Anyway you could pump it down to low real good seining level and discharge the water into another pond. Then when seining is over pump some of that original water back into the pond to aid winter fish survival?
I thought about that Bill. The water will be pumped into the main pond which is where this forage pond naturally overflows into regularly anyway.
My only reservation about pumping water back is fish contamination. To date all there should be and all I have ever found in the forage pond is FHM, RES and HSB. That is what I stocked. If I pump water back I was concerned that most likely some small BG or something else would be pumped back thereby contaminating the pond.
If I kill it off I would not care though. But if I kill it off I really don't care if the remaining fish survive or not either.
We will see how it goes. I might even be able to pump it down so low and just let it dry up and kill the population off. With several other ponds it is not like I particularly need the fish anyway.
Since I have never done this before it may come down to a final decision when we see how the whole operation goes. If it pumps easy, seines easy, and I can pump it all the way down may just pump it mostly dry and take every fish we can. If it turns out to be quite a challenge may just pump it down half way, seine enough to get whatever fish people want, and leave what is left to fend for themselves.
Just going to see how it goes.
I figure I have already got my money's worth out of the fish I have already transferred to my other ponds, (probably around 100 HSB and hundreds of fingerling RES along with several pounds of FHM) although I would not mind another 50-100. So anything we get through this operation is just bonus.
