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Month: April 2021

Fishery tips: Prepping your fishing lake for a great season

By Lochow Ranch

Fishery management experts know that year-round pond and lake maintenance is key to keeping your favorite fishing pond healthy and productive.

The leading reasons the equilibrium in your lake could be off include over- and under-harvesting of predator fish, introduction of undesirable fish species, and summer kills, as well as excessive weeds, poor water quality and lack of fertilization.

Qualified experts like those at Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management can help turn around a failing fishery or enhance a stable one by addressing these various issues in an annual plan that tracks progress and addresses needs.

Otherwise, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service warns that Texas farm ponds aren’t managed at their highest potential for fish production.

Lochow Ranch can assess fishery populations using nets or shocking equipment and use state-of-the-art equipment to collect data and determine the precise program for getting your body of water back on track.

Surveying Your Pond’s Population

Electrofishing Arkansas Louisiana Texas Oklahoma

An excellent way to begin is with an electrofishing survey, which is a primary tool for correcting an out-of-balance pond.

These surveys accurately assess current forage and sport fish populations and quantify wintertime Cormorant or otter damage. Fish populations also are sampled to determine species, size, relative abundance and growth rates. Click here to learn more.

Planning Pond Stocking

pond stocking services

Pond stocking is another important consideration when you want to maximize the potential for your fishery.

What kinds of fish will work best in your pond involves many variables, including your own goals for your pond or lake. For example, you need to carefully assess the impact of introducing non-native species into your pond. It’s important to be aware of the fish types that can live together in harmony so your pond can sustain a healthy ecosystem. Learn more by clicking here.

Getting a grip on pond weeds

Aquatic vegetation is the cause of 80 percent of low dissolved oxygen fish kills in Texas. And the issues are complex enough that expert advice is recommended.

As we detailed in a series of recent postings about pond vegetation control, there are a range of vegetation control techniques. Mechanical controls include pruning and cutting back pond weeds. Biological controls include introducing grass carp and tilapia, two types of vegetation-eating fish. Chemical means of vegetation control include herbicides and algaecides.

Click here to learn more about how the experts at Lochow Ranch can plan appropriate vegetation control for your lake or pond.

Fertilizing your fishery

Just as you would fertilize fields to increase crop yields, you should fertilize a pond or lake to provide phytoplankton with adequate nutrients for fish growth.

Proper fertilization increases food availability throughout the food chain and indirectly increases the total amount of fish a pond can support. Ponds should be limed before fertilizer is applied, which is important because it increases pH and alkalinity.

Even without fertilization, this may improve available nutrients which can support a phytoplankton bloom. Click here to learn more.

Adding aeration

In order to avoid problems, pond and lake owners also should be inspecting aeration and fountain maintenance or considering their implementation.

Repairs could address obvious signs of wear or just the cleaning of filters and   screens. Lochow offers a range of aeration systems and fountain systems for   ensuring your pond’s oxygen levels are optimal.

 

Plan for a great year

Our team of fishery management experts are standing by to help you make the most of your fishing pond. Whether you are looking for pond water testing, pond stocking, fishery management, pond renovation or new pond construction, we can help. A great lake can be a legacy that will be enjoyed by friends and family for generations to come. Fill out the form to get started today!

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

Serving Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management proudly puts more than two decades of experience to work for you. Our team includes biologists, technicians and other professionals with deep expertise in pond and lake management services.

Check us out if you are considering building a lake, looking for pond stocking services, to buy fish for a pond, or getting professional pond management and maintenance or fishery management. Our services include lake design, pond construction, pond renovation, pond water testing, electrofishing, pond stocking, control of pond weeds, and pond liming and fertilizing. Let us help you build your dream pond that will delight your family and friends for generations to come.

Click here to get in touch to get started today.

Forage for your fishery: key spring lake management tips

By Lochow Ranch

As our ponds pull out of the winter cold and begin to heat up, our gamefish metabolisms rise, and the spring glut is on.

Forage populations generally take a pretty big hit over the winter. Depending on the lake, the spring glut can have a lasting impact on forage and the predators that consume them.

Forage fish are generally smaller fish or crawfish that are the food source for your larger gamefish, such as bass.

Between diving cormorants and pelicans and continual predation by largemouth bass, peak forage populations of the fall season are heavily depressed and must rebound in order for lakes to maintain peak production.

This week, we’ll take a look at some common forage management issues and how to resolve them as part of your fishery management plan.

Goal-Oriented Management

As with most aspects of fishery management, establishing your fishery’s goals is paramount to determining your overarching pond and lake management strategies.

Is your primary target feed-trained bass? Do you mostly care about hybrid stripers? If so, forage fish may not matter a whole lot for your fish. Sure, healthy forage always benefits gamefish, but fish that consume pelleted feed can pretty easily shift their diet away from forage whenever populations are depressed.

If your target species are trophy Florida Largemouth Bass, native non-feed trained bass, or crappie, forage populations are essential.

Let’s take a look at the main forage species for each target gamefish and see how their populations can be managed for the greatest possible impact.

Target Fisheries

Trophy Florida Largemouth Bass

Trophy bass require good forage availability throughout their lives to achieve the outsized proportions for which they are so prized.

Good trophy management requires regular monitoring and rapid intervention if forage populations crash. Generally, these fisheries will rely primarily on bluegill, shad, and crawfish in that order of importance, with additional forage support from redear sunfish, golden shiners, silversides, and in some cases tilapia.

Having some diversity in your forage species helps to provide food for bass as certain populations experience natural fluctuations.

It is important to have good forage diversity in both species and especially size. To ensure all of your bass have plenty of food, careful and regular analysis of small, medium, large, and jumbo-sized forage should be made to determine if your forage is adequately supporting your lake’s bass.

Early in life, bass consume all sorts of fry (recently hatched fish). As they grow their diets shift to small sunfish and fry. In the next stage of life, threadfin shad can really make a huge difference in pushing bass growth. These fish combine with medium sunfish and medium shiners to supply bass to a couple of pounds in weight.

Next your bass will shift to eating large sunfish, threadfin shad, shiners, goldfish, and crawfish. Finally, if all goes well, bass begin to push into the trophy stage where they will continue to consume the latter forage but also begin to take larger meals, which could include jumbo sunfish, gizzard shad, jumbo golden shiners, larger goldfish, trout, and any other large fish they can swallow.

These various forage populations should be supported through supplemental feeding, habitat management, and pond stocking as appropriate.

Non-Feed-Trained Largemouth Bass

Even if you aren’t trying to grow the next world record, home-grown bass fisheries still need adequate forage to develop good populations of healthy fish.

Keep an eye on your forage and develop good populations of fish fry, and small, medium, and large forage.

Most forage is principally helpful in the 1-4” range, with some benefit being had from forage up to 6” in length. In general, forage above 6” in length are too large to serve as much benefit to your average native bass, which generally tops out around 7 pounds in weight.

Threadfin shad are excellent supplemental forage for spring stockings with golden shiners a close second. Golden shiners and goldfish are excellent supplements in the fall.

Once established, bluegill and redear should generally be maintained in perpetuity in well managed fisheries (assuming you don’t have a bunch of hungry cormorants or pelicans land on your lake) and generally won’t need to be restocked.

Crappie

Crappie are notorious for boom and bust reproductive cycles and slow growth.

Care must be taken to help these fish have plenty of food at the right times. Generally, fish fry, silversides, small threadfin shad, small shiners, and small sunfish are paramount to a healthy forage supply.

Large forage will actually remove the food base for these smaller fish, which would depress their numbers and easily result in stunted crappie.

Forage Specific Management

Regardless of your desired outcome, a few key factors must be considered in order for forage to thrive. Let’s take a look at three primary factors, habitat, food, and predation.

Good Habitat

First, habitat must be maintained to provide shelter for some of your forage.

This helps a given lake maintain a breeding population of various forms of forage. Habitat like cover is particularly important for bluegill and redear sunfish. Generally good habitat will involve some beneficial vegetation and some non-living habitat like felled trees or artificial structures. Habitat for open water schooling fish is just going to be that, expanses of open water where they can shelter by schooling together.

Food For Forage

Second, forage food must be plentiful for strong populations.

Sunfish diets can be supplemented with fish food as can that of golden shiners and tilapia. Otherwise, healthy populations of aquatic insects and fish fry are necessary to maintain those populations. Threadfin shad are planktivores and a healthy plankton bloom is essential for these fish to thrive and achieve their potential.

Moderate Predation

While we certainly grow forage to be eaten, we want predation to be commensurate with forage populations.

If the right number of gamefish is maintained, forage numbers will stay high and gamefish will thrive. If predator populations exceed what the forage base can support, forage populations will crash.

Be sure to conduct the necessary annual harvest of predatory fish to ensure that forage populations thrive. It goes without saying that no fishery can sustainably support predation from huge flocks of avian predators without some supplemental stocking from time to time.

Plan Forage For Your Dream Fishery

Forage matters. Know what forage your preferred gamefish need and make sure you have stocked the right species. Make it a regular part of your fishery management and pond stocking plans.

Assess your lake forage on a regular basis and adjust management strategies to promote healthy forage populations.

Adjust the habitat as needed, keep your forage fed, and limit predation as appropriate.

Your lake will thank you with smiles and your fish will thrive.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

Serving Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management proudly puts more than two decades of experience to work for you. Our team includes biologists, technicians and other professionals with deep expertise in pond and lake management services.

