The Fishing Thread

np man.

How is the small mouth fishing on Lake Erie, Bisi? I've always wanted to fish that lake. one year! Canada has some amazing fishing, well compared to Philly and the sounding areas heh. I used to hit Chaffee's locks up in Ontario every year. Amazing Large and small mouth fishing. Plus good pike. I fished the fuck out of senko's up there. Best plastic ever created.

Yep! Great area. Food and fishing is off the hook.

Sadly I realise almost all of my fishing pictures predate the proliferatino of the digital camera. That's sad. I've got album after album of salmon I caught in AK, Halibut I caught in AK, largemouth up to 10lbs and various other fish, but none of them digital. I really don't know if I have caught a fish this century and I used to fish a LOT, like several days a week for about 9 months out of the year.

Turkish battleax > machete!

Whenever I go fishin I spend about 5 minutes actually fishin and just get drunk.

God save me if civilization collapses, because my skill with catching fish sure as shit won't.

I have space at the back end of my property to make a pond, and I have access to the serious land-moving machinery needed to make it happen. I am considering making a pond big enough to stock, so that we can regularly eat pan-fish caught within walking distance, but it will take a few years to establish. You guys think it's worth it? Being able to walk for ten minutes with the kids to catch what we choose to stock for dinner?

I think that's a yes. Starting this fall.

How big of a pond?

How big, what area etc etc

If I had $1 for every pond owner or potential pond owner who says "but it's deep" which is the standing joke for biologist as if that fixes everything lol. Pond managment isn't as easy as dig a hole and stock it. Depending on where you live it can be a lot of work.

It doesn't have to be a lot of work but it's more than a one time dump to stock for the most part.

Also depending on where you live you'll get undeseriable species no matter what. People always claim the eggs came in on a birds leg lol, another famous joke biologist make fun of for people saying that. Fish are looking for a reason to die. At least in East, TX which is known for great fisheries you get the least little bit of water draining into a pond you'll get overflow from somewhere and that's where the undesierable species come from, even if it seems really unlikely.

I think I'd probably dedicate a full acre to the pond with a maximum depth of maybe 10 feet. I have a natural spot for it, and I think it's entirely feasible. There's an abandoned well on my property that still produces excellent water, and I could run that to fill it, though I think if I go deep and broad enough, there's going to be natural filling. The soil here is sandy, so I don't think it would be muddy.
There's a dude up the street that has about a quarter acre pond, and he had no trouble getting surface plants to grow in it, and he has a few fish in it. He said it wasn't hard to do, and mostly happened naturally once he dug the hole. He said the biggest issue is what to do with the fill you remove. I have a contractor friend that will take all of it. It's suitable for grading yards if you add topsoil at the finishing level, and I have a huge area it can sit for a while as he gradually uses it up.

I just need to do more reading, I think.

Most people here use packing mud if they have sandy soils to keep from losing the water. You don't even have to take it out of the bag, just place it on the bottom and let the pond fill up and the bag gets soaked and becomes an effective water barrier.

Which area of the country? I can recommend some reading that applies to all of TX, it's broken into east TX where it rains 65" a year to stock ponds in west, TX where it might rain 6" with a variety of soils (which is the key) across all of them. Billy Higginbotham - when I googled him just now realised he has left TXPWD and gone to work as a professor of fisheries/wildlife management at Texas A&M. I feel old considering we went to school together.

He has an hour long video of a presentation on small pond management for fishing. He really knows his stuff. I wish I had a picture of him falling into a stream with a honda generator on his back that was running while running a shocker for a fish survey. Best day ever to be the tally bitch.

I have a pond on my property. The biggest issue I have had may not apply to you. Because I'm right in the main part of the Central Flyway Mergansers have been my biggest issue since when they migrate they hammer the small fish population. Duck season helps and have a red card collection permit helps but that's not available to most people.

Farm Pond Management: Managing Ponds For Better Fishing - YouTube

Nice, that's all good information.

I'm near the southern tip of Lake Michigan. We're sandy here because it used to be dune all the way out here. I may need to mud pack the bottom, but I haven't done the research yet. I'm getting excited about the project, though, and may start on it this fall. I may even get to use the heavy equipment myself. Should be a riot.

It's nice when you get bored to walk out and catch a few fish. I have some catfish also so I feed them dog food which my nieces and nephews enjoy watching them all surface to get a bite. Most hardware stores or feed stores here sell pelletized food for catfish or whatever else you can throw out every so often if you don't have a food chain. Some people have automatic feeders out over the pond and feed them multiple times a day.

It's just now starting to come back after I lost part of the dam to a pipeline expansion a few years ago.

Maybe if I get motivated I'll scan some pictures of fish I have caught. I used to be quite the bass fisherman living on the best bass fishing lakes in the country. I also have some pics of halibut and salmon from my AK trips. Some redfish and speckled trout pics from the coast as well. I'm old and all my fish pictures were before the advent of digital cameras so I would have to scan them in.

The old to lazy to scan fish story.

Yup. I'll see what I can do. I just put a bunch in frames to hang at the office. Maybe I'll just take a pic of the framed pictures, that's more along the lines of how much effort I'm willing to put in.

Took one. Gotta blue out the name of my dad on a business card in the frame.

Just noticed I have what appears to be a smushed bug on the lens of my camera on the phone.