Creating a Lake

[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