Problem: My Pond Full of Monster Bream

[YellowHammer]

At Jake's project, some of you guys heard me talking about how I didn't have any big bass in my pond because as the Pond Consultant guy I called in told me I did everything wrong for a big bas pond and in fact did everything right to have a trophy bream pond, which is cool but wasn't my intention.  The bream are too big and the bass are stunted and starving.

So I'm fishing it out, letting other people fill their coolers, and doing everything I can to thin out the monster Coppernose Florida strain bluegill that eat everything that swims by, but that's pretty slow. 

Has anybody built or used a budget fish shocker?  Do they work enough to bother with?

Anyways, I did a one minute video of me and Chip, my dog fishing the other day.

https://youtube.com/shorts/yyapQhFW1kc?feature=share

[Southside]

You must still have friends with access to things that go BOOM, that will take care of the issue very quickly. 

[barbender]

 You got weird "problems", Milton!😁

 I was hoping I'd get to hear you pronounce, "bream" in your video. I bet it doesn't sound how it is spelled😁

[Resonator]

Ever tried fishing them out with a net? (The rope kind, not to be confused with the Funicello kind).

[Andries]

I thought Yellowhammer would be humming "I bream of Jeannie with the light brown hair" during the video.
No luck.
I've spent weeeks at a time with a back-pack style electro-shocker, but those were only good for stream sampling for minnows.
I like Southside's suggestion. It would diversify your Hobby Hardwood YouTube library. 

[WV Sawmiller]

  I could think of some solutions. All of them involve corn meal, corn oil, hush puppies and cole slaw.

[SawyerTed]

Bread and a cast net?  Just need to line up folks to take them off your hands.  

[Jeff]

I've been avoiding this topic. Wah wah wah wah.  
Robert and I have it figured out, but we need Jake's Helicopter. 

[Old Greenhorn]

When/if you get the bream out what will you do next?

[YellowHammer]

I don't want to totally remove them, but their main purpose is forage for the bass, and I had stocked some "normal" sized bream last year, but I need to get all the big copper nose out, because I think they ate most of the smaller bream I'd stocked.

I tried stocking some 4 lb and bigger Guntersville bass in there a few years ago, and the bass turned paper thin by the end of summer and starved to death.  They starved a pond full of fish too big to eat.    

Bream are pronounced "brihm" in the south, sometimes it loosely sounds like "brim".  I think if I could get Andries to pronounce it, they would sound like "brOm. 

I can't use energetics because it will kill my bass.

I tried the cast net thing a few years ago, before they got out of control, and caught coolers full for people who said they wanted them, but nobody actually would come and get them unless I cleaned them, which wasn't going to happen.  So then I started tossing coolers full over the dam into the grass, and Martha had issues with that.  It's also pretty hard on the lawnmower.

She also had issues with me draining the pond and watching all the fish die and stink.

This year I've been calling folks in to catch them but most people get overwhelmed pretty quick.  The last group caught 53 in short order and the guy complained they spent a couple hours cleaning them, and didn't want to come back.  Can't make anyone happy. 

Since the PrOject, I started tossing the BrOem over the dam again, but Martha busted me a couple days ago when she spotted all the buzzards!  She has a soft heart.  I told her the buzzards have to eat, too.

So I may have to do what I did last year, and just start shooting them with my Armadillo Whacker Ruger 22.  But that caused me to have a turtle explosion, and today while I was fishing and tossing, I realized I should have been whacking turtles instead, they are everywhere.  So now I need to bring both a "turtle whacker" gun and a fishing rod. 

Basically, I want to take out everything that is too big for a bass to eat, say 4 inches, and every bass under 12 inches.  

I called in some "fish people" last year and they wanted $800 to shock the pond, which I decided not to do.

But I figured shocking would be quick and selective if I could get one.

These things are huge, my neighbors pet water buffalo waded in the pond the other day and nothing but bones were left floating in under a minute.  Yep.  Here's one my son in law caught a couple weeks ago, and the start of a cooler full going to his folks.

I went down there this afternoon and realized I hadn't even made a dent in them yet.

