Pics of fish out of a pond managed for trophy panfish.

[taxid]

I know it's not fair to compare my pellet fed monosex pond to the public lakes but I just wanted to show some pics of fish out of a pond and the potential of a pond if it's managed for trophy fish.

Pond consists of male only bluegills and female only perch as they grow the fastest of the two sexes and reproduction takes place in other smaller ponds on the property.

This 0.62 acre pond has about 300 female yellow perch in it at the present time from about 12 to 14 1/2 inches.  About a hundred bluegills run from 9 to 10.5 inches.  I take out fish every year to sell and add fish I hatch in other ponds. No bass or other species, although I will be reestablishing a fathead minnow population (aka crappie minnows) for supplemental feed in winter. If bass were present they would wipe the fatheads out but pellet fed perch and bluegills will not.

One advantage of the monosex pond with no reproduction is I can put all my carrying capacity in large fish. No bait stealers!

For those of you that don't know I sell these fish along with two species of trout to fellow taxidermists as far away as Hawaii  once they reach a minimum size. I have a license to do so and it's all on private property.

A 1 lb. 6 1\2 ounce bluegill that was only 10 inches. My male bluegills are already a pound at 9 inches due to plentiful pellet feed and minimum competition.  These aren't hybrids.






A 14 inch yellow perch female that was just over 2 lbs. I'm not photogenic at all and even worse when a cold wind is blowing! LOL



Some 14 inch yellow perch overdosed with a fish anesthetic before weighing, cataloging, freezing and vacuum sealing.



A floating fish cage that contains five gravid females and 13 males along with some willow branches lashed together for the females to drape their eggs on. This is the a separate 1/10th acre pond on the property that can be easily filled and drained. If you've never seen perch eggs they are long gelatinous strands.

[PikeHunterDan]

Pellet fed?? Are you sure those aren't steroid fed?

[taxid]

Pellet fed?? Are you sure those aren't steroid fed?

I'm sure. 

[popnfish]

wow

[tomturkey]

I wish I could find some of the female jumbo perch in our lake in the winter before they spawned. I never made it at all this winter due to my back not liking the deep snow.

They do not compete with your perch but they are not slouches. I got over 3 lbs of fillets from 10 fish last fall.

It is hard to tell how the lake is going to be this year. We have suffered a bad winter kill with small gills taking the biggest hit, which is no real loss due to being to many. I did find a half dozen 12 - 14 inch bass floating to day in a 50 foot stretch. It is going to be a stinky mess before long when the rest of the ice goes off.

I am afraid that the members are going to think that the association supposed to clean all the fish up. 

[taxid]

I wish I could find some of the female jumbo perch in our lake in the winter before they spawned. I never made it at all this winter due to my back not liking the deep snow.

They do not compete with your perch but they are not slouches. I got over 3 lbs of fillets from 10 fish last fall.

It is hard to tell how the lake is going to be this year. We have suffered a bad winter kill with small gills taking the biggest hit, which is no real loss due to being to many. I did find a half dozen 12 - 14 inch bass floating to day in a 50 foot stretch. It is going to be a stinky mess before long when the rest of the ice goes off.

I am afraid that the members are going to think that the association supposed to clean all the fish up.  

I hate to break it to you but the largest fish go first when there is oxygen depletion. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they didn't die. If the small bluegills took a big hit than you had a major fish kill of larger fish.

I lost six bluegills but not due to low oxygen but due to low water temps.  Due to my eagerness to prevent winter kill I probably set my diffuser too deep and chilled the entire water column down to 34. 5 F. In the open water created by the diffuser I had what appeared to be steam rising off the water whenever temps hit the zero mark or below. That was some serious heat loss.That's enough to cause stress in cool and warmwater species as typically the deepest water in a body of water is about 39 F. due to freshwater being most dense at that temp. It doesn't sound like much of a temp difference, but many fish seek that relatively warmer water out. However if there is oxygen depletion it starts deep and works it's way up, which causes the fish to rise in the water column looking for more oxygen. So a double whammy depleting oxygen in the deeper water and lower water temps as they rise in the water column. In a body of water that is in serious trouble you'll see fish come up to your ice fishing hole.

Ponds are more prone to temperature stress in the winter because of their small size and therefore ease of cooling them.  One way I could tell my bluegills were temperature stressed was the red on the bases of all the fins and the gums of the fish as in this picture if you look closely. The following fish had red on it's pectoral fin base and gums. On the other hand it's much better to have temperature stress vs. low oxygen. The lesser of two evils!

[Valparaiso_Girl]

Interesting!  How many fish do you have?  I thought birds helped transfer fish and fish eggs and would establish bass in ponds, if so, how do you keep that from happening?  One last question-- Can I come over and fish?   

[taxid]

Interesting!  How many fish do you have?  I thought birds helped transfer fish and fish eggs and would establish bass in ponds, if so, how do you keep that from happening?  One last question-- Can I come over and fish?  

That's unlikely but possible (in reference to the birds carrying eggs).  It's a controversial topic among biologists.  

I have about 300 female perch and about 100 male bluegill in the pond.

