Fishing With Face

This kid. It's beyond coincident at this point...

Quote: Face

We have found the answer: Walleye or pike?

With a nod to Schrödinger, the answer is yes.

Turns out I was wrong...



I said pike because that's all I've seen. But that's no pike...




It's a goddamn tiger musky. "Fish of 10,000 casts" and it took him 10 -_-

Unreal. Guess I better start looking for a home. Much as I'd love it, they sure as hell can't stay here...

It's almost indoor season for FWF, so I'm gonna give breeding a shot this year. I suppose it's mostly something to keep the mind busy, but the goal here is be my own feeder supplier. At the height of summer I went crickin' every single day with catches of 20 - 90 and still never built up a surplus. Perhaps, much like the glut of frog eggs give me a reprieve, I can keep a cycle of home grown fry going to spare me some free time. Here's hoping anyway.

My secondary pet store is pretty cool, if not weird as hell. It's a feed and tack store, it just happens to have the best selection of exotics around. Silver and marbled gar, some sort of dragon eel lookin thing, patriot crabs, had a 16" clown knifefish for only $16. They even had a freshwater ray that took a lot of internal dialog to pull away from, not that the $230 price tag didn't help =) But I was there for goldies, and it's about the only place that has them at sexual maturity. I had planned on going full comet as their growth and size fits my bill the best, but supply forced a compromise and I came out with a bit of a mixed bag...



These are all the same fish. In the back there are two fantail (one red one calico), and frontside there's two comets and a shubunkin, but every one of these are Carassius auratus. This means they can all interbreed and produce viable offspring, the only question is wtf is it going to look like. There's not a way to sex nonbreeding fish and I failed at trying to math my way to success, so I figured 5 coin flips would be Good Enough to ensure I got at least one male and one female, hence my 5 beauties here. If anyone wants to explain that 10 grade math concept, I'd hear it as it may save me money in the future =p But assuming I got at least one of each, they're pretty much good to go right now. That middle comet is about the smallest at 5" and the shubunkin is about a tick over 8"; there's nothing to do but get started.

Most of this should be about as easy as breeding goldfish. The problem with most garden goldies isn't getting them to breed but getting them to stop, so I don't have too many worries. It looks like my first and one of my only hurdles is preventing shock. Fish work off light and temp much like, well, every other living thing, so to start the process I gotta drop them to <50*F and <8hrs of daylight and keep them there for a month. So long as I can prevent shock, this should be easy thanks to a NY November; I've already got a cycled tank churning away in the garage. Keep 'em in this state long enough and they go into winter mode. Once a month is up, bring em back inside into the warmth and light. They think it's spring, get fertile, and start spraying. This is hurdle #2 - notice when it happens. Should be easy as they lay in sticky mats, but these are stupid goldfish. If you don't catch it right away, they'll turn right around and eat the whole clutch out from under you and you just wasted 6 weeks.

Once laid there's just one more hurdle - tiny feeding. The eggs'll hatch in a week and they'll live of the sac for a day or two, but then their mouths will form and they'll need to eat. Not entirely sure which way to go with this. The "official" way is to also breed brine shrimp. Those are sea monkeys, ain't they? Breed a bunch of those and the fish take right to em. The other way involves some sort of egg and oatmeal paste, but that'll take some attention to prevent water poisoning. I dunno, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Once at that point, it should just be another month until they're "feeder size" (in quotes because they're way smaller than what I use as feeders lol). That's the size I been throwing in by the hundred every week in the spring and late fall when my crick supply runs dry. So roughly 2 - 3 months from freeze to feeders. I've no idea how many viable feeders I'll end up with, but I gotta figure worst case I'll be starting with thousands of fry, if not tens of. Maybe if I could get a good dump, a thousand + instead of the 50-70-100 at a time, I can overwhelm the predation. Maybe let some last in there, grow even more. Highly doubt it'll ever go self sustaining, but this just might work to cut a good percentage of my crickin' trips down. And will be fun in winter to boot =)

sea monkeys!

Takes me back to studying those comic book ads.

Well, breeding's been a flop so far. While the pro's drop temp from 70*F to 50* over the course of weeks, I tried 70* to 30* over the course of hours. One fan tail I had to remove immediately, as he's so deformed he rests vertically in a warm tank. Frozen cold, he had no control of himself and would have surely died. I left the other four to chance. Things looked rough and then got better, all fish resting normally on the bottom and the smallest comet even swimming throughout the water column. A few weeks later though the big shubunkin died. Pissed but wanting it to work, I left them out there until a few weeks later when the big comet died. No rhyme or reason to it, the other fantail was still kickin' and the small comet was still swimming actively. But pissed off and disappointed, I threw in the towel and brought em all in, eventually replacing the two losses with two foster fish that had outgrown their tanks.