 

 

[barbender]

 We just sidestep how to pronounce that word up here. We just call them bluegills, gills, or sunnies. If you asked someone if they wanted some bream, they'd think you were talking about your hat, or the top of your cup😊

[Southside]

Not sure what the hub bub is about anyway, you just want to grow bass.  I mean if we were talking about Brookies I would understand.  

[NewYankeeSawmill]

Get yourself a Northern Pike and throw it in there.... 

[Old Greenhorn]

The NYS DEC used to have a program for clearing and restarting ponds and small lakes that had gotten overrun with a particular species. They would stock it with a hybrid Muskie (or was it pike?) that could not breed but boy could they eat! They would live in the lake/pond until there wasn't enough food to support them and die off. You could tell such lakes because the DEC would post signs all around it telling people about the program and to release any of those large fish they caught.
 They did a lake near me with that method. Now if they could just figure out how to cut the snapping turtle population down because they eat a lot too. I did note that in that pond the small mouth bass did very well after the musky finished up.

[customsawyer]

Dang sounds like we need to have a bream prOject.

[caveman]

I was onboard with a mullet sized mesh castnet or even a fish trap.  I've never used a fish trap for bream, but I don't see why it would not work.  

When we got email on the school computers a little over 20 years ago, we started taking fish orders from the staff.  Fridays (Fry Days) were busy for us.  We kept our ag freezer stocked.  Although we were not supposed to, we would occasionally sell bream (bluegill) at three for a dollar gutted and scaled to our special friends like Eddie the custodian.  

There are segments of the population that eat fish every Friday that would likely take all you could provide.

You are a smart feller so I know you will come up with a solution.

[WV Sawmiller]

Robert,

   Tom may accidentally be close to something with you contacting the State of Ala and getting them to use them for restocking other places. I don't know if they'd come get a few million or not.

    Other options beside the Pike (I'd think Chain Pickerel in your area) might be a few big flathead catfish. I'm surprised you don't have an otter or two coming to help.

    I am also surprised you are overwhelmed with monster bream. The folks I have met who had an out of balance pond usually had undersized bream.

[YellowHammer]

We have Brookies here but they only take bets on ball games and horse races. 

Ain't no muskies here, except the guys living under the bridge, but I don't want them fishing the pond and hanging out here.  They stink. 

I'd have to call Jeremy Wade to get something big enough to eat these pond monsters. 

I'm thinking building a house based fish shocker, and running some permanent wires into the pond bottom.  Then when I wanted to thin the pond, I'd flip a breaker on, and the whole pond would get electrified and shocked and all I had to do was shoot the floaters I wanted to get rid of.  I could use a shotgun to make it faster.  Or if I left the current on long enough, the fish would fry themselves, and all I had to do was scoop up dinner.  What could go wrong with that? 

[Southside]

Well you do have a fancy, new, super accurate, rifle. 

[YellowHammer]

I had thought of using it to whack turtles, the pond is only about 300 yards away from my house, and I should be able to head shoot them from the living room.  That would be cool!

 I should have put that 65 lb catfish I caught last year in there, that would have been cool.

Coppernose are Florida strain bream known for their huge size, and within one year, grow bigger than most normal sized bass can eat, and have a lifespan of up to 7 years, breeding every month and dropping zillions of eggs.

The issue, as my fish guy explained, is that the baby bass, say 8 inches and smaller, can exist on baby bream fry, but bigger bass will starve.  As they told me, it's like putting a bowl of rice at the end of a long driveway and saying you can eat all you want, but only one rice grain at a time, then you have to walk back to the end of the driveway.  The energy required to eat one grain of rice is more than expended getting one, and a person would starve.  So do bass eating the little baby bream.  The optimal size bream for bass food is about 2 to 4 inches long, and as we walked around my pond last year he said he see clouds of baby bream 1 inch and smaller and lots of bream 9 inches and bigger, but there were zero in the 2 to 4 inch range, which is bass food size.  I had never noticed that.  It's been years since I've caught or even seen a 3 inch bream.  So my bass literally starve in a pond full of baby fry and monster bream.  So he said my strategy needs to be to get rid of pretty much any bream bigger than a bass can eat, and most of the small bass under 12" because they also eat the fry before they can get big enough, until I start seeing small to midsized bream swimming around. 

I may try a 4" mesh cast net?

