you know. these last 2 posts here are
right on the money. when i started to work on this pond, i dove headlong into it and just did what made sense to me at the time. while i was doing it, i studied up on some things and found out how it was "supposed to be done". a big part of the deal with me is that i can be very stubborn and bull-headed. if something does not make sense or seem necessary to me, i just might not do it. or i might do something else that does make sense to me instead. sometimes i'm glad i bucked convention, sometimes i'm not. that's just my nature.
the other part was money. i just did not have a lot of money to pour into a pond that was not my own. and even if it had been, i still wouldn't have had the money.
so i had to do things the cheapest way i could. using wild fish and wild forage, not fertilizing, and so on was not so much of a choice as a necessity.
and that's what i think the coolest part of the story has been for me. i was totally ignorant about pond management when i started. sometimes i couldn't get out of my own way. i didn't do things the "right way". i never knew when to leave well enough alone. and i was still able to achieve a degree of success beyond anything i imagined. i guess it could maybe even be said that i succeeded despite my tactics rather than because of them. i hope that if nothing else my story has encouraged someone who is new to pond management or a bit reluctant to just go for it and give it a try. you just never know. even when you ignore convention and blaze your own trail, it might end up o.k. or better than o.k. and trust me y'all, i am still learning to this day. i still have goals. i would like to grow another few double digit bass before i leave this world. i wanna figure out how to have multiple 6 - 9 pound fish in the pond at the same time rather than just the few i have now. but i will still have to stay on the cheapskate's path because while my fish have grown a lot, unfortunately my bank account has not.
that said, please understand this if you don't get anything else out of anything i've said. if you have the time and money, consult the experts. i'm definitely NOT one of them.
