Adding 10,000 Fish to the 5 Acre Pond!

Folks at home welcome back to the

Crimson Oak Pond and if you're new to

this series we built this 5 acre Pond

over the past year and it took us

several months to get all of the dirt

excavated and we had to bring in several

truckloads of clay and we also built an

island a dock and got all the structure

in place and then it took a couple of

months to get it full of water after

that we stocked it with a bunch of bait

fish including bluegills and thread fin

shad and not long after that we stocked

it with these little 2-in aggressive

bass and we're going to be giving you an

update on them here in just a minute and

spring is in the air we got the Eagles

soaring baby turtles hatching little

tiny bass and blue gills covering the

shallow parts of the pond and George

Jones the possum doing some mischievous

things and the spring is always the

perfect time of year to restock the pond

with thread fin Shad so in most of your

ponds and lakes bluegills and thread fin

Shad are the backbone of forage fish for

bass and although you can supplement

things like crawfish tilapia and even

throughout the year those are all

seasonal and only last a short amount of

time so if you're going to grow big bass

you need healthy populations of thread

fins and bluegills and there's a couple

reasons for stocking them in the spring

first thread fin shads are really

finicky and it's hard to transport them

in the summertime but more importantly

if you stock the Shad in the spring

you're doing it right before the Shad

spawn which usually happens in late

April or early May and so you'll end up

with thousands of more newly hatched

thread fins but there's a couple

different ways to stock them you can

either pump them out of the holding

tanks but today I wanted to use the

bucket method and add some to the

shallow pockets of the pond so we could

get some of those big bass blowups and

you'll notice that even a couple degrees

in water temperature will temporarily

stun them and they almost look like

they're playing posum but it only last

for a minute or so and then they'll all

swim off like nothing happened but the

fun part here is that while they're

acting stunned up there on the surface

there's nothing more appetizing to a

bass in this world than a struggling

thread fin Shad so as you can see the

fish catch on to the incoming Shad

pretty quick so I'll typically stock a

couple loads of Shad one in early spring

and one in late spring and this is a

perfect scenario that a lot of these may

get eaten by the bass but I'm perfectly

fine with that it's a nice easy meal for

them right here around this stressful

spaw in time so we'll come back through

with another load of them here in about

a month and those will be key to making

sure we got plenty of numbers to last

them the rest of the year but if you

missed our last couple of videos there's

something very strange happening in this

pond so if you walk around the banks or

shallow areas you'll see dozens of baby

2-in bass swimming around and there's

also some bluegills mixed in with them

and a lot of you may be thinking well

it's springtime you should be seeing

small bass in the pond well what's odd

about this is typically when the water

temps hit around 70° which for this Pond

is usually around mid-march the bass

will spawn and thousands of little baby

bass fry will have patch well the

interesting thing is bass fries start

out tiny maybe a/4 of an inch and it

typically takes a couple of months

before they become 2 in long for

instance all the Tiger Bass that we

stocked in our pond were 2 in long in

June and they came from a hatchery where

the fish had produced them that prior

spring so that's what's so puzzling if

we've got 2-in bass in the pond right

now that means we either had a early

January spawn or potentially even a late

fall spawn which is very rare but it

does sometimes happen and some of you

may wonder why is that important well if

you end up having a spring spawn and a

fall spawn your largemouth bass

population could get extremely crowded

so after talking to the biologist I'm

going to be watching closely to see if

we have another spring spawn and if I

start seeing multiple bass spawning and

little fry everywhere then their

recommendation is to take as many of

those 2in bass out as possible to keep

the pond from

overcrowding check this out guys I was

just walking right here along the Pond's

Edge and this a little bitty guy was

hiding up under that algae right there I

was checking to see if it was one of the

Ninja Turtles we just put in Cedar Falls

I'd already looked at the bottom of

their

bellies most of them had orange

bellies but that's pretty

cool we got one of our first baby

turtles right here in the pond I think

I'm going to go put them in Cedar Falls

so he can grow up with the Ninja Turtles

so the golden shiners are smart and

they've caught on to the fact that that

if they hang out up here by the

waterfall they don't get as much

pressure from the fish because during

the daytime the bass probably aren't

going to swim up here but we're going to

release this new baby turtle right here

in the same area and this little guy's

probably only a few days old which just

makes it even cooler that you know this

is the first waterfall and heavy current

he's ever experienced but there will be