[doc henderson]

smelly fertilizer.

[SawyerTed]

A friend's son is a commercial pond management guy.

He recommends the smith-root company for electro fishing equipment.  Apparently they build shore based systems, boat based and backpack systems.  

[YellowHammer]

I just looked at their stuff, thanks for the link.  I know nothing about these systems.  Do the backpack systems work in a small pond setting where I can walk the bank and shock them up?  How deep do they work to shock fish, 3 feet, 10 feet, however deep the electrodes?  Never considered a backpack one but maybe that's what I need.  Do they work on turtles?  I don't want to rig a boat up, I just want to have something useful and convenient that hopefully won't electrocute me.

[Andries]

This video shows the modern day electroshocks in use.
We used these backpacks to do synoptic surveys for species inventories (fancy words for "what's in the water over here") in the NWT and Nunavut Territory.
Arctic travel, fun work with great people, and it paid my tuition at school - good times five decades ago!

https://www.nps.gov/nps-audiovideo/audiovideo/a0653c96-78e8-4dd0-a245-8df58f3aaf2b720p.mp4 


Back in the day, every farmer out on the Canadian prairies that had a pothole lake would be able to ask the Provincial Fisheries group to stock it with rainbow trout. If I remember right, something like blue-stone or MS 222 was added to the water to clear the pond out first, before stocking the trout. It was a seasonal 'put and take' fishery needing yearly stocking.
Sawyer Ted's buddy's son, as a commercial pond guy in the Tropics where you live, would be able tell you what they use to treat a pond with before stocking. Plus, some tips on what species to stock your pond with.
Like CustomSawyer said; pond prOject!

edit: from Wiki - TMS or MS222 is the only anesthetic licensed in the United States for fin fish that are intended for human consumption. So, if it's good to eat, might pass the Martha Test?

[Jeff]

This is just sitting here... Just sayin...

[B.C.C. Lapp]

A ultra lite spinning rod, some 4lb test, a can of garden worms, iced beer in a cooler and something  tasty to  munch and Id sit there till I had a 5 gallon bucket full.   We'd be filleting till midnight.   Always fun when me and my son and son in law come in after dark from fishing and drinking beer all day.  Well be cleaning fish till one of us falls off his chair.  That man is then usually declared unfit for duty and his filleting knife is taken, thank the Lord, and he is then the supervisor commenting on  these other guys fish cleaning technique.   .

Don't ask who that guy usually is.  

[WV Sawmiller]

Robert,

  My grandfather was one of the early game wardens in Fla and he used to talk about "Monkey-fishing" where people would use an old hand crank telephone to shock up fish. I don't know if the field telephones used by the military would work or if they would be available at a military surplus store.

  I used to hear about crushing up green walnuts and leaves in a burlap bag and tossing in a deep hole in the creek but I suspect your pond is too big for this. I think it made Rotenone (Sp) that took the O2 out of the water.

    I know this will be a painful suggestion but I bet if you call the fisheries department at AU they can tell you how to get rid of them.

    I wish I had a few hundred of them live for flathead catfish bait. My son hooked about a 1 lb crappie which wrapped around a limb in the treetop we were fishing and it was near the surface. He was holding tension hoping the fish would unravel itself and its was splashing on the surface. Suddenly there was a swirl and a sound like a commode flushing and a 20-25 lb flathead came up and nailed it. He let the catfish have the crappie but when he tried to land it there was a big fight for a few seconds but no hope of landing it on a 10' crappie pole and a #2 hair hook.

  This reminds me of the story I heard about a couple of UA co-eds who sneaked in to an old AU alumni' pond and went skinny dippin'. The old man came down and they heard him and went out to deeper water. He saw the pile of clothes and sat on a 5 gallon bucket and told them they better come on out. They called him a dirty old man and a peeping Tom. He told them "I'm no peeping Tom, I just come down here about this time every day to feed old Bill, my pet gator." Old age and treachery will overcome youth and vigor every time!

[Jeff]

That was a 5 mag crank phone magneto  pictured above.

[Peter Drouin]

All that lead in the pond can't be a good thing?
In NH we can't use lead shot or sinkers in or over the water Kills a lot of stuff. But, not your fish.  It would be interesting to bring a big one to a lab and see what % the lead is in their blood.

