stocking a pond

-
When I first moved in 1 pulled 140 junior bass out of my 1/2 acre farm pond. There were so many there wasn't enough food source to keep them from having big heads and skinny bodies. It took several years of management to get the right balance of blue gill to bass. I learned that the bass will eat the blue gill up to a size thats too big to fit in their mouth, and blue gill will eat the bass eggs to nothing if you have too many of them. Its kinda fun fishing to keep the balance, I crush the barb on the hooks to keep from damaging their mouths when I fish. Always a lot of fun. You have a great looking pond!
 
When I first moved in 1 pulled 140 junior bass out of my 1/2 acre farm pond. There were so many there wasn't enough food source to keep them from having big heads and skinny bodies. It took several years of management to get the right balance of blue gill to bass. I learned that the bass will eat the blue gill up to a size thats too big to fit in their mouth, and blue gill will eat the bass eggs to nothing if you have too many of them. Its kinda fun fishing to keep the balance, I crush the barb on the hooks to keep from damaging their mouths when I fish. Always a lot of fun. You have a great looking pond!


thanks
we have really enjoyed the pond, and it might have upped the kids street cred a bit with their friends...not too many of em can pull 18 inch bass out of their backyard

good point on the barbs, that catfish I caught, I caught on the remains of a bass I caught yesterday
it took the hook WAY down and it didn't survive me removing it
I was pretty upset about that


on a side note, I had a huge explosion of weeds in the pond this years, ive raked a few paddleboat full out of it already
 
Do you know what kind of weeds you have? I'm no expert but I've been trying to manage our pond for 12 years with some success. Always a balancing act. I know what you mean about the hook. Not big deal if you're gonna fry them but different if you want to catch and release, many times I slack off on the pressure and let them off the hook after I've seen the size and what kind.
 
thanks
we have really enjoyed the pond, and it might have upped the kids street cred a bit with their friends...not too many of em can pull 18 inch bass out of their backyard

good point on the barbs, that catfish I caught, I caught on the remains of a bass I caught yesterday
it took the hook WAY down and it didn't survive me removing it
I was pretty upset about that


on a side note, I had a huge explosion of weeds in the pond this years, ive raked a few paddleboat full out of it already
I hope you at least had it for dinner rather than let it rot.
 
I hope you at least had it for dinner rather than let it rot.
I threw it back, hoping it would recover
when I found it hadn't, I used it as bait
she was about a 9 incher, I think
 
Do you know what kind of weeds you have?


not a clue

green ones, that run from the bottom all the way to the top (7-8 foot) and grow all over the place
kinda looks like grass
 
not a clue

green ones, that run from the bottom all the way to the top (7-8 foot) and grow all over the place
kinda looks like grass
Milfoil. It will take over the pond and destroy it unless you eradicate it.
 
So The Pond Guy sells a rake that cuts off vegetation at "ground" level. Make sure you remove the organic materiel. From there I use copper sulfate crystals, usually once in the spring and another about now. Will keep down unwanted waterplants
 
Two more bass, one I caught today, one my oldest girl caught yesterday
Guess which one I'm more proud off?

20190712_131257.jpg


20190711_154309.jpg
 
One of the fingerlings i put in, put up a nice fight

20190908_165716.jpg
 
I dont know, not to familiar with asian fish
But with the population of predators in there now, I dont know if a small invasion would manage to survive
 
That's a small-mouth or a rock bass in that first pic? I'd rather catch small-mouth bass than large mouth. more funner ;-)

Nice eater cat
That is one of the two small mouth bass that are in there (that I know off)

Definitely put up a nice fight BUT they like to throw hooks
I think more often then not, when I've caught them, they spit it before I can land them (even today, I'm pretty sure i hooked one, but after a minute or so, it got off)
 
That is one of the two small mouth bass that are in there (that I know off)

Definitely put up a nice fight BUT they like to throw hooks
I think more often then not, when I've caught them, they spit it before I can land them (even today, I'm pretty sure i hooked one, but after a minute or so, it got off)

Exactly! The greater challenge.

We had about a 2 acre pond in our back yard when I was growing up near St. Charles, MO. I fished just about every day there wasn't ice on it. There were a couple Bowfin in it when we moved in and a snapping turtle that was almost 2' front to back on his shell. Great times.
 
The boys had caught a big ole snapper the other day, but it bit through the line before they could land it...and I didn't get to see it
 
The boys had caught a big ole snapper the other day, but it bit through the line before they could land it...and I didn't get to see it
I caught one years ago in a canal years ago in Pennsylvania. I was 12 at the time and I actually landed the monster.
That turtle put up a fight better than any fish I ever caught. lol I caught it on a rubber worm attached to a spinner.
 
I think snakehead is a danger to all.
Invasion of the Snakeheads | Science | Smithsonian

The northern snakehead is native to Asia and is one of 29 snakehead species. It made its national news debut in 2002, after an angler at a pond behind a strip mall in Crofton, Maryland, caught a long, skinny fish, about 18 inches from end to end, that neither he nor his fishing buddy recognized. They photographed the fish before throwing it back; a month later, one of them took the picture to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR). An agency biologist e-mailed the picture to fish experts, who told Maryland it had a snakehead on its hands.

