On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 20:47:42 -0500, "~ Winsong ~"
wrote:

===
==="Roy" wrote in message
. net...
=== I just put up a webpage showing the evolution of my pond./ water
=== garden. Its accessible from my main website page. There is a link at
=== the bottom right column listed as Pond Project.
===
=== Coments on pond appreciated....both good and bad!
====================================
===Beautiful pond! :-) Bream? Who needs bream? I'd have that pond full of
===gorgeous butterfly koi and shubunkin goldfish.


Yep, if I had it to do over again thats exactly what I would like
also. We originally built the pond as we have two boys that liked to
fish, so we stocked it with Florida hybred bass and copper nose
bream and shell crackers and channel cats. Well the novelty soon wore
off for them, and the bream multiplied and multiplied..........had a
massive fish kill also, and like a fool we added a few more bream and
bass........and they continued to populate. I had opened it up for
folks to fish in it just to knock down the population of fish but
they soon trashed the place so the public fishing had to stop. I then
rotenoned (sp?) the pond, not once but twice. Figured all fish were
history. Next thing I knew my boy came in and said he just put a bunch
of bass fingerlings he was given in the pond and a few bream.....At
the time he was not living at home and he did not know I had killed
off the pond........oh well..............so I do knock down the bream
population as much as possible with a cast net and haul em out by the
bucket fulls. Dump em in the nearby stream. Sometimes I net some bass
as well.......and if they are big enough they get eaten or they also
get placed in the stream,,,,,,or left to help reduce the bream
population even further. The catfish we do fish for as we catch a few
and have em on the grill, and they have not multipled in the pond as
far as we know. I put "X" amount of channel cats in each year and we
usually fish about that many out........I do have three albino cats
which are pretty darn nice..........and a pair of White Amur which are
close to 30 to 36 inches long, look like logs out there swimming
around. But I am getting the overall outside fish population reduced
pretty good, and usually do get quite a few out most every couple of
days or so with a cast net. Some of the bream and shell crackers are
very pretty, but just too darn prolific and certainly not as friendly
or beautiful as Koi , goldfish or shubunkin are, but some day I hope
thats all thats in the open area of the pond. I do have a few painted
water turtles (sliders) which are common in this area, and they have
not caused any damage. I do have snakes from time to time especially
like this year with it being so dry, and the stream dried up so the
cotton mouths look for a water hole.........and then an occasional
beaver or two drops in when their stream is not up to par........
Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com
Opinions expressed are those of my wife,
I had no input whatsoever.
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