Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait What's up with the scuds?

I'd love to see any pics you can come up with. I'm hoping to also stock these in a new pond I've just built that will have zero fish. If they thrive as well there as they have for you I'll be catching them and transfering them to feed my other pond. How do you catch them through the ice? I'd be interested in any ideas about how that can be done.

I drill a hole in the ice with my 3hp gas auger, right in a weed bed. I then put the auger back down the hole and drill as I raise it up and flood the ice with tons of them and scoop them up by hand. Last time out, we filled an ice cream pail in about a half hour.

Wow, I think if you could find a way to ship them you could make some money. I had no idea they were that easy to come by in some areas.

Got an email from Kyle today, he's got shrimp! Only problem is we're in the middle of a huge blizzard right now, up to 24 inches of snow and 30 mph wind. He says I need to pick them up now. Rats! I think I'm about to lose my chance. Wish I would have had them shipped. He doesn't think they'll be able to get more this year. I think it was Mr. Cody who ordered some, hope you get them.

Mr Condello, get your scuds ordered, habitatnow.com, order for 2008 dont ask something about 2007 sold out, give kyle a call, overnite shipping is more than the gallon of scuds, its going down this week.

you to BZ, he is going to have em next week, dont give up.

Made arrangements to pick up my scuds tomorrow. Talked to Kyle tonight and he's got a whole tank full. Turns out he keeps them in an aerated tank where they'll keep about a week. He says they are already paring up and mating right in the tank so they'll come all ready to reproduce. I'm driving to his place in the morning. My wife decided she'd like to come along which is great but I can't wait til she sees what I paid $85 for. I'm gonna get one of those funny looks with the rolling eyeballs. I can't wait. It's always fun to stock something new and watch and see it take hold. BTW, since we got 37 inches of snow in the past week I was a little concerned about my BG pond. I plowed it off a week ago after the first storm and I plowed if off today after the second storm. I'm really trying to let the sunlight get in. I can't plow the whole thing and this is the most snow cover I've had on the pond in years. I drilled a hole for the first time today. The snow was so heavy on the ice that I ended up with a gusher. The whole pond flooded. I did drop a line down and immediately began catching BG so they're still alive down there. I can't believe how fat and healthy they look for not really having much to eat all winter. I'm pumped right now.

bz a report back on the scuds would be great when you can!! Any pics ?

Got my scuds and "installed" them yesterday. I'll provide a full report and pics later when I have more time. I will say that Kyle lived up to his promises. I got my scuds, I got a zillion of them, and they seemed healthy and were mating like crazy in front of my own eyes. They swam away like banshees when I put them in the pond. I hope they are fruitfull and multiply.

bz, I will execute a toast to the longevity of your scuds when I return home from work later today.

Thanks Sunil, that will help I'm sure. So here's the story. I picked up the scuds about noon yesterday. I drove home and had them in the water by 4:30 pm. Kyle had several tanks full of scuds. He claimed this was a drop in the bucket compared to some years. I bought a gallon of them. I figured how many could you possibly fit into a gallon, several hundred maybe if you left room for them to swim around. I was surprised that a gallon of scuds is a gallon of scuds before the water is added. And Kyle was generous with the gallon. I would say I got between 1 and 2 gallons of critter. This was a solid mass of living stuff. He then added some water and sealed it up. I don't know how many there were but judging by how many fit into a cup as I scooped them into the pond there surely were 10's of thousands. I was surprised that they can survive this way. In the 4 hours it took me to get them into the pond I maybe lost 50 or so but the rest swam immediately down under the ice. See the pics below. First one is of the aerator near where I installed. I drilled 5 holes around the perimeter of the pond close to shore right in the weeds. I put some scuds down each hole.

Next is picture of the bag of critters.

Next is picture of the bag in the water getting temperature acclamated.

Next is picture of a few scuds in hand.


Kyle gave me plenty of advice on how to "install" them as he calls it. He also emailed me today just to see how it went. I was impressed with Kyle, he seems to really know his stuff. You can't imagine the contraption he invented for harvesting these buggers. I'll tell more later.

bz - tell us more about how he harvests the scuds, all of this talk about scuds has me thinking I need to check my brothers wetland next winter for scuds.

