Alien Invasion - I want my pond back !

[bindian]

Congrats on the fishing results. We will need photos of you and your Grand son fishing!

When the kids were little, we took them salt water fishing in Galveston. They had more fun at the bait shop catching the bait from concrete troughs, then fishing!
hugs, Brandi

 

[bindian]

Brandi, I had fun with dye last year. The stuff I bought came as a blue powder and despite trying to be careful, I found it far too easy to mark just about everything I touched blue. A year on and we are still finding new traces of blue in the house!

These are liquids. Just measure and toss in. I wear rubber surgiacal gloves when doing it. Two gloves on each hand when doing two ponds. This stuff is okay all wildlife. My ducks swim right into it after I just threw it in. No problems.
hugs, Brandi

 

[wngsprd]

Great news about your fish. Enjoy!

 

[rox]

This was a great topic, much enjoyed the read.
Your challenges to restore that pond are truly enormous.
I admire your dedication and resourcefulness.

 

[wolc123]

I live on a small farm in upstate NY, which has been in our family for seven generations. We just got thru the driest summer in recorded history. About 20 years ago, I dug a small pond (1/4 acre x 6 ft deep), at the lowest point on the farm, using a 3-point scoop behind my 1951 Ford 8N tractor. That was also a dry year and it took me about 100 hours to dig that pond. When I finished, the old tractor needed a valve job. The pond has held water thru every year prior to this one. When I was back there this morning, all the water was gone. All that remained was a couple feet of black sediment on the bottom. As the water level has dropped over the summer, the great blue herons have been cleaning out all the frogs and fish (bluegills and bullheads).

In a couple hours this morning, using the front loader bucket on my 2005 John Deere 4120 tractor, I dug out all the sediment and made it a little deeper than it was originally. It took me almost as long to powerwash the tractor this afternoon than it did to clean the pond. I have been having algea blooms in the pond for the last few years. Hopefully, getting that sediment out of the bottom will correct that issue. I am thankful now for our summer drought because I did not need to rent a backhoe or pump the pond out to clean it. Now I am pulling for tropical storm Matthew to dump a bunch of rain and fill the pond back up.

We could not skate on the pond last winter because it was the warmest in recorded history (maybe there is something to this "climate change" thing). It was the first winter I remember where the ground never froze at all. Hopefully that pond will fill up in the next few weeks and freeze over good this winter. I will also stock it next spring with bluegills and largemouth bass.

 

[Eric Salop]

I live on a small farm in upstate NY, which has been in our family for seven generations. We just got thru the driest summer in recorded history. About 20 years ago, I dug a small pond (1/4 acre x 6 ft deep), at the lowest point on the farm, using a 3-point scoop behind my 1951 Ford 8N tractor. That was also a dry year and it took me about 100 hours to dig that pond. When I finished, the old tractor needed a valve job. The pond has held water thru every year prior to this one. When I was back there this morning, all the water was gone. All that remained was a couple feet of black sediment on the bottom. As the water level has dropped over the summer, the great blue herons have been cleaning out all the frogs and fish (bluegills and bullheads).

In a couple hours this morning, using the front loader bucket on my 2005 John Deere 4120 tractor, I dug out all the sediment and made it a little deeper than it was originally. It took me almost as long to powerwash the tractor this afternoon than it did to clean the pond. I have been having algea blooms in the pond for the last few years. Hopefully, getting that sediment out of the bottom will correct that issue. I am thankful now for our summer drought because I did not need to rent a backhoe or pump the pond out to clean it. Now I am pulling for tropical storm Matthew to dump a bunch of rain and fill the pond back up.

Digging out a pond that size to 6' in depth with a soil scoop must have been hard work, I bet you really appreciated having the loader this time.

In the past I have spent long days moving soil piles with a scoop on my 1955 Ferguson. Although it is very satisfying to pull the rope to trip and dump the soil, it is one of those nostalgia things I wouldn't care to repeat as all the working in reverse used to have my neck complaining that it was never intended to swivel like an owl. Hydraulically operated loaders are a great invention. I took a picture just before I got my Iseki so I could always remember what life was like in the pre-loader days.

 

[wolc123]

I sure did get my moneys worth out of that pond scoop. My dad still uses it for light landscaping tasks around his house. I used it pointed forward to dig the pond, so I did not need to twist around and look back very much. It really was not hard work, but did take a lot of time. I even made a rear-loader from it that worked very well (on a slightly larger tractor - Ford 2000) for loading a manure spreader and a dump truck (neck strain was a bit of an issue with that however). I just hitched a 3-point boom to the top link of the pond scoop and made lower link extensions from angle-iron. With that the scoop was pointed backward like yours. I also added stabilizer links to keep my lower links from bending when I used it pointed backward on the extensions or in close.

The 8n only had enough hydraulic power to lift the empty scoop when it was extended out that far, but the 2000 had could easily lift it full of wet manure or topsoil. I did need to add some suitcase weights on a front bracket to keep the front axle down however. That rear loader was superior to a front loader on a two-wheel drive tractor. A little neck strain is a small price to pay for gaining traction rather than loosing it as you fill the scoop. A front loader on a 4 wheel drive tractor is tough to beat though. After I got one of those, I gave the pond scoop to my dad.

 

[Gem99ultra]

Are there plant eating fish you could put in there? I'm getting ready to add some grass carp to my ponds.

Hopefully you'll have better luck with the grass carp than I have had. My suspicion is that they eat a good amount of grass the first year or 18 months, then they slow down to be just big ole fish in the pond. Mine are now 3 years old and about 3' long. They generally stay together and are always seen cruising around the ponds like F-16's. On the upside, they don't eat other fish. I don't think they eat much of anything actually - they just hang around.

The blue dye has worked best for me so far in clearing out the duck weed. I took 3 applications, but for the last 8 months - no weeds!

 

[Eric Salop]

Epilogue

Hard to believe how quickly 2017 has come around. The alien (plants) and me have had a happy enough relationship this past year, with the pond now able to go many months with only an occasional few hours of weed pulling.


Yesterday I was hoping for kind weather to finally coincide with a visit from our grandson, who will be 7 years old this summer. There was rain in the morning, then once it cleared in the afternoon, he asked if he could go out on an "adventure", which to him is doing anything outside. Time to pick out a rod last used by my wife's dad, who was a very keen fisherman. He didn't live quite long enough to see his great grandson born, but I'm sure he would have approved of his tackle being used for his first ever fishing trip.

We sat side by side on a tackle box, both watching,willing and eagerly waiting for the little float to move. Despite my fears that he would soon grow bored, he gave it as much attention as any final level on a computer game.

Finally the float submerged and after a few splashes, out came his first every fish. He admired it's gleaming silver flanks for a short while and then let me return to the pond.

 

[Xfaxman]

He will remember it forever :thumbsup: