Creating a Lake

[EddieWalker]

Mike,

Your post really suprised me. The guys over at Pondboss seem to love Tilapia and have had all sorts of posts on what a great fish it is. Fast growth with rapid spawning, then dieing off in winter to prevent overpopulating the pond. It sounded ideal. Now I'm trying to find out if I can get them or not. If not, I'm not out anyting, but from all I've read, I'd really like to be able to get them.

RLK,

Why didn't you let some of the Tilapia go in your pond? Wont they die off in the winter? Until then, they would have been fun to catch.

Thanks for the picture, they are a nice looking fish.

Eddie

 

[rlk]

Eddie, the person who I get my fish from did not recommend turning them loose in the pond. I have a 2.5 acre pond, and if I wanted to catch talapia, I would have had to purchase more than I did. Also, since I was doing this as a trial, and to harvest a large number of fish, raising them in the cage was the best way.

I don't know how expensive the talapia are in Texas, but mine were 4 - 6 inches long and priced around $2.00 each. With that much money invested in the fish, I wanted to harvest all I could rather than have some die during the winter.

Bob

 

[Limecuda]

What is the magic temp they die at?

 

[EddieWalker]

Bob,

Thanks, I didn't know they were that expensive. If they cost that much here, I'll have to rething using them for a forage fish for my bass. This is if they are legal. hahaha

Limecuda,

From what I've read, 50 degrees will kill off all the Tilapia. It's a process that starts with some sooner than others, but by the time the water is down to that level, they will all be dead.

Of course, when that happens, it's a good time to put in trout. They will do fine here as long as the water is cold, but when it starts to warm up in the spring, the trout will all die off.

Anybody get the impression I'm gonna have allot of buzzards around here?

Eddie

 

[wushaw]

More like alot of fat coons and coyotes.

 

[Glowplug]

This is the picture of a talapia.

That's a great use for the Raleigh News & Observer!

I don't know much about Tilapia but I do know they taste really goooood!

 

[rlk]

That's a great use for the Raleigh News & Observer

And that is about all it is good for, other than lining the bottom of bird cages!

Bob

 

[have_blue]

I don't know how expensive the talapia are in Texas, but mine were 4 - 6 inches long and priced around $2.00 each. With that much money invested in the fish, I wanted to harvest all I could rather than have some die during the winter. Bob

Mozambique tilapia are great breeders. I intend to stock a few larger fish in as soon as the water warms, and should have a million by dieoff time. I won't get to harvest great numbers of them, but the cost will be very low. Plus I will get the benefit of them providing forage for the bass, and eating the weeds and filimentous algae.

 

[EddieWalker]

We had an inch and a half of water in the rain guage this morning, so that means the weather forcasters are one hundred percent for the year!!!

There's no really obvious changes to the lake, but I took a few pictures anway. A few days ago I dug out the silt pit as it had filled up. Since that's what it's there for, I guess it worked. All that dirt would have gone into the lake if I didn't have the pit there to catch it. The moon picture was two days ago.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[Bird]

We had an inch and a half of water in the rain guage this morning

I only had about .71" and was both surprised and happy to get it. The lake's looking good, Eddie.

 

[Defective]

Only one word available for that moon pic Eddie...WOW!

The third pic there: Am I seeing the bottom through clear water? Sure looks like it...

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks Defective.

The stuff you see in that picture is just some floating debri. The wind blows it all to one area and it happened to be by the spillway, where I stood to take that picture.

The water is clearing up along the edges. I can see a few inches through it. Unlike the water in my small pond, this water has a differenent shade of brown to it and is constantly changing. It's real bad after a rain, but starts to clear up after sitting for awhile.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Prohibited Exotic Species.
Tilapia, Family Cichlidae
All species of genus Tilapia (including Sarotherodon and Oreochromis)

Exotic Fish, Shellfish and Aquatic Plants
Mike

I asked the question over at Pond Boss Magazine Home Page! to see what the experts over there thought about this. Today, one of them talked to a person at Texas Parks & Wildlife and was told this.

"I spoke with TP&W, we can all still stock tilapia like we've done in the past ! Seems like I panicked I guess. The link banning Tilapia is related to Oriental Fish Markets in the Houston area, it's not related to stocking Mozambique Tilapia in stock ponds."

So it looks like Tilapia is back in my stocking plan for the lake.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[Bird]

I certainly like to eat tilapia, but I've heard that they don't take the kind of baits normally used for fish in this part of the country. If that's true, then how do you fish for them other than with a net? And why would you want to stock fish that are going to die in cool weather? I'm just curious.