[YellowHammer]

I've never seen a crank phone except on the TV.  I wonder what voltage and current they put out?   

There had got to be a modern equivalent that runs off a battery, that won't kill me.

I'm not sure about the lead poisoning in the pond, but I would guess that some of the dead fish and turtles have a pretty high fraction of lead in their brain.  

I see some elcheapos shockers on the EBay and Amazon, they call them high frequency shockers.  They look like useless toys.  

I didn't go to the pond today, I was shooting the rifle, but it occurred to me that maybe I should take up spear fishing.  

I used to have a pesticide liscense, I could probably get the fish poison, but it seems such a waste for a guy like me who fishes pretty often to not be able to fish these guys out.  I just need to concentrate a little, it's just boring spending the afternoon catching baby bass and foot long bream day after day, when I could be doing something else.    

[Ljohnsaw]

I have a small crank magneto. I can get a fluorescent bulb to light up. I've tried but can't get my son to hold the leads to see how much kick it has. 😉

[Andries]

@YellowHammer, WV tickled a few memory cells that date back 50 or so years.
The answer might not be 308 calibre, or a 5000 kilowatt electro-fishing boat, which cuts down the fun factor a lot.
"Rotenone" could be your best answer.
. . . it is frequently used as a tool to remove alien fish species,^[9] as it has a relatively short half-life (days) and is gone from rivers in the course of days and from lakes within a few months, depending on (seasonal) stirring, organic content, availability of sunlight and temperature.^[10] Rotenone has been used by government agencies to kill fish in rivers and lakes in the United States since 1952,^[11] and in Canada^[12]and Norway^[13] since the 1980s.
- From Wikipedia.

Gotta say I'm some impressed Howard. I'll respect the banter that goes on between Tom "Old Greenhorn" and WV Sawmiller a whole bunch more. 
That poking is based on some sharp humour and tack sharp memories.

[Peter Drouin]

Sounds to me like you do a lot of shooting in the pond is all.
Sorry.

[WV Sawmiller]

    Thanks for the kind words Andries but I see one area my memory failed me on the Rotenone was that you cannot eat the fish killed by it like I thought you could. I think/thought it just removed the O2 and the flesh of the fish was not harmed but I see EPA does not approve of eating fish killed with it.

Robert,

   Could you get a license and sell the Bluegills from your home or to a local fish market for resale? I know you can't normally sell gamefish but since these are pond raised would that be possible and worth the time and expense? I think I have seen fish farmed bream for sale in my travels. 

   Sounds to me like you may need to invest in an electric fish scaler if you don't already have one. Either that or invest in one of those tow behind scalers
https://rockitfishscaler.com/ and use that. Friends used to use them and said if you sliced the belly open it would sling the guts out too.

[Magicman]

Rotenone affects the fish's gills and their ability to dissolve oxygen.

Q. Is it safe to eat fish killed by rotenone?
Calculations that address a worst case situation indicate that a 132 pound person would have to consume 535 pounds of raw fish containing 100 ppb rotenone to acquire a toxic dose. Cooking destroys rotenone so there would be a further loss of any residues during cooking. However, because no tolerance (acceptable residue level permitted in fish flesh) has been set by EPA, the consumption of rotenone killed fish cannot be recommended.

That being said, in past years I ate many catfish that were killed with Rotenone.  It is prohibited because the EPA has not done "studies" and established a ruling.

[Southside]

No need for a scaler, just reduce the set on a band down to .05 or so and line them up on the sawmill bed. Scale the first pass, drop the head 1/2", filet the second and third passes, and let the drag back run them over some 40 grit on the way back and voila, ready for market.   

[YellowHammer]

The pond guys also recommended rotenone, $800 and it'd done, but for some reason, I guess due my overly sensitive and sympathetic nature, I don't really want to nuke the whole pond just to get the big coppernose out.  I like them in there, they spawn every month, so produce zillions of fry,  I just need to get the bigger bream out of it.  If I can't figure out a systemic, realatively easy approach that I can do to maintain the point in proper balance in future years, then history will repeat itself after I restock anyway.

