Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What Are You Seeing

What about an April report on ponds across the PB universe. Keep them short -a couple sentences dealing with such matters as water temps, spawning or not and which types , water quality/levels, feeding or not, plant growth or some special project. Just what ever is going on at the pond. Add location.

Here's mine . Mississippi. LMB are on the beds as are RES and some small yoy seen. Temps at surface low 60s I think will check tomorrow and air temp 84 today ,with no bloom yet or feeding. Pond full and has been flowing water out for several mths . Blocking net ready to deploy for fish growout project soon to start.

Eastern Nebraska--Pond water temps in the upper 30's to around 40. Some turbidity due to recent moisture. Virtually all ponds still low and stressed. Too cold for algae blooms yet. We're looking at rising water levels tonight hopefully. Fishing is bad anyway, we might as well be putting something into storage.

Pond temp in the big front pond was 50.8 F. on the surface. Found three more dead bluegills and a smallmouth.

Largemouth are really hungry and I'm feeding them softened pellets ala Bill Cody's recipe of 7 oz water to 1 qt. of pellets. Shake for one full minute and then occasionally for the next few hours until use. I don't want to feed them dry pellets until the water warms up more.

I'm getting some perch to feed on soft pellets now after squeezing the air out of the softened pellets and allowing them sink. I even had one perch come up and inhale a dry pellet just before dark. Their feeding response should only get better as temps rise.

Trout in the trout pond are feeding well in the evening as they have been for several weeks.

Bluegill in bluegill pond came up after some soft pellets today. Found two large dead floaters though.

Water temp moving up into the 50's. LMB have "woken up" and were tanking up on forage fish in the shallows Thursday night. The ones we caught had great big full bellies (see below). Small BG are very present at the surface near shore and VERY skittish. Water temp last night, after a day of strong winds, was 54 deg F at the surface and also at 3 feet. Plan on starting feeding with small samples in the next week.

I think my ponds would have been over 40 degrees except for the fact that there was snow melt running off into them all last week. That doesn't do much for fish activity.

Nice fish, Theo!

Bruce did you get some rain ? Theo a very nice Bass in the grass and some is even green.

Looks like I got about 4/10.

Honestly, I'm thrilled with anything. The ground is really soggy right now, so if there ever is a real rain, like 3+ inches, ponds will fill.

Theo,
What are the marks on that bass' back? Looks like scars from a bird's attempt.
We had a localized heavy thunderstorm track across our place last Wednesday, dropping four inches of rain in 40 minutes.All ponds full and muddy. The largest pond, the leaky boy, rose ten feet.
Hatchery pond north has actively feeding rainbow trout, 35 fish weighing 1.5-2.5 pounds. Headed to the smoker in a month. Temp went from 62 to 55, now is rising again. Pond is 70' x 100'. Water clear.
Hatchery pond south has a few bluegill left, will be drained and harvested in two weeks. Pond is 70' x 100'. Water clear.
Lily pond is storing water. Planning to plant bog plants in containers. Pond is round, 60' in diameter. Water is temporarily muddy.
Upper Princess Pond is muddy, full, temp is 57 degrees. Fish are feeding, sluggish. Feed trained bass, large bluegill, four giant channel catfish, 24 huge koi...coming to the feeder in slow fashion. Pond covers about 3/4 acre.
Lower Princess Pond, the swimming/fishing pond, was the one which rose 10 feet. Water really muddy, no fish activity.
The low, low square pond was stocked November 2003 with 13 8" walleye, 15 8" smallmouth into an expanding population of fathead minnows and bluegill. Seined fall 2004, caught several smallmouth and walleye..they survived their first summer in Texas, a mild one. Walleye were 12" long, smallmouth were similar. Seined four largemouth bass, too. Don't know where they came from. Seined about three weeks ago, no walleye, no smallmouth, two largemouth bass, five large bluegill, hundreds of 1/2" bluegill, two lmb and 70 10" channel catfish. Catfish were stocked summer 2005. Pond is square, covers one acre. No fish are feeding. I am worried about this pond.
Excavated Pond was recently stocked with 35 large male bluegill, 8-9" each. This pond covers about .25 acre.

Ice has gone out on locals ponds just within the last week or so. After a very mild winter, we had a "late" spring. We got 1.5 inches or rain last week, and are in the middle of another similar soaker right now. We went into winter with late fall rains and saturated ground, so water is now standing everywhere. Couldn't possible get a work boat launched on one of the ponds right now -- we'd be down to the axles.

Bob:

I think what you are seeing is the shadows of blades of grass (some of which are even green). This is a rare occurrence since the sun so seldom shines in Ohio.

The typical bird (heron) scars I see here would have taken up 2/3 of this LMB's height; maybe I just don't recognize smaller ones. I was having difficulty getting decent pics that night, perhaps because the sun was so low. Out of 3 bass, this was the best pic; one of them looked like there was arc-welding going on in it's stomach.

Ewest, great idea. Since I ain't got a thermomater, the water is cold. The water level is up about 3' and looks like my caffy due to a monsoon a couple a weeks ago. That is also the reason my boat is floatin upside down in the middle of the pond, and my Goose decoys are stuck in the bushes all around the edges. No, I ain't poachin, just have'nt got em in from last Jan. I caught some 4-5" BG and 6" LMB on Fri at about 14" depth. Saw some larger LMB chasin minnows. Sure they got the feed bags strapped on for upcomin spawn. I will spread some gravel today, as discussed in soil ?'s under what the muck post. I know ML thinks I'm stupid, but stupid is as stupid does. May even try ta snag my boat. BL, I'm real ignorant bout fish, but my street smarts tell me them marks on Theos LMB are either shawdows from the grass, or CB1 YP vertical stripe envy. Cecil, I know ya got spaamq (stupid people askin a million questions) block, so am wonderin if ya got the pm on Fri?

Ah...10-4. That's what it is. Beastly grass shadows. Fatal to fish, always...if left in the shadows for more than an hour.

My wife is at the pond sight. She called me from the new pier all excited. She said that large BG were looking up at her looking for food, and the bass I stocked in Nov. are jumping and tearing the shiners up. She said there are gazillions of shiners. The bass are too young to spawn, so will be beefing up in a hurry. Have been feeding for 3 wks., early AM, late PM, and just a quick blast at noon. They are eating it all. Had 64 degree water 3 wks ago, but have had cool weather and good rains. Pond is within 1 ft. of full. It is warming up in a hurry now. Going next wk. for a week.

BM :

Great news. Your post makes the thread worth the effort. Your BG may be spawning while you are there.

Small pond is starting to show some activity. Surface water temp is 50 degrees. Started periodic aeration. Tossed some pellets this week but the BG don't seemed interested.

Surface temps were 54 yesterday. I have not seen any BG, LMB, or minnows yet. I did see a cloud of bullhead lots of red-spotted newts, a pair of geese and a couple crayfish. Water is clear. Air temps are supposed to be only in the 30s the next few days.

I have two lakes in north MS and the water temps last weekend were mid 60s. We had a small BG spawn a few weeks ago in both lakes. I guess it happened before the last big cold front. My water temps were in the 60s back in mid March. The BG are about the size of a dime.