Predator Ate And Ran

chromebumpers

solid fixture here in the forum
Staff member
The park service stuck there nose in my pond last year looking for a bear reported to be around. I told them I know this bear, she’s been around since I moved in so get off my property. The following week I get a letter stating my pond is too close to the stream and the carp that’s in the pond can escape into the stream (through the storm overflow) and eat the vegetation down stream. I had to install a filter fence in the water run-off.
Note* I put carp into the pond a few yrs ago because I screwed up and planted a few lilies a couple years before and they took over the pond. The carp were put in to eat up the Lilly roots thereby clearing the covered pond.
I thought the small black bear fished out everything. This spring I didn’t see anything so I ordered some Koi fish. They came overnight in a big styrofoam container, had only 9 hrs left to get them into the pond. I threw some fish bait into the pond at a few spots a few nights ago, no activity. The Koi were in bags of water so I had to open the bags and sit them in the pond, but so they couldn’t slip out, every 20 mins I let some pond water in the bags and spilled a little out to avoid shocking the fish. In 4 hrs the bags contained the pond water and the temperature was equal. I slowly released the Koi.
Immediately out of nowhere a bunch of large mouth bass came up and ate all the Koi. I was fit to be tied! I called a neighbor farmer and invited his kids over to fish the pond with a $50 reward for the capture of the most fish, Sunnies not included. 4 hrs in the heat doing this shit for nothing, and money gone too! Fishing begins in an hour LOL!
 
There is a 6‘X 6’ shack on skids built by the guys that hunted here before the House was built. Laying on its side for 7 years since I had it up. It rarely freezes over thick enough to be safe. Couple years ago kids were skating on it, but it worried me enough to put up a sign “No Skating - thin ice”
 
Did the carp do a good job of keeping the pond clean? I have to fight constantly with algae and underwater plant growth.
I also had some nice channel cats (30" or better in length) and a butt load of large mouth bass, a few 5-6 pounders. It was fun catching them.
We had alot of 9" bluegill...
We stocked our pond back in 1997 and I know for sure that the big cats were the ones we stocked with..Wife use to feed them ....they would come up to her and just skim the surface with their big open mouths sucking in the pellets..

Then My dumb ass put to much weed control in the pond last year and killed 90% of the fish...
It was a very bad day for me digging large holes and dumping wheel barrels of fish into them...
Then having to go into the house a accept the brutal chewing out that I deserved.!

Last week I did notice that a couple larger blue gill had survived..along with a new batch of fry I had seen in the spring.
We plan to restock next spring though.

But I thought about those carp you talk about...
We are battling Fragmitie weeds to no end.
The only way I have found to get rid of them is a Backhoe.
 
Those Carp will clean a pond in one season with just 3 of them. After that everything remains fine. I had to get a license to buy them after the state sends their guy out to give their seal of approval. The State controls their sales, I could only get sterilized Carp. My one pond is almost an acre, the other is only about 60’ X 200’ (always a problem maintaining).
 
The banks of both ponds are soft. When our bear comes along she squats down and reaches for the fish and pulls them out, however this usually pushes dirt into the pond. This amazes me as I always spook the fish as I walk around, even when my shadow remains on land side. In the larger pond deer go in and stand in the water and hang out.
 
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