Creating a Lake

[patrick_g]

Leeches? Around here we use them for fish bait. Everybody love leeches! If you have fish, I can't imagine there being too many "extra" leeches around.

John, You can have mine! I used to get totally grossed out when I'd come up from a creek or pond after a dip or a seining session and have leeches stuck to me trying to suck me dry. YUCK!!!!!!!!

Pat

 

[RobJ]

Eddie yes crayfish and crawdad are one in the same. I google it and thats what it said. I don't know if that was the reason for the leaches to be gone but I know theres a bunch of crayfish and no leaches. By the way the lake is looking good. Also please post pictures of the lilly pads whey bloom.
Phil

It feels funny having a guy from Maine explain a crawfish. I pass the crawfish farms on I-10 every week heading to Lake Charles.

 

[patrick_g]

Crayfish, crawfish, crawdads, whatever... Just think of them as little lobster and eat 'em. Alternatively they make decent fish bait.

I had a "duel" with one a few years back. I was in my Kubota with FEL and was doing some dirt work at a house construction site. There was a big crawdad near where I was digging and it reared up and brandished its claws at the FEL. (the tractor with FEL may have looked like a really big crawdad to the critter) Anyway if I moved the FEL near it then it would get aggressive and if I moved away it lowered its claws. It was pretty funny to see a crawdad willilng to "duke it out" with a tractor/FEL.

Some years we have thousands of them in one of our seasonal creeks and other times you can't find one.

Pat

 

[Bird]

Just think of them as little lobster and eat 'em.

If you have enough crawfish, you just throw the lobster away.

 

[jinman]

I remember "fishing" for them as kids with a piece of bacon wrapped in a rag and attached to the end of a string. We'd drop it down one of their holes and sometimes pull up those big red ones that were 8" or longer with huge claws. We never ate them, but we would have hours and hours of fun doing battle with the feisty little critters.

 

[EddieWalker]

Funny how this conversation about leaches came up. We went for a family walk around the lake on Sunday and the kids asked about leaches. Until it was brought up here, I had never thought about them. Now it's a topic of discusion and the kids are worried about them too!!

Almost as soon as we got to the shoreline, a big frog took off. The kids chased it and for some reason, it jumped to me and hid under my boot instead of going into the water. The first picture shows our 6 year old with it.

Then I spotted some tadpoles in the water, and that was it. The kids zoned in on catching them and nothing else. It's fun to watch there exitement when they catch one, and compete with each other in catching them. The grass in the picture is isolated, as that spot is where my main spring is located and it's way ahead of the rest of the shoreline in growing grass.

I don't know where dragon flies come from, what they eat or contribute to a pond, but we have lots of them. This picture is kind of unique for us as we've never seen them all herded up like this. It's just another really nice nature picture that Steph captured.

We're really enjoying watching the lake come to life and seeing the changes. Theres' no telling what it will look like when everyone gets here for the party, but it should just keep getting better!!

Eddie

 

[Bird]

Jim, I never heard of wrapping the bacon in a rag, but I've sure spent some time with a piece of raw bacon on a string fishing for crawdads. Very rarely did we get enough to peel out the tails and fry them. That's the only way I ever ate any until 1973, but I've tried to make up for the deficiency since then.

Eddie, I've heard and read that the dragonflies eat mosquitos. We used to have lots of dragonflies when we lived near Navarro Mills Lake. Of course I don't know what kind of frogs you have, but bullfrog legs sure are good eating.

 

[Renze]

Eddie, are you getting any water vegetation in your pond yet ? I still see those ugly brush sticking out of the water that must have grown there in the time that that ground was still dry. Is the dry land vegetation going away by itself or do you need to get the saw out, wearing a wetsuit ??

 

[EddieWalker]

Bird,

I don't know my frogs very well, but they are not bullfrogs. They are very smooth and dark green. The biggest we've seen is about the size in the picture.

Renze,

There are a few plants starting to grow around the edge of the lake that we can't identify. One that really has us curious looks like a large Iris. We don't know where it came from, or what it is, but we're very interested to see what it does.

I have mixed feelings about those ugly, dead plants. I originally left them in to provide cover for my minnows and baby fish. Now I've decided to wait until next summer to put bass in and just build up the other species this year. Without bass in there this year, there's no real reason to have the cover plants anymore.

