A Sarpy County Farm Pond

[SKershaw]

Went out to the pond today to see how the Al Gore effect is coming. Well, it's still solid. The ice looked intact and, for the most part, strong. The ice is thinning around the perimeter of the pond and very slowly receding.

It was covered in Canada's. The enjoyed there stay until I got out of the truck to walk around. There were 2 beautiful Whitetails running along the road in the wooded areas. Beautiful morning despite the overcast skies.











We are excited for some warm weather to get a peek at what's really in there!

More to come when the sun shines and the thermometer rises.

Scott

[Fish Recycler]

Thanks for heading out to make the survey, SK.

[Chad]

Glad you made it out, Scott. Perhaps I have an overactive pituitary, but your pics raise several nagging questions for me about the pond. Anyone is welcome to chime in, if you have knowledge (or just a wise ***** remark )

1. Does the presence of filamentous algae in the outlet indicate anything significant for the pond itself?

2. How major of a goose roost does it take before goose waste becomes a problem after ice out in terms of adding too much nutrients?

3. Can you see the 4x4 post directly above the outlet pipe? There's an electrical box on that post. Does someone knowledgeable about dam design know if that is some kind of pump/drain?

[Chad]

Here is what Daryl had to say...
Thanks!

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My $0.02-worth,

1. Does the presence of filamentous algae in the outlet indicate anything significant for the pond itself?

No, next question.

Seriously, there is not a body of water in the state, and that is especially true of farm ponds with an agricultural watershed, that do not have an abundance of nutrients. Those nutrients are fertilizer and will fuel aquatic vegetation or algae blooms or both. So you have some filamentous algae right now? All that means is the water is fertile, is warming and probably has not had much water movement recently.

2. How major of a goose roost does it take before goose waste becomes a problem after ice out in terms of adding too much nutrients?

That would depend on the amount of water, number of geese and how long the geese stick around. I would say a bunch of geese showing up in the fall and spring for a few days would probably not be a problem. BUT a concentration of geese for extended periods of time CAN have a negative impact on water quality. You probably do not want a small pond to become a goose refuge where large numbers of geese stay for long periods of time.

3. Can you see the 4x4 post directly above the outlet pipe? There's an electrical box on that post. Does someone knowledgeable about dam design know if that is some kind of pump/drain?

I am not a dam engineer, but I have never seen any dam designed with any kind of electrical pumps. Toe drains may be present, especially in large dams, but that water drains by gravity. They haven't had a pump there to pump water to a tank for watering livestock have they?

My $0.02-worth,

Daryl Bauer
Lakes and Reservoirs Program Manager
Nebraska Game & Parks Commission
daryl.bauer@ngpc.ne.gov

P.S. Feel free to share this message with others if you wish.
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To answer the question, no livestock pump that I know about.

[Mako]

Originally Posted by Chad

I am not a dam engineer

HEY! Watch your language.

Chad, have you tried opening it up? Are there any switches inside? If so you should see what some of the switches do. What's the worst that can happen? Just make sure your car is all the way inside the garage.

[Chad]

Teeg and I surveyed the ice-out scene at the pond.
I pulled on waders and got personal with the dead fish. Teeg snapped some pictures. I asked him if he got some good ones and he said, "Well they're of you and dead fish, so..."

Here's what we found dead and washed ashore. It was a little painful to see all those beautiful bass.

LMB - 28 dead in the following lengths (all fat): 19", 19", 21", 20", 20", 18", 20", 19", 19", 20", 20", 20", 21", 20". Another 14 were roughly that same size/class, but unmeasurable.

BG - 3 dead in the following lengths: 3.75", 3.75". 1 BIG BG head that we suspect came from a MA-class BG.

Bullfrogs - 20ish dead, most big, some that made you say, "Wow, look a the size of that bullfrog!"

Leopard frogs - 2 small, 1 the size of a medium size bullfrog.

Filamentous Algae - Yes, mat on the pond bottom.

PS - GOOD pics of me and dead fish pending...

[Shorty]

LMB - 28 dead in the following lengths (all fat): 19", 19", 21", 20", 20", 18", 20", 19", 19", 20", 20", 20", 21", 20". Another 14 were roughly that same size/class, but unmeasurable.

Ouch! That is a significant number of big fish! A lot of time there are a number of them that don't ever float.

Just a note, out at my favorite farm pond I have seen about 3 dozen small 2-3" BG dead at ice out, nothing else so far.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by Shorty

Just a note, out at my favorite farm pond I have seen about 3 dozen small 2-3" BG dead at ice out, nothing else so far.

Show off!!!

[Frosch]

Originally Posted by Chad

Teeg and I surveyed the ice-out scene at the pond.
I pulled on waders and got personal with the dead fish. Teeg snapped some pictures. I asked him if he got some good ones and he said, "Well they're of you and dead fish, so..."

Here's what we found dead and washed ashore. It was a little painful to see all those beautiful bass.

LMB - 28 dead in the following lengths (all fat): 19", 19", 21", 20", 20", 18", 20", 19", 19", 20", 20", 20", 21", 20". Another 14 were roughly that same size/class, but unmeasurable.

BG - 3 dead in the following lengths: 3.75", 3.75". 1 BIG BG head that we suspect came from a MA-class BG.

Bullfrogs - 20ish dead, most big, some that made you say, "Wow, look a the size of that bullfrog!"