Check us out if you are considering building a lake, looking for pond stocking services, to buy fish for a pond, or getting professional pond management and maintenance or fishery management. Our services include lake design, pond construction, pond renovation, pond water testing, electrofishing, pond stocking, control of pond weeds, and pond liming and fertilizing. Let us help you build your dream pond that will delight your family and friends for generations to come.

Click here to get in touch to get started today.

On the way to Trophy-Catching Glory: Eight lucky Texas electrofishing survey winners

By Lochow Ranch

Response to our electrofishing sweepstakes was through the roof!

In fact, we have decided to up the awards to EIGHT free surveys instead of the original five.

If you missed it, we announced back in February that we would give away five free electrofishing surveys to lucky Texas pond or lake owners.

electrofishing services for pond management

Electrofishing is the state-of-the-art way to start maximizing the potential for your fishery.  It’s the safe and effective way that biologists measure fish populations and is key to effective fishery management.

We bring out our custom electrofishing boat and run a mild electrical current that briefly stuns the fish in your lake or pond. Our experts then examine each fish to log its species, size, health and other characteristics.

In the end you have a clear picture of what lurks beneath the surface of your lake. Electrofishing allows our biologists to make scientific recommendations for improvements based on the current condition of your pond or lake.

Electrofishing surveys are the most important tool in making informed management decisions for your water body. Whether it be pond stocking, control of pond weeds, fish feeding, habitat enhancement, or anything else, a survey allows us to make a tailored management plan fit for your lake.

Well, the response was so good to our contest for free electrofishing surveys that we hated to disappoint too many people, so we increased the giveaway to eight surveys.

The winners of the free surveys are:

  • Nick R. of Huntsville
  • Clayton C. of Brenham
  • Angela K. of Rockwall
  • Michael H. of Tira
  • Jim G. of Columbus
  • Stephen S. of Chandler
  • Kurt B.  of Wilcox
  • David C. of Cameron

We will be in touch with all of you to arrange your surveys.

If you did not win, do not despair. You can still take advantage of this great technology to create your dream fishing pond.

Electrofishing Arkansas Louisiana Texas Oklahoma

Just drop us a note with the form below to learn more about scheduling your electrofishing survey.

Be sure to follow us on social media to be notified about more of our exciting giveaways! Just click below:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lochow_pond_and_lake_mgmt/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/LochowRanch/

itter:  https://twitter.com/LochowRanch

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

Serving Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management proudly puts more than two decades of experience to work for you. Our team includes biologists, technicians and other professionals with deep expertise in pond and lake management services.

Check us out if you are considering building a lake, looking for pond stocking services, to buy fish for a pond, or getting professional pond management and maintenance or fishery management. Our services include lake design, pond construction, pond renovation, pond water testing, electrofishing, pond stocking, control of pond weeds, and pond liming and fertilizing. Let us help you build your dream pond that will delight your family and friends for generations to come.

Click here to get in touch to get started today.

Time to treat: consider your treatment options for control of pond weeds

By Matt Ward

At some point in the life of any body of water, pond weeds or algae growth is going to have to be controlled. In last week’s blog posting, we mentioned that most of the time this is going to involve herbicides and algaecides.

Think of these chemistries like scientifically tried and true pharmaceuticals for addressing pond weeds or algae growth. Treatments can be short term or provide extended control. Treatments can target all of one species of plant or target a broad spectrum of growth. Treatments can be in a particular area of a pond or occur across an entire water body.

All herbicides and algaecides serve particular purposes in particular situations. Just like any designed chemistry, these products are designed to be safe to use in the manner directed on the label.

Determine your target growth, select the appropriate chemistry, and learn the appropriate application method for that chemistry. In short use these products only as appropriate and only as stated on the product label.

Always remember that proactive control of pond weeds is essential to a healthy fishery. You should plan your vegetation treatment as part of the big picture as you consider your pond stocking plan and other pond management.

We obviously can’t go into detail on how to treat every kind of pond weed or algae you might encounter, but let’s go over a few basic uses of aquatic herbicides or algaecides ….

Marginal Growth

Sometimes pond weeds grow around the edge of a pond and create a significant barrier to access.

Pond weeds control and removal services Texas Louisiana Arkansas Oklahoma 012

These pond weeds may need to be treated in their entirety or lanes cut into the growth to allow point access to a water body. This kind of growth can be treated with some full lake in water treatments but will generally best be addressed with foliar treatments with either systemic or contact herbicides.

Contact foliar herbicides usually only take a few days to work and rapidly turn growth brown beginning decomposition of plant material immediately.

Contact herbicides work quickly but often leave basal or root material viable. This live tissue often regenerates, rapidly regrowing a treated plant.

This means that contact herbicides are best used when plants are dormant or when rapid results are required.

