





Thanks for the help getting these pics posted using the new Imgur interface. My son found the secret handshake to get to the BB link so I don't have to add the extra text to the beginning and end.

Rah which one is the RES? None of mine look like either one

Yesterday I went to chase a couple geese off a large flat rock that juts out over the water, meant for humans to sit on and not geese to poop on. Crossing the spillway I noticed a snapping turtle with a 9-10” shell in about an inch of running water, his head pointed toward the pond. I realized later that he had probably just climbed up the spillway after transversing almost 1/4 mile from the nearest pond, on a path through drainage ditches and culverts filled with runoff from an inch of rain over the past 24hrs. Nature is pretty darn impressive. I probably saw him just as he reached his goal and he wasn’t movin’. He joins the pond’s intentional members as well as the many unintentional pond additions. All together they make up our growing “natural” pond ecosystem, a little rough for a guy used to Systems Engineering.

If the system was too simple, then where is the challenge for you now that you are retired?

The one in front of the life ring. You cannot see the red in the pic, but it was red near the "ear" fin. He caught quite a few which was a first.

Rah I thought that might be the one , but mine look different, they are different shaped ( more elongated) and have a yellowish color on the belly. They also have a larger mouth

P.S I caught one yesterday about 7” long and fat….. I don’t catch many of them

RAH - If the fish in the 1st picture you think is a RES, IMO I think it is a form of hybrid RES since you have BG also in the pond. The fish does have some body marking of typical RES. It might not be a 1st generation hybrid RES-BG but a later generation? For pure strain RES the red margin on the ear tab is more noticable or prominent red margin even on the females and most noticable on males. Do a little more fish catching and see if there are differences of red margin on the gill flaps. Regardless - nice fish.

FWIW, I concur with Dr. Perca. The first fish is of intermediate BG <-> RES appearance.

Interesting comments about the possibility of RES hybrid.

In many (but not all) of the ponds on the forum with RES and BG, it is frequently reported that the RES are more difficult to catch.


RAH,

You said your buddy caught "quite a few" of the ones you are calling RES, and also that was a first.

Typically hybrid BG are more aggressive than pure BG and therefore sometimes easier to catch.

I wonder if you created some RESxBG hybrids in your pond, and they are actually easier to catch? That would be very cool!


Question for the experts:

Have you observed RESxBG hybrids as having increased "catchability"?

The fish he caught all had very prominent red ear-marks (maybe 10 of various sizes). It just does not show in the pic (my bad). The fish also were very soft at taking the bait which I believe is typical of RES. They were not aggressive at all, but in the past catching only one or two has been the norm. No fish have been added to the pond in the last ten years, but RES/BG hybrids are certainly possible. The percentage of large BG were also much higher than normal during this fishing session. The RES were all released, but 60 eating-size BG have been removed each year for about 5 years now (along with 10 LMB per year under 12", also for eating). The intent is to improve the size of the fish. The size has improved, but I cannot claim the removal of these fish is the reason. I think he kept 19 BG during this fishing session which completes the 60 BG target from my pond.