Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Pond Draining pics

Dear ol' Dad doing some fishing for me as the pond went down. It was rough but someone had to do it to salvage some fish. As you can see an attached long handle was needed on the net. He was instrumental in fish removal when the water got down to almost nothing as the sat in a chair at the end of the pier and pointed out to me whenever he saw a big fish's back sticking out of the water.











Guess what these are?



The big pond is 98 percent drained and I have, I believe, recovered all of the big fish. I was able to pump it down to a large shallow pool, and all the big fish had their backs slightly out of the water. I think I could have gotten the water down to almost nothing if the thousands of 3 to 5 inch bluegills hadn't clogged up the intake hose screen. No worries as I will set the intake which is inside a five gallon bucket inside one of my fish cages.

Took out 22 more smallmouth for a total of 50 smallmouth. Probably no sale to Bass Pro Shops if 48 have to be sacrificed for testing unless there are changes in regs. But I may trade them for grass carp (two or three grass carp for one smallmouth) and I have two pond owners in the area that want to buy them. There are some nice stocky ones close to 3 lbs.

Saved 20 large bluegills up to a pound, but most were 12 to 15 oz. Really nice specimens. These particular fish had high relative weights so I'm saving them to cross some of them with the Condello bluegills, which a good portion have gone from an average of 4.3 inches to 7 inches since April. And these fish aren't even two years old yet!

Saw a few 4 to 5 inch crappies but mysteriously no larger ones. Also removed about four or five large perch to 15 inches. That's it on the big perch.

I walked around the entire pool and scooped up everything worthwhile including three grass carp in the 14 to 17 lb. range. Actually I didn't really scoop the grass carp up. I got them partially in the net, steered them toward dry ground and got them to beach themselves. Then I heaved them farther up on the drying Chara. Also took out 11 more largemouths for a total of 55 to 4 lbs. 2 oz. All that's left that I can tell now is predominantly 3 to 5 inch bluegills, with many in the 5 to 6 inch range.

I will put the five gallon bucket with the inlet hose and screen inside one of may small fish cages to keep the small bluegills from plugging up the screen. Then whatever water is left will be treated with rotenone by a friend from Ohio that has a pesticide applicators license. I thought about getting one of those licenses but it cost more than the chemical I would be using!

Smallmouth and big bluegills went into the holding pond on the back right, and the Nebraska gills are in the same pond in a cage. After I pull the smallmouth in the spring I will drain that pond. let it dry a little and refill. Then I will plant with bluegills to start my selective breeding program for monster gills. All fish that are definitely males will go into the front pond, which will not have any females. Fish will be produced in a separate pond. The big pond will have male only gills and female only perch. This time I will be more attentive to the perch to make sure they are ALL females. Anything that doesn't have eggs will not go into the pond.

I'm going to hold off on my own perch production for one more year. I'm concerned about putting perch and gills together. The perch will have a head start on the bluegills and may eat a good number of the fry. I'm putting in a small pond to produce them in the future close to the big pond in one corner.

Sorry no pics of fish as it was all I could do to get them out as soon as possible and into an aerated tank with clean water and .5 % salt.

The pond was down much more yesterday when I removed the fish. We had thunderstorms overnight.

wow,cecil..It looks almost primeval! What were your draining stats? (ie.,how long it took,etc.)

Very nice post. I can't wait to see what to see what happens in the future.

Cecil, I may have missed it somewhere but what are your reasons for draining the pond? It looks great!!!

Draining stats: Took about 10 days with a 150 gpm pump. Pumped 10 hour days, one day at least 12 hours.

Pond is 12 years old. Needs to cleaned up a little. Weeds were getting out of hand and I want to start over with just male bluegills and female yellow perch. (Both sexes of bluegills in the cages though).

Since I removed over 200 1 to 4 lb. largemouth in the last year and a half the bluegills have exploded to the point where they are stunted to some extent. Also wanted to remove all the smallmouth bass as Bass Pro Shops wanted to buy them. Unfortunately there are only 50 smallmouth. The feds say I have to kill 48 for heath testing to transport them interstate. Unless things change there will be no sale to Bass Pro Shops.