I do have folks over to help harvest by hook and line. P.M. me if you're available in the next couple days. Same goes for others on the site as long as there aren't too many. You must call first. It also has to be after 5 P.M. so i can stay in the shop and get something done during the day.

[tomturkey]

After I posted, more ice melted and I did find a half dozen 14/16 inch bass in one spot. there are probably thousands of dead fish in the lake.

It would be nice to clean up what we can but the next Q is what do we do with them after we take them out of the lake.

My pontoon is still tarped and not ready to go in the water.

[Get_the_Net]

After I posted, more ice melted and I did find a half dozen 14/16 inch bass in one spot. there are probably thousands of dead fish in the lake.

It would be nice to clean up what we can but the next Q is what do we do with them after we take them out of the lake.

My pontoon is still tarped and not ready to go in the water.

Bury them in the garden....make sure you bury them more than 1 ft deep....they make good fertilizer.

[taxid]

Bury them in the garden....make sure you bury them more than 1 ft deep....they make good fertilizer.

Or if you have access to some isolated woods...

[tomturkey]

Bury them in the garden....make sure you bury them more than 1 ft deep....they make good fertilizer.

How big of a garden do you have. I have enough fertilizer for every one on this sites garden. The lake assn. had a hole dug to bury what fish the members will clean out of the lake. Problem with the members is they figure their $150 a year dues is supposed to pay for every thing and the 4 member board is going to come clean up their beach.

I went looking more last night. Our fish population has been decimated. Tens of thousands of dead fish. Bass up to 6 lbs. Huge rock bass, like almost a foot. Saw one 5 lb. plus walleye. Many pike. A bunch of perch some of which were longer than what taxid has been posting. The number of blue gills in unbelievable.

I guess I might as well leave the fishing rods in the rack on the wall for this year and maybe a few more. It is going to take years to recover from this catastrophe. I do still have some fish in the freezer so I better ration them out.

[sprkplug]

Very sorry to hear this....it was a tough winter to be sure.

[Get_the_Net]

How big of a garden do you have. I have enough fertilizer for every one on this sites garden. The lake assn. had a hole dug to bury what fish the members will clean out of the lake. Problem with the members is they figure their $150 a year dues is supposed to pay for every thing and the 4 member board is going to come clean up their beach.

I went looking more last night. Our fish population has been decimated. Tens of thousands of dead fish. Bass up to 6 lbs. Huge rock bass, like almost a foot. Saw one 5 lb. plus walleye. Many pike. A bunch of perch some of which were longer than what taxid has been posting. The number of blue gills in unbelievable.

I guess I might as well leave the fishing rods in the rack on the wall for this year and maybe a few more. It is going to take years to recover from this catastrophe. I do still have some fish in the freezer so I better ration them out.

I thought you were only picking up the ones from your beach, not the whole lake.  LOL.  Is the pond/lake shallow...like under 20 ft deep or choked with weeds during the softwater?  Hard to imagine that many fish would die if the lake had decent depth for O2 reserves during the winter unless a ton of decaying vegetation used all the O2 reserves.  Maybe the association should invest in bubbler or something for future winters to keep some water open where O2 can be mixed in to try to prevent a repeat in the future.

[tomturkey]

I thought you were only picking up the ones from your beach, not the whole lake.  LOL.  Is the pond/lake shallow...like under 20 ft deep or choked with weeds during the softwater?  Hard to imagine that many fish would die if the lake had decent depth for O2 reserves during the winter unless a ton of decaying vegetation used all the O2 reserves.  Maybe the association should invest in bubbler or something for future winters to keep some water open where O2 can be mixed in to try to prevent a repeat in the future.

It is a shallow man made lake with less than 8 foot overall average depth. There is one dug hole that is around 18 foot. we have been really fighting the weeds for the last few years after they got away from us a couple of years ago when we had an early warm up in the spring. Money has been tight for the association as we are embattled in law suit with the developer over him wanting to add a huge bunch of lots. We tried to get the dues raised by $75 last fall but it got turned down. They figured that the $150 dues could keep the lake the way it was 10 years ago when they were last raised.

I spent 4 hours scooping and gaffing what had to be over 200 lbs of dead fish in a couple hundred feet of shore line in one of the parks. There were a huge amount of bass that would have been life time catches for many Michigan anglers. I had no idea that there were rock bass in the lake of the size I put in bags. Luckily a neighbor and her daughter showed up and helped me get the fish bagged. this old fart can hardly move today from all that exercise.

Have to go back on Monday and bag what fish I missed yesterday.

I bagged some of the dream yellow bellies I knew were in the lake but could never get them when they were full of eggs. One that had blown up on a dock was right around 16 inches by comparison to the 5/4 deck board is was laying in the picture I took. Another one that I gaffed out of the water was right around the same.

I also bagged two bigger walleyes, one around 24 plus a 20 incher. We did not have many walleyes in the lake so this really hurts. We did not find many pike but there  was a huge die off  them back in early July of 2012, I believe.

The guy that mows our parks and does the snow plowing we need came with his back hoe and dug a deep pit to burry the fish in so that helped with the disposal problem. The lake front property owners have really worked to get their propertied cleaned and put in the pit. They have also helped the older residents clean up and dispose of their fish.

I have pictures but am not into the way to post them on this site.