Now when I see them, I wish I'd taken them out. In time they will rot away, but until then, I'm sticking with my original story!!

I have tried pulling them out from the small boat, but they are solid. If they don't rot away in a timely manner, I'll start cutting them with my pruners just below the water.

Eddie

 

[Dozernut]

Does your water plant look like these Sweet Flag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. We introduced them on our pond, they do not go real deep and provide cover for the fish.

 

[EddieWalker]

Dozernut,

No, that's not it. I didn't realize there'd be any interest in it, so I didn't take a picture. I'll take on of it and post it so maybe somebody can identify it.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[weldingisfun]

Bird,

I don't know my frogs very well, but they are not bullfrogs. They are very smooth and dark green. The biggest we've seen is about the size in the picture.

Eddie

Eddie, it looks like a leopard frog. They range in color from a greenish brown to a deep olive green. They are really fun to watch. Before you know it you will have thousands, at least until you have fish large enough to start eating the tadpoles.

 

[patrick_g]

The leopard frog is so named because of the prominent spots irrespective of the primary shade of green or brown of the skin.

The Dragon flies will eat mosquitoes and other flying insects but are harmless to people so they are on the GOOD GUYS list. They are proficient maneuverable aerial combatants.

It is interesting to note that dragon flies eat more mosquitoes than the FAMED purple martin which eats FEW or NO mosquitoes. A university study with video cameras set up focused on martin apartment houses found that a favorite food of purple martins is dragon flies and during the study no mosquitoes were seen in their beaks while carying food to their broods. The report stated it was unlikely that the birds ate one diet and provided an entirely diffeerent diet for the young so they concluded that at least in some instances the mosquito eating prowess of the purple martin is advertising hype for follks selling purple martin houses. So instead of decreasing mosquito populations they eat the insect that would decrease the mosquito population.

I have heard (but of course would never personally confirm) that the instinct to intercept small high speed targets causes the dragon fly to dart in front of a BB shot in their direction and be hit making it appear that the shooter is a real marksman capable of hitting a dragon fly on the wing.

I can still recall catching tadpoles and putting one in a fish bowl. When We came back from a vacation it was gone. Months later I found the dried and shriveled frog under a trunk in the next room.

Pat

 

[Cliff_Johns]

Dragon flies eat skeeters and other flying little bugs. They are good bugs to have, and pretty too.

Cliff

 

[patrick_g]

Cliff, Thanks for translating my post (immediately preceding yours) into "SIMPLE ENGLISH" in the Readers Digest condensation tradition. What do you think, maybe I could send my posts to you for editing and condensing prior to publishing?

Pat

 

[Cliff_Johns]

Cliff, Thanks for translating my post (immediately preceding yours) into "SIMPLE ENGLISH" in the Readers Digest condensation tradition. What do you think, maybe I could send my posts to you for editing and condensing prior to publishing?

Pat

Sorry patrick,
I started typing, was asked a few questions by a coworker, and then finished and you posted while I was doing my post. I didn't see your post before I posted mine. Again, my appoligies.

Cliff

 

[3RRL]

Eddie,
Your marvelous thread is fast becoming a legend. You should turn it into a novel. All the posts and pictures from yourself and everybody are great and have added immensely to making it so interesting. I check in everyday to see what's new.

About leeches, I hate them as much as snakes (like you do). I can remember when I was a little kid in Holland. We used to wade in the streams and come out with leeches attached to our ankles and calves! That just freaked me out and ever since then, I can't stand them. I saw a naturalist program on the Discovery channel where a girl naturalist was doing research in some rain forest and she had one up her nose! Anybody else see that one?

 

[BTDT]

Eddie, looks like you have a jumpstart on your mosquito problem. Frogs, minnows, dragonflies, etc. Something else you might consider if you have electricity down close to the water, is hang a bug zapper out off of a dock. As it kills/stuns bugs they fall into the water and the fish eat'em up.

 

[sr160009]

It is amazing how many new criters just show up after a new pond (or Lake) is built.

 

[patrick_g]

Sorry patrick,
I started typing, was asked a few questions by a coworker, and then finished and you posted while I was doing my post. I didn't see your post before I posted mine. Again, my appoligies.

Cliff

Cliff, no apology please! This happens all the time. I was trying to be funny. Sorry if you didn't want to be a straight man.

Pat