Two options now as I'm not giving up. One is Mega Pond V.whatever I'm on now, as my latest update is going to create a spot for the small bait fish to breed out of the reach of the larger predators. The other option is coming by way of kitchen update. Once I find an overstock deal, I'm getting a new fridge. Climate and light control all in one package, the old fridge is getting relegated to fish maker. One way or another, I'm gonna make some fish this year.

And speaking of Mega Pond...



For the "Final Upgrade pt 4", I'm ditching the totes. Twas a good idea, but besides the dogs being a pain in the ass always stepping on the lids and falling in them, their use showed me an even better way to clean the pond, and this way will get rid of the eyesore of the totes. This year I'm digging them out for a settling pool, as settling areas is what traps all my sediment. Dig another hole there with pumps and filters inside and all that muck will sit on the floor under them. To clean, just pump it out, and since the cricks split the two bodies, I can pump it all the way out while still keeping the vast majority of all my water in the pond. No tote eyesore, easy to reach, and I won't have to drag out 1,500gal worth of containers to accomplish a cleaning. Additionally, I plan to make a sort of weir in each of the cricks, no so much for the water as it is for the fish. I good, perforated dam made of large plates will allow baitfish and fry passage back and forth, while keeping the big predators in the deep end. With hope, this secondary part of the pond will make a good nursery should anything survive the winter.

Other than that, we're here getting ready for a monster season...



The boy cashed in all the missed Xmases and we went on a spree, leaving Cabelas with a receipt to rival CVS. It's but February and we are 99.99% ready. I got all the rest of the rails for holders and all four (!) are rigged up and ready. Planer boards to put all four to use. New fat bumpers to keep the ride pretty and launch stress low. Deep divers to work the darkness, top waters to work the weeds, bottom bouncers to work the rocks. We got #12's to 2/0's, anything from a 2g dace to a 2m cat, we're ready for it. Carolina rigs, dead bait rigs, the boy wants to do it all, so it all we shall do. It took me ~28yrs to get the cycle, took my kid 10. Now we're gonna try for an entire cycle in one year. Got my Parks Card for unlimited launches, just bought a logger's land lease down in Steamburg on the shores of Lake Perfidy, and Pops just retired again. If I weren't so scared of a salty trailer I'd be fishing the warm water outlet at the power plant right now. There's just one more thing I need do, and so I come here...

Lights. I know all of the "hard" stuff like how-to as well as what kind to get, I just can't decide on motif. Competent captain or dude bro dips#$%? I don't really want sterile white light harshing my mellow, but colors sometimes make things hard to see, especially when what you're trying to see is itself colorful. Ditto that for lumens; I don't know what number represents "glow" and what represents "fry your retina".

Does ANYONE have an educated opinion on lighting? I'm talking both deck lights as well as underwater / transom lights...

When you going to get a mermaid sitting on a rock? Or god of the sea trying to fish with his trident?

Quote: Face

Does ANYONE have an educated opinion on lighting? I'm talking both deck lights as well as underwater / transom lights...

https://www.yachtingmonthly.com/sailing-skills/is-red-light-at-night-best-71181

https://www.boatus.org/study-guide/navigation/lights/

Red Right returning.


One could spend the rest of their life practicing navigational pedantry. https://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/navRules/navrules.pdf


added; I know nothing of underwater lighting, but have noticed catfish are attracted to a campfire which isn't considered artificial light, ttbomk.

Quote: petroglyph

https://www.yachtingmonthly.com/sailing-skills/is-red-light-at-night-best-71181

https://www.boatus.org/study-guide/navigation/lights/

Red Right returning.

Now THAT'S an answer. Perfect, thanks =)

Quote: petro

added; I know nothing of underwater lighting, but have noticed catfish are attracted to a campfire which isn't considered artificial light, ttbomk.

This wasn't to attract, rather it's connected to your link. If my boat's lit up while night fishing, looking into unlit water would be black as night. And if we're night fishing, that means big fish and big hooks.

I don't want to be reaching down blind for any of that and catch a 2/0 in the palm. Regular old white will do me fine for that

Welp, it's about that time...



First time for an over-winter stay, and not a single thing died. From winter, at least. Cattails still viable, every fish down to the feeders looked healthy, if a bit dark from tinge. But the water, ye gods. The pic doesn't do it justice. I could even see the fish in the tank, it was so thick. I didn't even try to save more than the two tanks, and I only reused about 2/3rds of one of them, it was that bad. Way too much bioload for the size, so a yearly big clean will probably be permanent.