He says that the trick to catching lots of them is to wait until the oxygen level on the pond bottom gets so low that the scuds rise up under the ice where they get more oxygen. I suppose it makes sense that the O2 level near the bottom drops as winter goes on and the upper areas that get more light may have higher O2 levels. Perhaps one of the experts can comment on that. Anyway, once he finds them up near the surface he has a contraption he built that reaches down under the ice and swings a net around in a circle just below the ice. I would think one could devise a way to do this by hand. It might take a while to get many thousands of them but if you only need enough for yourself I would think you could make it work. I see that Wood has a method using his auger that I'd be tempted to try.

Thanks bz! I'm thinking Wood's auger method would work for checking to see how prelvelant scuds might be in his wetland. Does anyone have any thoughts on just running a seine net through his wetland after it warms up? I'm thinking the waterfowl might have the scuds thinned down pretty good by then.

Shorty, if you run into any scuds count me in for a harvest party.

No problem Bruce, the type of scuds in his wetland are probably limited to the types whose eggs are dessicant resistant since his wetland does goe dry periodically. Only some species of scuds lay eggs that can survive drought conditions. Doug is talking with some of the entemologists he works with, one of whom is a very avid BG fly fisherman, the biggest scuds he has seen in NE were in the Loup river which are 3/4" long. Doug also thinks it wouldn't be very hard to develop a mass production protocal for scuds once a particualr variety has been selected. He is going to talk with a guy that developed a protocal for raising stable flys in large quantities for research. It might be as simple as getting a dozen scuds and using a fine mesh blocking net along the edge of the pond to get them to reproduce in large numbers. A trough or tank could also work too in raising scuds. For me there is lots to learn before getting started though.

If I can find some of my scuds later this year I plan to block off or build an enclosure where I will try to encourage them to grow. I'd be interested in what you guys think might do the trick here. I would think that an enclosure that has lots of fine leafy material for them to hang on to and feed would work. What might that material be? I'm thinking something like an old brush from a car wash. Anybody know where to get one of those? Or maybe just this year's old christmas tree?

bz - I'll get back to you on some of those questions once my brother has had the chance to pick the brains of some of the entomologists he works with. Right now we still have a lot to learn.

there is alot of critters in them ponds but these look like good critters to be getting in the mix

bz, magneticly directed nets?

anybody ever put vegatable oil in the chainsaw to cut thru the ice?

Here is some intersting information, Bruce, notice where this study was done?

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/OAS/oas_pdf/v58/p16_21.pdf

and a picture:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/feb00/k8451-1.htm

Shorty what a find !!!!

I bet you that Bruce is already out at that pond in Burwell NE trying to work a deal with the owner !!

ewest, Pawnee Lake is very close to Bruce's ponds, Burwell is a couple of hours away up near the Loup River. Ideally I would like to find locally a larger variety of scud, 3/4" long, with an orange body if possible. If those are hard to find, this type will work, I bet we already have this type in our ponds around here. Now I just need to find out what kinds might be in the wetlands in the rain water basin, most of those have no fish to prey on the scuds, just waterfowl in the spring and fall. Did I mention that my nephew said they had 3 million ducks on my brothers wetland last week. Checking for scuds there might be better later this summer when the water level has dropped and the scuds have had a chance to replenish themselves.

Shorty, the attraction by ducks is one of the reasons I decided to try to grow scuds in my forage pond rather than minnows. The forage is for BG. I'd also like to have a million ducks on that pond in the fall.

Cliffbrook, on your question of chain saw oil. I don't know why cooking oil wouldn't work. It's not the best lubricant but good enough for a chain I would think. You also can buy biodegradeable chain saw oil. I saw it on a web site that sells mushroom growing stuff. These people mix mushroom spores in the oil and then they make cuts in logs to seed the log with spores. Kind of weird but it works I guess. I plan to start growing some of my own mushrooms down by the pond this year.

bz if those mushrooms turn up missing don't blame the BG , ducks or scuds. Better keep a close eye on them as they tend to walk off when you least expect it.

Shorty I figure that Bruce won't try to kidnap the scuds from a public lake , but a private pond is ripe for a deal.

Geez, no questions on why I am looking for the "orange" body types of scuds?





The orange body scuds contain carotene, which gives trout a reddish color to their flesh. I have eaten trout out of different bodies of water, some had the darker flesh, some didn't, the ones with the darker flesh are definately much better eating.

SHORTY !! You don't have RT in with those smart SMB do you ? You know those SMB planted subliminal messages in you brain because they like to eat both scuds and scud fed RT !! Plus your SMB want an orange tint to them to scare Sunil's SMB at the Penn vs NE challange