I think maybe a used pro fish shocker would be my best bet, probably a backpack, and so I could go out and cull as needed, relatively quickly.

Then I could walk the bank, shock them up, scoop them up, and load people's coolers real time.  Maybe do it a couple times a year, and be done with it.

I bet I could call up Smith Root or similar, and they would have some used units, or know where to get them.

@Southside I wonder how a fish cleaning video using a sawmill would do on YouTube?    

     

[caveman]

I think I recall Poston sawing a watermelon on his mill.  I would be hesitant to saw fish on a mill but not hesitant to fish for sawfish.  

[doc henderson]

Jeff showed how well his minnow trap worked.  can you find or make one, sized to let the little fish in and can escape and not the larger.  i.e. sized to get the middle-sized ones out.  you then have the opportunity to toss incidentally caught desirable fish back in.  this could work while you sleep and just check on it every day or so.  good fertilizer.  

[doc henderson]

so, looks like you need to leave the bass and any bream under 4 inches.  prob. take a 2-inch net.  I think a 4-inch fish will get through a 4-inch net.  could also catch and raise some in a stock tank and then throw back in the pond.  also, how about some floating fish food to get the bass bigger, so they can eat whatever?  However, this is starting to sound like work.  You got the best hobbies, including hardwoods.

[doc henderson]

the traps look simple and are for bait/minnows.  seems you could make one but with a larger netting size to let the smaller fish out.

[YellowHammer]

I've got a few saltwater pinfish traps, I may throw a few in there, baited with bread or something.

I wish I could get the bass to eat the fish food, I have a 200 lb auto fish feeder that throws every morning and afternoon.  They just want to eat other fish, not dead pellets.  

At the project, I talked to some folks about trying to find bass that are trained to eat fish food, but apparently, that is very rare.

[Magicman]

Is seining out of the question?  Back in my "home" years, we seined every year, kept the brim and tossed the bass back in.  Of course a seine would almost reach across our pond, but if yours has fingers, you could do them one at the time.  We pulled ours by hand, but two boats could work.

[Jeff]

If transportation were free, I'd be down there with a fishing pole, a trailer,  a generator, a fillet knife and two chest freezers.

[thecfarm]

Yellow Hammer, sawing fish on a sawmill?
Depends on who's wearing spandex. 

[tule peak timber]

If transportation were free, I'd be down there with a fishing pole, a trailer,  a generator, a fillet knife and two chest freezers.

I have the setup !

[YellowHammer]

Jeff, come on down!  Might need to bring 3 coolers.

MM, unfortunately, in my efforts to put lots of habitat in the pond, I have rootballs and other snags all over the bottom.

[WV Sawmiller]

That was a 5 mag crank phone magneto  pictured above.

Now we know what happened to that guy Grandpa was chasing. Grandpa said he nearly caught him but he got away and went way up north somewhere and was never heard from again. Now we know the rest of the story.

    Did this happen to be passed along to you from your parents or grandparents by any chance?

[Jeff]

Nah,, I have a Forest Service field phone, and I acquired the coil in hopes to use it in the phone, but 5 mags would not fit.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=65809.0

[thecfarm]

How about a Fishing Project? 

[SawyerTed]

@YellowHammer sorry but I don't know the answers to those questions but I'm sure a call to the company would get the answers.  

I called my buddy's son, he's limited on what he's willing or able to share, protecting proprietary information and all that jazz. I think he wants a fee for what he knows.  Pretty crummie if you ask me.  

Another route would be to check your Extension Service pond experts or wildlife biologists who do public waters electro fishing sampling. 

[Old Greenhorn]

You know this thread reminds me of a story . Seems there was this old game warden who had been trying to nail a well known poacher for decades but could never catch him at it. When the warden retired, he briefed his young replacement on the poacher and directly the new warden started following the guy around. Hoping to finally catch him and make a name for himself he plotted the poachers tracks and learned where he went. 
So one day the warden runs the into him on the street and asks him how he's been. The poacher replied in the positive and mentioned that he was planning on doing some fishing the next morning and asked the warden if he wanted to come along. Well the season didn't open for a week yet and the warden reminded him of that. But the fella thought he might give it a try anyway. So the warden met him at the boat ramp the next day and they rowed out into the pond. The poacher reached behind his seat and grabbed a stick of dynamite, lit it and threw it over the side. After the water came back down he began collecting fish by the arm load. The warden was going nuts and listing all the violations and tickets was was gonna write and how the fella would be in jail as soon as they rowed back in and he kept going on and on and getting really worked up. Finally the old poacher grabs another stick, lights it and tossed it at the wardens feet and said: " Are you gonna fish or talk all day?"

