Tips

Tradition

• My pond is about two fifths of an acre, big enough for ice-fishing, fly fishing, casting, still fishing, canoeing, swimming, watching ducks, dreaming.....
• Ice- fishing in a well stocked pond is a great way to get youngsters interested in outdoor things to do in winter.
• Consider an "artful wildness to perplex the scene."

Shade

• Cedar and spruce are easy to grow for shade. Beavers prefer to cut down and eat poplar and balm of gilead. Willows and alder are easy to grow and bring birds and insects close to the pond's edge.
• Rafts provide shade: use posts, boards, styrofoam, suspended louvers, reeds on stretched mesh, string beans.....

Algae

• I control algae with coarse white cattle salt granules. A half bag does my size of pond: once in June or July at the bloom stage, once in August if needed. Beware: if you use salt, spread it in the morning while photosynthesis is active, or you may do unexpected damage. Some algae bloom helps create shade and makes the fish less vulnerable to predators.
• Water circulation helps.

Stocking

• Larger stock fish 8" to 10" cost more initially, but have a better survival rate than fry or fingerlings; they are more wary of predators too.
• Speckled trout can reproduce in a pond; rainbow will not; they need the pressure of fast water on their sides to spawn naturally.

Predators: behavior modification

• Herons dislike strange objects or surprises: foil pie plates on a string tied to a stake, windmills that change locations each day, monofilament fishing lines a foot off the shore, or five feet in the air where they like to land.
• Otters and mink are relentless predators. The otter, though beautiful, will stockpile and waste its catch. Both may have to be controlled or they will deplete your stock quickly. Beavers will cut and eat trees and shrubs; they also carry a parasite that causes "beaver fever" having flu-like symptoms in people. Raccoons will upset containers but do not get fish if the banks drop steeply. Stretch a section of two foot mesh wire; on the outside, position a single strand of cattle electric fence wire placed on insulators at the twelve to sixteen inch level. The stepped-down transformer delivers an intermittent, but not damaging, shock and modifies the tendency to return again and again. This shock is like the surprise you get from a static electricity shock created by padding about in wool socks on a carpet; it is not the same as putting your finger in a socket as you see in cartoons.
• An infrared sensor on a double flood light receptacle can scare poachers - four legged and two legged. Movement will turn on the light in one socket and a radio plugged into the other on blast volume. The duration can be adjusted.
• Osprey have excellent fishing skills. They are magnificent to watch as they hover, crest and then plummet a hundred feet to take a trout almost as big as they are. They visit ponds while migrating to nesting sites on large lakes. The spectacle is worth a few trout. Noise or visible presence deters their fast- food, take-out service.

Aeration

• I use an older model GAST pond bubbler and muffle the noise. The circulation slows algae and prevents winter/summer fish kill; it has kept a hole open in thirty inches of ice.
• I add no water in winter. In spring, summer and fall, my artesian well creates a steady outflow.

Enhancements

• Try a low powered light to attract insects to the water surface to increase the food supply for the fish.
• Add trees. I have; cedar, balm of gilead, spruce, maple, poplar, juniper, willow, alder, birch.
• Find aquatic plants. I am wary of aquatics that might get out of control even though they may have attractive flowers. I have cattails and redtop. Ones just added include: crested dwarf sweet flag, yellow flag, Siberian iris, marsh marigold, Canada lily. Surface plants and oxygenators need more research for my hardiness zone 4, close to 3, conditions.
• These newly planted perennials add color: cardinal flower, purple cone flower, red and white columbine, Canada violet. I plan to add these: wild roses pink and yellow, yarrow, autumn glow, brown-eyed susan, meadow clary, hosta , coreopsis, flox. There are bird's foot trefoil and various meadow grasses on the shoreline. Native wild flowers belong in this setting. Golden rod, milkweed (nursery for monarch butterflies) and Queen Anne's lace abound; ferns, profusion chives and water cress are spreading slowly.