I did not add the gravel the first yr I built the 9 brush piles, he suggested 5, along the shoreline. And even without the gravel I had a boom of 3" cnbg about 90 days later. I will never forget on how many I saw along the shoreline all over the pond. Brush piles were suggested by Todd Overton along with adding 25 lbs of fhm's. I had no vegetation and he told me the minnows would take the pressure off the cnbg fry. I refresh the brush piles each yr since along with some FHMs. I think you will see a difference. I also saw a difference in how many GBH showed up daily for awhile.
I saw my first swim up fry this week that I have ever seen in the pond. I am pretty sure they were lmb because a 15" lmb was swimming under one of the two schools of fry that I saw. Lots and lots of fry about an eighth to a qtr inch long swimming together in schools and they were in the area where the lmb nest were.
I have debated adding any structure to boost BG production, but since stocking LMB in the fall of 2017, and seeing that class reach 14-16 inches and near 100% WR, I worry I won't be able to keep them in proper groceries to maintain that growth. So, I decided to help out the BG production (in theory). We shall see if my pond, the BG (and Mother Nature) are agreeable with 'the plan'.
"Politics": derived from 'poly' meaning many, and 'tics' meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.
