I'll add my observations from watching HSB in large impoundments here as it may apply to some extent..
In 2003 we had a situation in which we had some very high-unseasonably high- temps with near calm conditions for an extended period. Several weeks went by like this followed by a frontal system that brought record rainfall over a period of nearly a week. After about 4 days into the rainy, cool period we began hearing reports from the public about finding floating HSB.
What we later found was it wasn't just 1 lake, or even 1 state. This entire area including the western half of KS and SW Nebraska experienced the same ordeal and that was giant dead wipers everywhere.
The rapid change of 2 very opposite conditions were believed to have caused enough stress in a combination that the wipers didn't handle well. We know they don't handle stress well and in some lakes suffering low water conditions it's obvious they didn't handle low DO levels either. Wipers are funny fish and I feel there are a lot of unknowns yet but it's very obvious that if water conditions change for the worse the wipers (HSB) of large sizes are the first to show up.
It has to suck seeing that many fish that are almost like family, die.. Raising them to large sizes only to see them perish is not what we signed up for in this pond game. I hope things turn around for you Tracy.
This aeration game has a lot of unknows as well and I'm at the bottom of the pile in the knowledge area of this but after a month of having mine off due to turbidity from excessive craw activity and results of my trapping efforts, I'm going back to 1 hr a night for a few days then increasing 10-15 min a night per Cody recommendations until I'm back to my 10pm to 8am run time.
Last edited by Snipe; 07/08/20 12:00 AM.
