Saturday, April 25, 2009

First Fish Contact

No pics lately, as I have been too busy (really). The spring rains came and did what springs rains do--they filled the pond to overflowing again! However, I am very pleased with how the spillways are working out. I created two; one I shot with the laser a bit lower grade than the other. When the one can no longer handle the inflow, the pond rises ca. 3 inches more and the second spillway engages. It has been working beautifully, so I am glad.

Although it has not rained in nearly a week, the wet weather spring which is at the head of pond #2 (the one under construction) is still running strong. This means that not only is the large pond staying full, but that all activity on the second pond will have to wait until the spring stops flowing. Then I will pump pond #2 dry and complete it.

Over spring break, my mother and brother came down for a week. We had plenty of opportunity to fish for trout in the mountains (we are in the Shenandoah Valley, so the Blue Ridge are right nearby). In the process I was able to catch around five bluegill which I have released into the large pond. They are formally the first fish to be placed in there, and the kids have sighted them on several occasions since. I had caught a number of largemouth bass which I was going to put in, but later decided against it and let them go. My reasoning is that I am getting ready to buy some channel catfish fry around 2" long. They would be nothing more than food even to a small largemouth bass. I hope to also catch some bullhead and put them in, as not only are they fun to catch, and they reproduce well in ponds, but they are very tasty--even better than catfish.

More later . . . .

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Someday I would love to "dine" on some of those fish -- interesting update -- look forward to the next one.
Mom V