In most cases, foliar systemic treatments will be used in lieu of contact herbicides. These chemistries tend to be slow acting taking many days to several weeks to kill the target pond weeds. These chemicals enter the plants through the leaves and then move through the plant to the roots killing the plant all the way down.

Systemic herbicides usually provide the best control but must be applied to actively growing plants.

In some situations a combination of contact and systemic herbicide is used to provide quick knockdown and extended control. Do note that seeds will generally escape various treatments eventually resprouting in the cleared area. Depending on the plant this can occur in a few weeks or up to several years after treatment.

Submersed Growth

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Most of the growth that lake managers struggle with is submersed pond weeds.

Whether algal or vegetative, submersed growth fills a lake’s water column, clogging up a waterway and causing the oxygen and habitat issues we have previously discussed.

Depending on your goals, treatments should be conducted whenever vegetation growth hits about 20% coverage. Treating proactively when growth is at lower levels reduces risk to the fishery and preserves good habitat.

With experience, a good fishery manager will know what the most problematic vegetation is and which treatments to prioritize.

Often certain pond weeds can be left alone because they have less aggressive growth habits or because they are easier for fishermen to fish.

Other pond weeds are prone to top out in deep water or grow very quickly.

These latter are always prioritized for treatment.

A plethora of chemistries is available for treating submersed plants and care should be taken when selecting the preferred product or application method.

Matted growth in deep water often responds well to the use of droppers to place the product directly on the growth. In other cases, granular products can be used to great effect. When you are dealing with topped out vegetation, sprays are usually employed for best effect. That being said, care should be taken to get the applied product down into the mat and not just misted out over the surface.

Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind about submersed vegetation is the extreme amount of vegetation you will have per surface acre of water.

Many types of pond weeds can produce many tons of vegetative material per acre. This means that when you treat vegetation there is a lot of material that needs to break down.

The breakdown happens by decomposition, which is an oxygen-intensive process.  It is easy to kill too much vegetation at a time and this can cause an oxygen depletion event which can easily lead to a partial or catastrophic fish kill. This risk is multiplied in the heat of summer when water’s oxygen carrying capacity is already strained.

Floating Vegetation

The last category of pond weeds is floating vegetation.  This can range from duckweed to water hyacinth or the infamous giant Salvinia.

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Some of these plants are native and many are exotic invasives.

Know that floating vegetation makes a barrier between your water and the air and as such can prevent oxygen exchange.  A solid covering of floating vegetation can cause an oxygen depletion event which leads to a fish kill.  Treatments are certainly species specific, but include systemic whole waterbody in-water treatments, contact foliar herbicides, contact herbicides, and foliar systemic treatments.

It’s important to target all of the growth as most of these pond weeds reproduce quite quickly.  Look for brushy banks where floating plants can hide out.  Selecting the right product to use is integral but correct application methodology is equally important to ensure you get the growth as thoroughly as you can.

When treating floating vegetation always take a look up the watershed from your pond or lake. Is there another water body that flows into yours? If so, try to find out if the floating vegetation comes from there.

Oftentimes a well-designed treatment is undone after a heavy rain brings a fresh batch of floating plants down from another water body. This is the time to get to know your neighbors and try to design a watershed wide management plan when possible. If you can’t address water bodies upstream it is occasionally appropriate to erect a floating barrier to prevent plants from washing into the main body.

Manage Pond Weeds for a Thriving Fishery

Know your plants, learn the correct product to address the growth, and learn the correct application technique or hire someone who does.

Correctly controlling pond weeds is key to fishery management, the first part of our fishery threesome (Habitat, Fish, and People). Correctly managed vegetation helps your fishery thrive, improves fish fecundity, improves water quality, provides aesthetic benefit, and allows access for fishing and other water activities.

Take a look at your lake and take care of the growth now, so as to avoid considering heavy treatments in the heat of summer.

Why Choose Lochow Ranch for Pond & Lake Management

Serving Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management proudly puts more than two decades of experience to work for you. Our team includes biologists, technicians and other professionals with deep expertise in pond and lake management services.

Check us out if you are considering building a lake, looking for pond stocking services, to buy fish for a pond, or getting professional pond management and maintenance or fishery management. Our services include lake design, pond construction, pond renovation, pond water testing, electrofishing, pond stocking, control of pond weeds, and pond liming and fertilizing. Let us help you build your dream pond that will delight your family and friends for generations to come.

Click here to get in touch to get started today.

Matt Ward is a Fishery Biologist for Lochow Ranch Pond & Lake Management. He has a Master of Science in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University and has worked in fisheries management in Texas for 15 years.  He brings a passion for good science and an interdisciplinary approach to the natural sciences to help property managers steward their aquatic resources and achieve management objectives.

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