What weird things are going on in your ponds?

oosik · Apr 15, 2017

keegs - you are more than likely correct - pointing the finger at the otter. And apparently, 1000 feet isn't that much for an otter to travel. I get a pair come thru here every spring and the closest river is over 50 miles away. They will stay for 4 days or so, eat my bass like a pair of wild cannibals, and then go....????? The bass they eat never hurts my overall stocks. I estimate that there are 1500-2000 adult bass/acre in the little lake.

Beltzington · Apr 15, 2017

MossRoad said:
The biggest predator of goldfish around here is great blue herons. I have a friend (the one that had the poison mushroom dinner in the other thread) that had a small, maybe 8' round pond in his flower bed and had some goldfish to keep the mosquitoes down. His yard has a privacy fence around it. Heron must have been flying over and saw the gold snicker's bars, swooped in and ate them all in a short time. He captured it on his game camera.

I have a small half-acre run-off pond that had a couple hundred brim and maybe 50 bass, over the years both have significantly decreased in numbers. The one constant is a huge Blue Heron who I believe thinks my pond is the local McD's. This pond is at least 20-years old and has very large fresh water mussel population that the raccoons love, there is always a couple dozen freshly eaten empty shells laying on the banks. I really need to clean this pond out as it severely silted but I hate to destroy a working eco-system.

oosik · Apr 15, 2017

I get maybe two visits per year from a Blue Heron. There is really only one small place on the little lake with a shoreline. The remainder of the lake is vertical basaltic cliffs right at the water. Coons visit in the fall when the fruit in the orchard starts to ripen. There is a small bay, across the lake where I will occasionally see Blue Heron and once I saw an Egret. The Egret stood out like a sore thumb and was here for less than a day.