[Resonator]

That's an OLD joke.

I like the fishing PrOject idea, could even call it the: "Sensational Invitational Alabama'r YellowHammer Fisheree Jubilee!"

Maybe even ask that nice girl with the wheel loader to splash the water and make some waves... just like the rolling tide. 

[Southside]

It's not as much of a joke as you might realize.  A small town police chief did exactly that and lost his thumb in the process, I know the details as I was the one who had to take the pictures.  

[YellowHammer]

He was fishing with dynamite? 

[Jeff]

M50s will empty a hole of Redhorse Suckers.   Bil Pete dropped a big chunk of flat limestone one time off the little Dam on Drummond Island, into a pool of suckers hoping to get one. The stone hit flat, and I guess the concusion caused 6 of them to float up.

[Southside]

He was fishing with dynamite?

Yup. 

[Andries]

He was fishing with dynamite?

Yup. 

aka: the CIL 'Red Devil'.

[YellowHammer]

Getting injured with something as mild mannered and predictable as dynamite is pretty stupid, but I guess fishing can be dangerous for the wrong people.  He only lost his thumb?  If he'd used a bigger charge, he may have been more careful with his fuse timing, but at least he survived. 

[Southside]

That was back in the late '90s, his hand was pretty messed up and his thumb was missing.  End of his career.  My employer at the time still had some old dynamite lying around and would use it to take out beaver dams.  The Navy taught me a few things about explosives, but these guys missed the classes for sure.  One day an "old timer" showed me how to remove a beaver dam and I recall commenting that we were using an awful lot of explosive for the job.  My concerns were dismissed and he went to blowing the dam, and subsequently the two side by side train tankers that were re-purposed as culverts. Then there was the day I got called as the case of sticks stored in in the airplane hanger "didn't look right" -- well it was sweating and I know YH understands what that means when I say that.  Nobody wanted to report it so I addressed the issue with about 10 gallons of diesel fuel and told the Sgt that I was going to do the same with the rest of what they had on hand as it was pretty clear that this practice needed to end.  As far as I knew, that was the end of an era and the end of an error, how nobody died was a miracle. 

[Magicman]

Apparently bad stuff.  I had an uncle that lost his left hand in a blasting cap incident that became an accident.  He was a teenager at the time just being a teenager.

[YellowHammer]

Sweating dynamite is caused by the energetic migrating out of the stabilizer, rising to the surface as crystallized or liquid beads of very impact sensitive energetic.  

Blasting caps are bad news, and have long since been eliminated except in emergency situations.  Typically, all initiators these days are either some form of EBW "Exploding Bridge Wire" or otherwise verified 1 amp, 1 watt safe.  Just basic radio frequency could set off blasting caps, especially when an untrained operator would be setting up for a shot and untwist the two wires eliminating the safety short, essentially making a perfect set of "rabbit ears" antenna.   

The armed services learned long ago that poorly designed or unstable energetics is counter productive because a tremendous amount are fired during training, and we got to keep our guys safe. 

You might be interested to know that in the 32 years I was a Level 3 explosives handler, we never got hazard pay, simply because we were so well trained to design, build and use energetics that is was a routine and daily operation, so wasn't considered hazardous if done by the book, and since we wrote the book, we shouldn't have any issues.   

[SawyerTed]

I believe it was in Reader's Digest (All In a Day's Work) years ago that I read about a fellow who went into the stump removal business.  Starting from scratch he started with a mixture of new and used equipment including a brand new pickup truck.  

He mainly used heavy equipment but occasionally had to use dynamite for removing stumps.

Being relatively new and cautious, he tried to use the minimum dynamite necessary to do the job.   On one of his first jobs he had an especially difficult stump removal job for a crusty old farmer.   The dynamite was set in place, fuse carefully measured and lit.  