 

[patrick_g]

Bird, I have seen guys catching a lot of tilapia in the "side waters" of the Colorado river way down south in California. There are marshy areas parallel to the river that have warmer water and lots of tilapia. I think they were fishing with real food not artificial lures and under water not top water.

I was just canoing and didn't watch for long.

Eddie, Some of my ponds lie along a seasonal creek where one can overflow into another. The one seasonal creek has 4 ponds in series. The first and last have pretty clear water but the two in the middle stay pretty muddy. When the muddy ones overflow into the last (clear one) at the end of the chain it is not muddy very long and clears up pretty well in just a few days.

I have never understood what causes this. Of the 10 ponds I have 3 stay pretty muddy all the time and the others stay pretty clear. Even if the clear ponds get muddied by overflow they clear up pretty quickly. If they just get muddied by runoff they clear even quicker. I wish there were a simple solution that would allow me to have the muddy ones to be clear but I would have to first understand how it works and I am pretty much baffled.

Pat

 

[Bird]

Pat, the fact is that I was only going by something a cousin told me that he'd been told, that you have to try to use algae on a hook to catch tilapia, and of course the algae doesn't stay on long. But since that's second (or third, or fourth, or something) hand information, it just might not be right at all.

 

[BTDT]

It seems I read (on one of the dome home/structure sites) about a guy wanting to use these fish for a year round food supply down close to Austin. He was going to raise them in a backyard above ground pool (because he said they wouldn't overpopulate their pond), and was going to put a small dome over pool so temps would stay above the 50 degree mark. Interesting idea if you could make it work.

 

[patrick_g]

Sounds like the echos of EarthShips in New Mexico.

I haven't actually eaten Tillapia myself. I guess I should relent and try it. I had a psychological barrier against warm water fish but see it in the markets all lthe time.

I'm not that big on fish but catfish fillets are fish that don't taste fishy and south central Oklahoma has catfish at jillions of eateries. I have caught trout from high mountain streams in Baja California, salmon in Alaska, and bass, bluegill, and crappie in my ponds and all are good just not something I want to eat every day. Some of the best fish I ever had was thresher shark and marlin. Both make delicious steaks.

Pat

 

[Bird]

Pat, I'm not even sure what a thresher shark is, and I've never eaten marlin as far as I know, but what the locals call sand sharks on the Texas coast sure makes some delicious steaks. In fact, I used to smoke them and think they're as good, if not better, than the salmon I used to smoke.

For quite some time now, we've been buying the packages of tilapia fillets at Sam's Club. The fillets are individually vacuum sealed and frozen, so we can just take out exactly the quantity we want at a time. If you like bass, you'll like the tilapia.

 

[EddieWalker]

I certainly like to eat tilapia, but I've heard that they don't take the kind of baits normally used for fish in this part of the country. If that's true, then how do you fish for them other than with a net? And why would you want to stock fish that are going to die in cool weather? I'm just curious.

Bird,

My primary goal for the lake is to create a place of beauty that people will enjoy walking around and/or just enjoy being next to. I will never allow any swimming or boating in it once I open the RV Park. Too much liability there.

Fishing is secondary, but since I dug the lake myself, it was pretty easy to incorperate some structure to make the fishing as good as possible. I honestly don't think very many of my guest will fish the lake. But I'm gonna make is as good a fishing lake as I can anyway.

There is some fantastic marketing that I can use if somebody catches a 5 to ten pound Large Mouth Bass, or a 2 pound bluegill, or a 20 pound catfish. Having pictures of that in my brochures and on my website will bring customers here. The money value in marketing vastly out wieghs what I've spent on it and what it will cost me to maintain it and stock it.

Tilapia offer an unique advantage for my other game fish. They reproduce like crazy!!!! They will provide a massive amount of high proteing food for my other fish in the pond, and they will grow at an increased rate. Lots and lots of food, means big and fat fish for guests to catch.

Since the Tilapia will all die off when the water gets to 50 degrees, and most will die off before then, the vast majority of them will be eaten by my other fish. Before they die, the become slow and sluggish, making them easy prey. This massive amount of food will allow my fish to go into the winter months that much fatter and healthier. There die off will also prevent them from overpopulating my pond and taking over.

As for you question on how to catch them? I have no idea? At least not yet.

I have this vision of posting pictures of guests with the biggest fish in age catagories on the wall in my store. I'll sell lures and fishing supplies there too, along with advice on what's working for lures and baits. I kind of expect it to be similar to the get together we went to at Jim's place. There were quite a few of us there, but only a few fished. Most everybody was interested in the fish and the fishing, but very few actually went out to catch anything. I know you did, but there were more people interested in how you did, than wanted to actualy do it themselves. I think this is very common and something that I can exploit in my store and my marketing.

Thanks for the question,
Eddie