It was after another angler caught a snakehead in the same pond and netted some babies that all hell broke loose. National newspaper and TV news reports described snakeheads as vicious predators that would eat every fish in a pond, then waddle across land to another body of water and clean it out. A reporter from the Baltimore Sun called it “a companion for the Creature from the Black Lagoon.” The scariest reports, fortunately, turned out to be mistaken. While some species of snakeheads can indeed wriggle long distances across the ground, the northern snakehead—the only species found in the Crofton pond—appears not to be one of them. But northern snakeheads do like to eat other fish, and a heavy rain could conceivably wash one or more from the pond into a nearby river that runs through a National Wildlife Refuge and into the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in North America. To eliminate the snakehead menace, Maryland wildlife officials dumped the pesticide rotenone into the Crofton pond, killing all of its fish. Six adult snakeheads went belly up—as did more than 1,000 juveniles. Problem solved. Or so it appeared.

Two years later, northern snakeheads fulfilled biologists’ worst fear and showed up in the Potomac River. Experts worried that snakeheads in the Potomac, by eating other fish or out-competing them for food, could drive down numbers of more desirable species, such as shad or largemouth bass. You can dump poison in a little, enclosed pond, but you can’t poison the Potomac. It’s a wide, shallow river that originates in West Virginia and runs 380 miles before emptying into the Chesapeake. The bay fuels the region’s economy through recreation and fishing. Snakeheads couldn’t survive in the mildly salty water of the bay, but they could scarf down shad, fish that spawn in the Potomac and other freshwater tributaries. Millions of dollars have already been spent on fish stocking, dam modifications and other projects to help the shad, which used to be plentiful enough to support a commercial fishery in the bay.
 
Besides Crofton and the Potomac, the fish have popped up in several other places in the United States. In 1997, one was caught in a Southern California lake. A couple more appeared in Florida waters in 2000. In Massachusetts, one was caught in 2001 and a second in 2004. And in July 2004, an angler caught two in a lake in a Philadelphia park. Like the Crofton fish, the Philadelphia ones had settled in and started reproducing. But unlike the Crofton fish, they had access to a river—the Schuylkill, which feeds into the Delaware. Moreover, tidal gates that normally keep fish in the park had been stuck open for two years. Philadelphia fisheries managers decided that poisoning or draining the park’s interconnected ponds would cause more harm to resident fish than the snakeheads would, and have resigned themselves to snakeheads becoming a new member of the park’s ecosystem. The most recent surprise appearance was this past October when a northern snakehead was pulled out of Lake Michigan. The catch has raised fears that the voracious predator might take over the Great Lakes.

The northern snakehead, which is native to parts of China, far eastern Russia and the Korean peninsula, may seem plug-ugly to the undiscerning eye—it has big, pointy teeth and, given its particularly heavy mucus covering, a slime problem. It can grow up to five feet long. Like its reptilian namesake, it’s long and slender and can sport blotchy snakelike patterns on its skin. Unlike most fish, the northern snakehead has little sacs above its gills that function almost like lungs; the fish can surface and suck air into the sacs, then draw oxygen from the stored air as it swims. The air sacs are handy for surviving in waters that are low in oxygen, and even allow the fish to survive out of water for a couple of days, as long as it doesn’t dry out. A female lays thousands of eggs at a time, and both parents guard their offspring in a large nest they make in a clearing of aquatic plants.

Northern snakeheads are a popular food in their native range; they’re said to be good eating, particularly in watercress soup, if a bit bony. They’re fished commercially and raised in fish farms in Asia. They’ve also been sold live in markets in the United States. The Crofton snakeheads were eventually traced to a Maryland man who’d bought two of the fish in New York City for his sister to eat. When she demurred, he kept them in his aquarium and later released them. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service soon banned the importation and interstate transport of snakeheads, a plan that had already been in the works precisely because of fears that some snakehead species could thrive in parks, rivers and lakes if they got loose. The ban made it illegal to import all live snakehead species, including the colorful tropical species that populate the odd aquarium. Virginia has outlawed the possession of all snakeheads.
 
We have a natural spring on the back of our property that feeds a neighbor's pond four doors down. I wish we had the resources to clear some woods and dam it up. I'd love a pond in my geezer years.
 
Awww. How friggin cute is that?? Now she's hooked for life! lol

My nephew caught his first fish earlier this year...

View attachment 1715409222 View attachment 1715409223

doesn't get much better then that

except maybe for this one kid (I had a pic on my old phone, but it wasn't waterproof)
he was 4 or 5 at the time
his dad is pretty absent and his mom raises him by herself
she also goes to our church

so one summer sunday I bought him a rod and had both of em over to the house
while his mom hung out with me wife, me and him went out back and caught his first fish

i don't think ive ever seen him smile that big
 
-
Back
Top