Creating a Lake

[JDGreenGrass]

Some friends came over last Sunday evening and caught a big one in our pond...I have done no management for about 5 years anow. The pond went down to about 4 feet deep when we had our drought which lasted 3 years (prior to this year). They said they caught a big crappie too.

View attachment 169598

I think about 6 pounds.

He's a big boy, fer sure.!!

I looked again....maybe 7 or 8 pounds.!! That fish looks to have 2 belly's and the mouth is getting stretched out quite big because of the weight of the fish.

Heck of a catch.!!

 

[ETexas KUB]

Eddie- I live in the OTHER big city in E Texas just east of you. We bought a place outside of town about 5 yrs ago that had a 2 acre dirty, nasty looking red clay pond on it.
We went thru some of the same things you did with having to reclaim pasture, disced, drag and planted common burmuda on it. At the same time I added a bottle of blue pond dye to the water (bought at Tractor Supply). Amazing!! It looked the water you see at 6 Flags. Blue and clear! The color lasted 2-3 months and when it was gone the water was clear enough to see 3-4 deep. Since then it has stayed clear and the pond looks great. Don't know if it was the dye or planting the new grass that cleared it up but has stayed clear. Your projects look great!

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you and welcome to TBN!!!! Nice to hear from a neigbhor. I'm in Longview from time to time, but not so much that I know my way around there. Hopefully you'll post some pics of your pond and what you've done with the place!!!!

I've thought about doing something to clear up the water, but with all the dirt work that I'm doing on my land, I think it's just a battle that I'll lose until I stop disturbing so much of the land. I do have several silt traps before my culverts that catch quite a bit of material, but I've become lazy in cleaning them out. Something that I need to put more effort into for sure!!!!

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

I took a couple pics as the sun was setting.

Eddie

 

[dcyrilc]

Looks good Eddie. Of course, all the pix I've seen of your lake look increadible.:thumbsup:

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

That top middle picture almost looks like a gator on the shoreline...

 

[ETexas KUB]

These are a couple we took last Feb. when we had snow on the ground. Its kinda hard to see how big it is but by the survey it's approx 2 acres. We have stocked it with channel cats, hybrid blue gill and copper nose redear. We also added 10 lbs. of flathead minnows

 

[beppington]

Eddie ... I've been kind of an online snoop; Based on what you've mentioned in this thread, is this your place?

 

[EddieWalker]

Yup, that's me. Where did you get the picture? Last time I looked, Lake Marabou wasn't on there.

Eddie

 

[beppington]

Yup, that's me. Where did you get the picture? Last time I looked, Lake Marabou wasn't on there.

Eddie

It's a screen shot from my Google Earth program.

 

[bindian]

These are a couple we took last Feb. when we had snow on the ground. Its kinda hard to see how big it is but by the survey it's approx 2 acres. We have stocked it with channel cats, hybrid blue gill and copper nose redear. We also added 10 lbs. of flathead minnows View attachment 171093

View attachment 171094

ETexas KUB,
Did you mean Fathead minnows? I stocked my pond with 1 pound of Fathead minnows.
hugs, Brandi

 

[patrick_g]

We also added 10 lbs. of flathead minnows

Probably not, as I believe there are no minnows named flathead. They are probably FATHEAD minnows which I too have added to a pond along with 200 each 4 inch channel cat which are now about 18-20 inch.

Pat

 

[ETexas KUB]

Oops- I guess they are fatheads. My wife placed the order and talked to the suppliers. It was stocked 3 years ago and we have catfish up to about 5-6 lbs now. The blue gill and red ear are a little bigger than hand size. We have been feeding the 1/8'' floating pellets. The smaller fish have an easier time with the 1/8'' vs. the 1/4'' pellets. I get them at a local feedstore. Atwoods and Tractor Supply both carry the 1/4" pellets.