Leopard frogs - 2 small, 1 the size of a medium size bullfrog.

Filamentous Algae - Yes, mat on the pond bottom.

PS - GOOD pics of me and dead fish pending...

Dang that is alot of nice LMBs. If you need anyone to do any fishing for them.... I mean if you need anyone to do any scientific studies of the live LMB let me know I would be happy to help.
Did you take any Jimmy Houston type pics with the bass Chad.

[Shorty]

Show off!!!

Not really! Just breathing a sigh of relief! I was worried about winter kill with both the snow and ice cover we had this year.

I suspect you will need to talk with Blasser about this one, that really is a significant loss of a large number of predators in a 5 acre pond.

[Chad]

Sorry if my post was confusing... it's 28 total dead bass.

[Chad]

Received this from Daryl.

That makes me scratch my head a little bit. How big was that pond? You don't suppose there were a bunch more smaller bluegill that had died and were already eaten by scavengers? Smaller dead bass as well? Did you see any live fish?

It is not at all unusual to have a few dead fish and frogs when the ice goes out, you have probably heard me say that winter is the hardest time of year for fish too, but that many dead big bass seems a little strange. You said other than being dead they looked fat?

Hard telling, and let me also tell you that many times it is difficult to figure out exactly what happened.

Later,

Daryl B.

[Fish Recycler]

The chances that there were a lot of other bluegill that had died and been carried off were pretty slim. There was still some ice on the pond, so ice-out is days old there, and if there had been many dead gills, they'd have been mixed in with the bass.

It's possible that their smaller air bladder was not as conducive to bloating and floating them to shore, and they're littering the bottom out on the pond, whereas those big bass did the bloat and float really well. There were a bunch floating out in the middle, blown up against the remaining ice, too.

I suspect that those big bass require more oxygen so may have taken the long winter harder than those little panfish, but who knows. I wish I had a camera to drop in there, but we'll get a seine in before long and see what's up.

Got a trap we can borrow, DB?

[Aquaman]

Wow! You guys took a big hit. That's really sad, but it opens up new opportunities.

I had a pond a couple of years back that I stocked with about 100 bluegill that I had that were extras. I just wanted it to be possibly a kids fishing pond the next year. When the ice came off I saw two dead fish. We ran a seine about a month later (this pond was just 1/14 of an acre at the time) and found ZERO remaining fish. The rest had decomposed after dropping to the bottom.

It's very possible that you've had a catastrophic event with the bluegill even though you're not seeing fish at this time. It may be that you're just seeing largemouth because their body mass led them to be floaters.

Actually you may be better off if you lost a lot of the bluegill. They'll recover quickly.

The fish you're seeing is certainly consistant with your initial observation of this being a "stunted bluegill pond". The bass that were dominating, like those twenty-inchers were feasting all the time, and the bluegill were probably present in the tens of thousands as smaller individuals. In my opinion, not a very good setup for overall fishing success. You'll be able to do it better!

[Shorty]

Chad, if it makes you feel any better I found 2 more dead bluegill last night at my favorite farm pond, one 8-1/2" and one 6". The smaller ones I saw late last week have all disappeared.

One thing you might want to do is visit the pond in the evening when the sun has been shinning all day, check the north side to see if there are any small bluegill that are sitting in the shallow, calm, warmer water. The less wind there is on the north side the better it will be for spotting to see if there are any fish left. Is the water pretty clear out there now? Can you see into it at least 2 ft.?

[Aquaman]

Shorty is right.

You can also assess your situation by using a spotlight in the shallows just after dark. If there's small bluegill remaining you will almost certainly see them. They hide in the shallows for protection from predators and residual daytime heat.

[Chad]

[SKershaw]

Dang! That looks nasty! I don't know what I would have rather been doing...

I sat in airports all day yesterday... probably would have blown chunks had I been there.

Where to now boys? What's the next step?

[Chad]

Additional comments from Daryl

Chad,

You have received some excellent advice from other folks--I would certainly try to determine what is in there for live fish right now.

Let's say you had a winterkill because of low oxygen levels, and yes, large fish will be a little more susceptible to low oxygen levels than small fish, but when you have a winterkill it is usually bad enough that it affects all sizes, how deep is the pond?

The reason I ask is because if you start seeing fish kills, that is usually a symptom of bigger problems. Is it an old pond that is in need of some deepening?

Some more ideas for you . . .

Daryl B.

P.S. Feel free to share this message with others.

To answer his questions:

The pond was constructed in late 80's and finished in 1990. When finished, the owner said it had 3 "pockets" near the center of the pond that were 21 feet deep each.

We ice fished the pond and found good depths of 12 feet or more off the damn, but didn't really scout around for those pockets. We hope to get a boat and depth finder on there later this spring.

The owner also reports that there are carp in the pond the size of his desk. I'm guessing they survived the winter - we didn't see any.

[Chad]

Received this (and was given permission to post it here) from a member and moderator of Pond Boss. Thought it was very interesting and worth sharing.

Consider the big picture here. What came first the chicken or the egg. My concern would be that a primary cause of your stunted BG pond is its tendency to have large winter kills. That may be a major factor in its cycle of going from stunted BG with few LMB to where it was just before this event (stunted BG with a fair # of good LMB). Now it is starting the cycle over.

If that is not consistent with your goals then you will have to deal with the winter kill propensity (determine why [to cold or low DO or both]and how to stop or limit it).