At the point of explosion, the stump came out of the ground, flew through the air right into the bed of the workman's pickup truck smashing it to the ground.

The old farmer said, "That's a pretty good trick but you really should practice with an old truck!"

[Old Greenhorn]

Now THAT'S funny right there!

[B.C.C. Lapp]

I went down to Sugar Creek for a few hours early this morning. Did pretty good . 

[Otis1]

What about using fyke nets/ hoop nets? Basically a runner net from shore to the hoop nets, fish hit the runner and swim into the bigger hoop nets. you can release any bass. Sorry not as fun as dynamite.

[Nebraska]

Phone generator and some  imagination.  It will work.  Then a customer appreciation fish fry.  

[Jeff]

If it wasn't clear on the opposite side of the country, we'd have a fishfry instead of a pigroast. 

[YellowHammer]

I thought you'd get a kick out of this video short, I did a couple days ago over the weekend. The kids were out looking at the pond, the fish feeder was clogged so I was fixing it and got it throwing a bunch of feed out and Chip went swimming with the fish hitting all around him.  

https://youtube.com/shorts/kBDbU7YpFkY?feature=shared

I've been fishing it pretty much every other day, and am about to get tired of it, because I could be fishing for monster bass at Guntersville, or big small mouth at Tims Ford, but I'm at the pond thinning bream and catching 9" bass.

I'm about to break out the cast net and go nuclear on them.  As far as I can tell, I am making a dent on the big bream, beause I have seen the average size of the ones I'm catching go from all "Stupid Huge" to just an occasional smaller "Wow That's Too Big".

From what I can understand, any pond will have a maximum biomass carrying capacity of fish it can support, and it will hold X amount of lbs of fish, so for every mega bream I remove, it will be replaced with the same amount of smaller bream fry the bass can eat.  So the next bream spawn will be the full moon in May, and that's coming quick.  I'm gonna get some poundage out Yellowhammer style.       

[WV Sawmiller]

Sweating dynamite is caused by the energetic migrating out of the stabilizer, rising to the surface as crystallized or liquid beads of very impact sensitive energetic. 

Blasting caps are bad news, and have long since been eliminated except in emergency situations.  Typically, all initiators these days are either some form of EBW "Exploding Bridge Wire" or otherwise verified 1 amp, 1 watt safe.  Just basic radio frequency could set off blasting caps, especially when an untrained operator would be setting up for a shot and untwist the two wires eliminating the safety short, essentially making a perfect set of "rabbit ears" antenna. 

The armed services learned long ago that poorly designed or unstable energetics is counter productive because a tremendous amount are fired during training, and we got to keep our guys safe.

You might be interested to know that in the 32 years I was a Level 3 explosives handler, we never got hazard pay, simply because we were so well trained to design, build and use energetics that is was a routine and daily operation, so wasn't considered hazardous if done by the book, and since we wrote the book, we shouldn't have any issues. 

Robert,

    I found this out the hard way when I was in the USMC and ran the Ammo point at the Logistics base in Albany Ga. HQ sent me a notice to store several types of explosives for use by a dog handler. He'd leave his "articles" in with the explosives to get the smell on him then go play hide a seek with Phideaux.  I had only stored small arms ammo and some CS grenades so first had to develop and get approval for storage of small amounts of incompatible explosives. I did that and one of the items was commercial dynamite from a local hardware store. Since the owner's BIL worked on the base he just had him drop it off at the counter in my warehouse which scared my old manager there. We resolved that but since the dog handler was many months out and neither I or my ammo tech knew anything about dynamite I sagely told her to leave it alone. Wrong answer!

    Six months later when the handler and pooch arrived and he checked his training aids he discovered the dynamite resting in a pile of dry crystals where it had weeped out and dried. Per protocol I called EOD at Ft. Benning. Since they are Army and I was USMC they put me on hold and never came back on the line nor would they answer follow-up calls so I called the USAF in Warner Robbins who immediately dispatched 2 long blue AF pickups and we "Carefully" transported the explosive to the base landfill and burned it.

  FWIW our ammo bunker was 110' from the base brig and 205' from the base childcare facility. Yes, I know - who co-locates brigs and childcare facilities but USMC kids are brought up to be tough.