And... it's already done...



The amount of security and production I have while no one's bothering me for every f#$%ing thing is staggering. Not to disregard the real danger and folk's genuine fear, but f#$%s sake. This is verging on wet dream territory. Keep it shut! Keep it shut!

All told the clean out and expansion took maybe 8hrs total, spread out over ~a week due to adhesive curing and water conditioning. I did end up losing the largemouth we raised from a fry due to Leonard killing it again. He didn't touch the muskies, but just like last year, he beat the bucketmouth to a pulp. Must be an interspecies thing. Other than that, the largest musky made a run for it and I found him in the yard ~8' from the tanks. He was nearly tacky to the touch he had dried so much, but was still alive and able to navigate when I revived him. That was ~10 days ago and he still lives, though with a nasty ich outbreak from the excursion. It looks like it has all peaked and erupted, and all has stayed firmly on his tail and anal fins. I do suppose at this point he will survive it and beat it back.

Expansion was mostly cake this time around. I did not pull the liner, instead cutting a slab of plywood to make a faux floor on which to work the seam. Easy peasy and it don't leak a drop. The retrofitting of my old homemade filter worked a treat, and I laser cut a little device to hold my outlet hoses and keep them stable and underwater and out of sight. The one issue that needs addressing is the non standard hole is a bit off the standard liner, and will likely require me to attach a little flap of extra to allow for fully filling the pond. As of now I'm only a few inches short, so I've left it in favor of other tasks as the water needs conditioning anyway...



We've got flow now! And this is on the lowest setting, maybe 60% of full power. It's still enough to cause ripples-almost-rapids in the inlet river, and puts a current that carries into the main body. Should be enough to keep the fish fit and healthy and encourage some growth. I guess we'll find out soon enough. Just gotta get my lillies replanted, finish placing rocks, and once the temp comes up, get the hyacinth in. Job done and it weren't even April yet.

And so, with damn near all my Spring cleaning already done, we managed some drops offs, secured some PPE, and I finally got to see my kid after 44 f@#$ing days. And GD if we didn't go and make some memories...

I figured crick. It's still winter, after all. But nope, dude wanted the pond. Even the bluegills wouldn't be biting, but hell, the shutdown's got all my holes packed with people anyway, so at least we'd get some quality time.

Nope. Kid wanted to try some of his new fancy stuff while I made a rare choice to do some bobber watching. I just wanted to stink, ya know? Lemme catch some shiners, I don't care. Just put life in my hands. It's grey, it's cold, wind's blowing too GD much for a kayak, so just lemme stink a little. Couple bream to make my day.

Nope. The little seed of doubt barely had time to crack before "WOOHOO!" and kid's got a live one on. We hadn't drifted 5min and kid already landed a dink largemouth to start his Search for the Cycle...



Figuring he lucked out in the frigid, murky water, I keep jigging my neon yellow trout jig, expecting to happen upon some hungry panfish. Nope. "WOOHOO!" and he's got another. He's ripping a J-9 Rapala through the dead weeds like it's mid summer hotness, and this time he pulls up a brown. A freaking brown. On a Rap. That he's ripping through the weeds like Iaconelli...



Well on his way now, he starts ribbing me about bobber fishing. "How many trout you caught on a Rap, dad?" None. "Wow! You've caught a brown before, though, right?" Never. "Wow!"... Little a$$hole lol. We struggled up the shore and wind-ripped back a couple times before bobbers got the best of me, and coupled with the frustration of new reels spitting all their line into tangles, eventually settled into a Rap myself. Couple more wind rips down the shore and I finally nailed one, bringing in the Big Fish of the day...



I can't even remember how many times we drifted that lake...7? 8? In any case, after nearly 2 years of sitting on my ass and then having gone riding the day before, I was broken. Even an Ox after 9 months of non-use didn't touch me, I was flat out and wasted, too cramped, too many clothes, I must've paddled 7km into a constant 15knts. I finally called off when we couldn't feel our fingers, then we both hooked up and I paddled back to the top for one last run, finally finishing when we blew into the boat ramp. Then one jumped and I paddled one more time all the way across the lake to try one more spot. Then I hooked up and paddled back to the top for one last try lol. He got two more beating me 6 - 4 and then I called off for good before I needed to call for a rescue.

Boy leads 6-4 in Score and 2-1 in the Cycle. At least some things are still the same =)

I needed to see some guys having fun - thanks, Face

Anything you could come up with for your pond or aquarium based on this idea?