What weird things are going on in your ponds?

[Dadnatron]

I was working on the dam of my pond over the weekend.

I almost had a tipped over JD 'happening' in my pond.

I was packing some dirt along the top and got a little close to the inside. I had a pretty significant tilt going and as I tried to get out, I could feel the left tires sinking deeper and deeper while my right tires were on dry ground. I walked home, grabbed my F350 CC dually and some chain. Slung a chain around the upright portion of the FEL, just above the tractor connection and hooked to the truck at 90d to the axis of the tractor and about 50' down the bank. My wife kept the chain tight, preventing me tipping into the pond, and I pulled out, along the arc of the chains.

Worked slick... but I will tell you, before I decided to 'quite trying to get out' I was giving myself about a 75% chance of dumping it over in the pond.

 

[MossRoad]

Silver carp are a nightmare in the Mississippi river system and all of its tributaries. There's real and great concern about them entering the great lakes through Chicago or NE Indiana. Indiana has a law that if you catch one, you may NOT return it to the water. You have to kill it.

 

[check]

Keeping a healthy population of fish in any pond is all about year-round oxygen levels. If the pond is shallow - the summer heat will drive up the water temperatures and "hot water" can not hold enough oxygen. Likewise - a shallow pond looses oxygen in the winter, with an ice cover, because the organics in the bottom sediments use up all the oxygen as it decomposes. There are ways around this but they can be pretty expensive and are not always fool proof.

The best way to determine if a pond will maintain a population of fish is to determine oxygen levels during the hottest time of the year and during the winter, if the pond gets an ice cover. Generally speaking, salmonids(trout & salmon types) must have at least 8 to 10 PPM(parts per million) of oxygen, year round. Spiny ray fish(bass, carp, shiners, tench, blue-gills etc) will survive down to around 5 PPM but will become somewhat "dormant" at these levels.

Like any other living thing - as the oxygen levels approach the fishes level of tolerance - they will become much more susceptible to other factors - particularly disease and predation. Its a great pleasure to have a pond full of fish but its kind of sad to see them expire in the summer heat or to suffer "winter kill" if the pond freezes over for extended periods. Plus it can become rather expensive if a lot was invested in the initial planting.

Soooo - my point is..... know your pond and know its limitations before you spend a significant amount of money and have high hopes.

Great info, Oosik. I guess my 6-acre "pond" is OK, because my stocked trout grew from 4" to 16-18" in about 14 months.

Very interesting discussion on this thread. I grew up fishing the Rocky Mountain foothills streams as a kid, so any fish talk and I am all in!

 

[oosik]

Another tidbit all us pond owner must be aware of - - Salmonid will only spawn in year-round flowing water - i.e., a stream with the correct gravel bottom, oxygen levels etc,etc. This means those who have ponds with trout and want to maintain a viable population should restock the pond about once every three years. And the stocked fish should be large enough to not be consumed by the fish already in the lake. Salmonids are definite carnivores and will eat all the little fish we plant if they aren't big enough OR separated from the other fish until they are too big to be eaten.

Spiny ray fish - bass, blue-gills, crappie etc - will spawn in a lake and if conditions are such that they do spawn & grow - you have to watch out for over population and "stunting" of the fish. This means you should fish the H*LL out of them or in the extreme - reduce the population by netting and turning those netted into fertilizer or move them to a barren pond. Spiny ray fish will eat their young also but normally the spawning rate is so very high that the existing population can never keep up.

 

[CajunRider]

Another tidbit all us pond owner must be aware of - - Salmonid will only spawn in year-round flowing water - i.e., a stream with the correct gravel bottom, oxygen levels etc,etc. This means those who have ponds with trout and want to maintain a viable population should restock the pond about once every three years. And the stocked fish should be large enough to not be consumed by the fish already in the lake. Salmonids are definite carnivores and will eat all the little fish we plant if they aren't big enough OR separated from the other fish until they are too big to be eaten.

Spiny ray fish - bass, blue-gills, crappie etc - will spawn in a lake and if conditions are such that they do spawn & grow - you have to watch out for over population and "stunting" of the fish. This means you should fish the H*LL out of them or in the extreme - reduce the population by netting and turning those netted into fertilizer or move them to a barren pond. Spiny ray fish will eat their young also but normally the spawning rate is so very high that the existing population can never keep up.

If I introduced 8" size bass into a pond with stunted bluegills, would the bass grow really fast and help me control the population? Not that I really have that problem because right now any blue gills in my pond will be chased down and eaten by the red fish.

 

[oosik]

Generally speaking, most all fish will eat smaller fish. There are exceptions - those type fish that feed off the bottom sediments are not normally going to bother other species - suckers, sturgeon etc. You guys have a fish called a red fish - I'm not familiar with it. What is it?

You see, my education(BS in Fresh Water Fisheries Biology) came from the University of Washington/Seattle. Spiny ray fish were considered trash fish, at that time, and were seldom spoken about except as to ways to eliminate them from lakes, so trout could be planted. It took me years & years of study to learn about the spiny rayed fishes because of this "Northern bias". And I sure wasn't going to learn anything about them at the U of W, School of Fisheries.

 

[PJSprog]

I grew up eating bluegill yanked out of my Grandfather's pond, Rolf. It remains to this day one of my favorite fish to eat.

 

[CajunRider]

Generally speaking, most all fish will eat smaller fish. There are exceptions - those type fish that feed off the bottom sediments are not normally going to bother other species - suckers, sturgeon etc. You guys have a fish called a red fish - I'm not familiar with it. What is it?

You see, my education(BS in Fresh Water Fisheries Biology) came from the University of Washington/Seattle. Spiny ray fish were considered trash fish, at that time, and were seldom spoken about except as to ways to eliminate them from lakes, so trout could be planted. It took me years & years of study to learn about the spiny rayed fishes because of this "Northern bias". And I sure wasn't going to learn anything about them at the U of W, School of Fisheries.

What I call red fish are actually red drum Red drum - Wikipedia.
These fish will live in brackish water and got into my pond during flooding by hurricanes. The few that live in my pond have gotten big 28-35" long and are eating every other kind of fish I put in the pond to try to stock it with fresh water fish.

 

[oosik]

That's an awful big fish - pic in post #1. Have you ever considered bringing in a gator - ha,ha. I don't think I want to swim in your pond if there's gonna be fish or something big enough to eat that Red Fish. But you have the right idea there, CajunRider - you got to eliminate the fish you don't want so when you plant the desirable ones - they will stand a chance. Otherwise, its simply, feeding time at the 'ol Cajun watering hole.

 

[General Lee]

I have a small goldfish pond :laughing: I had 7 goldfish that survived the past 5 or 6 winters. This winter I didn't net the pond to keep leaf debris out so lots of leaves got in. a week or two ago I've seen my fish surfacing so I thought, well they're still alive. Well the past couple of days I haven't seen them and was disappointed I may have caused their death. I drained and cleaned the pond today and no sign of them. No bodies. Something must of got them. I figure with all the leaf litter they couldn't swim as deep and may been easy pickings for a critter to grab them.