Friday, June 8, 2012

Deer and Ponds

Doing some research today I've come to one conclusion ... pond management is difficult. What type of fish to stock for what size pond and what will or won't breed, etc. Very complicated. At only 0.6 acres, our pond isn't exactly going to be a thriving wildlife habitat but there ought to be some fish in there. We could put catfish in there but they don't breed on their own, so the book says. It would be like keeping rabbits. I'm not sure that's a bad deal but I don't know how much it costs. Clearly a lot of research is going to need to be done.

On the bright side, if I do nothing then it will sort of naturally become an ecosystem, it just takes much longer. I'm always in favor of doing nothing.

What does this have to do with deer? Nothing, but apparently a deer ate some of my okra plants.

1 comment:

Mamma Bear said...

We let our pond set almost a year and then stocked it with 500 fingerling catfish and 75 bluegill. That was 3 years go. We now catch catfish up to 5 pounds and see little fingerling catfish all the time when we feed them so they are multiplying. The bluegill have multiplied so much that they are stunted in growth. We were told to fish as many as those out and use them for catfish bait or put them in the compost pile.
Our ponds water gets low sometimes due to lack of rain but it has never went dry like some around us.