Well the pond has been drained to a couple of puddles connected to the water table. Remaining fish that were small and not salvaged were rotenoned, and I am now filling her back up with well water. At about 45 gpm it will take about a 15 days to fill 'er back up. Estimated capacity of this .62 acre pond is 1,000,000 gallons.

Thinking about putting a very small hatchery pond right next to it this winter either for bluegills or yellow perch.

I thought you were going to leave it dry for the winter to help kill off the Chara?

I had a change of plans due to the fact that one part of the pond that is connected to the water table won't dry. Water keeps seeping up and getting deeper and deeper. In that area the Chara will not dry and die because it stays wet. However most of the Chara in the pond that dried out is dead. Additonally since it won't dry completely, putting a dozer down there to scrape up the bottom would probably make it permanent fish structure!

That said, I know from experience in my other ponds that the Chara will come back. You can't get rid of it. It spreads not only by fragmentation but by spores since it is an alage. Only way to keep it under control is a herbicide and/or Grass Carp. The plan is to heavily plant with Grass Carp next spring. Or maybe I can stay ahead of it with an algae bloom too, now that most of the Chara has died back.

Another thing that caused me to go ahead and decide to fill the pond is the fact that I would like to add another 70 foot pier to use for cage culture. I have a wealthy friend that gave me this pier which is stainless steel frame with a vinyl top. It's much simpler to install when their is ice on the pond which we will have come late December. One simply bolts the pier sections together out on the ice, and drills holes where the posts go and the post clamps are attached. The posts are slid through the post clamps through the holes, and driven into the bottom with a post hole digger. Then the pier is wedged up with a crowbar and wood pieces and the clamp blots are tightened. Volla! A pier is born!

I look forward to all your posts Cecil, they are a real treat. Especially the ones with pictures.

Those nests looked pretty deep compared to other pictures I've seen. About how wide across were they? (still wondering if my gravel ones will be acceptable to the BG).

Yeah I'd say those nests are in 6 to 8 feet of water. Probably due to the clarity of the water which was at least 11 feet (max depth) and clear as gin.

Width of the nests were about 14 inches? No sand or gravel there. Just Chara.

Sorry, I meant the actual dug out nest craters looked deeper than other pictures I have seen. These looked like pits rather than gradual bowl shapes that were just a few inches deep.

And that is pretty deep where they nested. Since I dont know what I am doing do you think they will use mine? They are about 12 to 13 inches wide, probably only 4"'s deep in the middle and in 1 to 3 1/2 feet of water at full pool.

I guess if the little ingrates dont use them I can go to plan b next year.

Bill,

I'm sure they will use them. I believe they search out optimum nest bottom material first and your gravel should be number 1 on the list. Mine didn't have gravel so they nested where they did. I've seen them just mat down the vegatation and or just nest on a clay bottom. Bluegill are very adaptable. They produce enough eggs even under less than optimum conditions there is usually a sufficient hatch.

Refilling pond with overflow from trout pond. I've temporarily extended the normal length of the intake pipe (6 inch drainage pipe) with a section of six inch I usually use to refill ponds. Adding length to it allows the water to flow into standing water at some point to reduce stirring up the bottom.

Cecil, one of the things I'd do if I ever drain my pond is to straighten out the dock legs. If your dock wobbles as much as mine you could reset them into the pond bottom but angle them outward as much as possible so you'll end up with a much more stable dock. This would be the time to do it.

Are you sure? I would think when the pond is frozen would be a better time. If I remove a leg right now I sure wouldn't want to be standing on the pier!

Makes me want to go clamming. It looks a lot like low tide at my in-laws place in Winter Harbor, Maine. It is just missing the lobster traps.

Thanks for the great photos.

You know Cat I've spent some time in Maine. Lived in Massachusetts for a few years. Anyway as the water went down and pier was exposed it reminded me of the tide being out in the ocean too.

But wheas thuh lopstah?