Problem: My Pond Full of Monster Bream

[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