 

[bindian]

Oops- I guess they are fatheads. My wife placed the order and talked to the suppliers. It was stocked 3 years ago and we have catfish up to about 5-6 lbs now. The blue gill and red ear are a little bigger than hand size. We have been feeding the 1/8'' floating pellets. The smaller fish have an easier time with the 1/8'' vs. the 1/4'' pellets. I get them at a local feedstore. Atwoods and Tractor Supply both carry the 1/4" pellets.

My county conservation guy told me Fatheads are the only minnows that catfish can catch. My Mosquito fish brave the catfish and attack the catfish food while the cats are swarming. The cats catch a mosquito fish every now and then in the feeding frenzy.
hugs, Brandi

 

[3238dpw]

Eddie ... I've been kind of an online snoop; Based on what you've mentioned in this thread, is this your place?

Boy that is so funny. Durring the last week or so I was looking at your property to and was pretty sure that was it and now I know

I was even using the feature that lets you look at your property from road level.

 

[Tororider]

Have you guys checked out Bing's bird's eye view option in their map? I just found it a couple days ago, and I assume that it is only available in certain areas, but it is really cool the perspective you can get and then details you can see.

 

[EddieWalker]

It's been raining the last two days, and at about 8pm, I decided to go for a walk. I brought my rifle because there is a beaver using Lake Marabou and I'm hoping to put an end to that. As I walked up to the lake, I heard something in the tall stuff along the shoreline. There was water rippling too, and I thought for sure that it was that beaver. I was just putting in my ear plugs when a nice sized boar walked out of the weeds about 15 yards in front of me.

We were both surprise, and I just stood there to see what it would do. It saw me, but just stood there for a second. Then it took off down the road along the shoreline. I shot it running away at about 50 yards.

My guess is that it's over 200 pounds and the tusks are right at 2 inches.

I don't mess with eating the bigger boars, and anything over 100 pounds isn't very tasty. 40 to 60 pounds is just about perfect eating size. They are tender, tastey and easy to clean. From 60 to 100 pounds, they are still pretty good, but the sows are much better then the boars. After that, they both get kind of nasty and not really worth messing with.

I put him behind the house for coyote bait. He's 150 yards out and in a spot that I've shot quite a few coyotes from the back door. It will take most of tomorrow for the vultures to open him up, then tomorrow night will be kind of interesting, and I figure to start shooting coyotes Friday morning.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

To get it back to the field for shooting coyotes, I put it on my finish mower. It's a 90 inch mower, and it was already attached to my little tractor, so it was a no brainer.

In hindsite, I really should have thought this through. Getting that pig onto the mower was a lot more work then I thought it would be!!!!

Note to self, bring a chain next time. :thumbsup:

Eddie

 

[dcyrilc]

To get it back to the field for shooting coyotes, I put it on my finish mower. It's a 90 inch mower, and it was already attached to my little tractor, so it was a no brainer.

In hindsite, I really should have thought this through. Getting that pig onto the mower was a lot more work then I thought it would be!!!!

Note to self, bring a chain next time. :thumbsup:

Eddie

200# is a lot of dead weight to be muscling around. Pun intended.

 

[patrick_g]

The largest of the beaver I have dispatched are quite a handful to get into the back of a pickup. I drag them to the truck rather than carry them. The biguns go about 80lb or so and are much harder to pick up than a bag of cement prior to rigor setting in.

I "donate" my beaver to the local coyote population. So far as I can tell the coyote around here are not causing me any problems with my cattle (never had a calf hurt.) I do like to hear the coyotes and we don't have all that many so I don't shoot them. Their "free pass" is subject to cancellation if they should cause problems.

Around here the hog hunters release pigs into the wild to keep the population up so their hunting is easier. Of course, the wild hog population is a nuisance, danger, and economic bummer to many but the hog hunters don't seem to care about anything but their sport.

Armadillos are what I'd like to get rid of but I get few opportunities to shoot them. I have caught them in traps intended for beaver but it is not too productive.

Pat