no lack of food if he hangs out in this

area all he has to do is open his mouth

all right so a couple weeks ago we put

four baby turtles in here and you guys

named them the four Ninja Turtles so now

we're going to need a name for this

little

guy but speaking of names last week I

asked y'all to help us name the two bald

eagles that moved into the eagle Tower

and the new names are Sam as in Uncle

Sam and the female is going to be named

Dixie because Alabama is the Heart of

Dixie so Scott and Chris send me your

info and I'll get your package sent out

so Sam and Dixie have been sticking to

their normal routine looking Majestic as

always but Dixie will not share any fish

at all with Sam and no matter how hard

he tries she's not giving in but they

seem to be quite the happy pair of

eagles we still see the juveniles from

time to time but I believe they're

searching for a new home

now so if you missed our last video we

had a really cool project where we

installed some underwater antennas

that'll be used to track all of the bass

that we've installed pit TXS in so we

mounted the control panel out on the

dock ran the antennas out to to a couple

different locations and we had no doubt

that the antenna right by the green

light would get a lot of traffic so

let's check out some of this data so for

a quick update we got people working on

software to help display all of this

tracking data live and the ultimate goal

is for you guys to be able to log in at

any point and see where the fish are

swimming at and what areas of the pond

they're using but for now we're starting

to sort the data in a database and we

got the date on the left the fish that

swam by the antenna and the time of day

that it swam by but one really cool

interesting piece of information that

Jason provided for us was the amount of

pings per day and so if you look at the

number in parentheses right by the

fish's name that's how many times they

were pinged and these antennas have one

ping per second but by far the most

interesting fish award goes to Cyprus

and you can see Cypress hung out by the

oak Throne antenna for

1178 seconds he basically made the

antenna's new home and so I'm already

starting to see some really cool trends

and even learning some stuff about these

fish so one of the new Florida strain

bass that we just added a couple of

weeks ago named seol is a very active

fish and sometimes swims by the antenna

almost once every hour so this is

probably a fish that hasn't settled down

making its rounds maybe even trying to

get used to when that feeder goes off so

we got some really cool projects coming

up with these antennas that you'll be

seeing more in the next video and

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now we're going to turn our attention to

our latest Pond project the 30,000g pond

we call Cedar Falls and Springtime is

where these Aquascape ponds really start

to shine you can see the lies aquatic

grasses lily pads and everything's

starting to bloom around the pond but

since we built the pond we've struggled

with water Clarity issues and that's to

be expected with new ponds you got all

the loose soil around you got to do

several water changes to pump that out

but the biggest hurdle I've had was the

Wetland filter and we know what the

problem is and although you can't see it

there's about 6 ft of gravel stacked

high in the one rectangular area of the

Wetland filter well the problem is that

the day we added the gravel it was

raining and a lot of mud and CL got

mixed in with that gravel and so far

it's been a struggle to clean the bottom

layer of gravel mostly because I don't

have access to it but I came up with a

new plan so I got some high volume pumps

and we're going to flush thousands of

gallons of water out of the pond down

through this gravel at a really high

flow rate and then I'm also using a pump

and the clean out Bay to pump all that

muddy water out as it gets washed down

and separates from the gravel and the

easy way to tell that this plan is

working out perfect is by looking at

that muddy water that's getting pumped

out so keep in mind this is a closed

loop system so all this mud has nowhere

to escape and since it was trapped in

the Wetland filter we were probably

always going to have issues with water

Clarity and I'd attempted to clean this

out in the past but just using well

water and water hoses wasn't enough

volume to wash the mud off in the bottom

layers of the filter 6 ft down so I gave

it a heavy dose of rinsing today and

after Flushing thousands of gallons

through it and pumping muddy water out

for at least a couple of hours I think

we're finally going to achieve that

Crystal Clear Pond like ours is in the

backyard one other small problem is as I

was pumping the water down all the

golden shiners got trapped here in the

waterfall area so I got to pump some

more water in raise the level up and

then scare them out of here so I can

finish the clean out but my favorite

part of these cleanouts as we get to get

a good look at all the fish and turtles

and you can see one of the Ninja Turtles

popping his head up this is his first

experience with a cleanout and he's not

really sure what's going on and there's

a good look at Mike Trout and Molly

trout with our two second generation

bass Johnny and June following right

behind so something very interesting

you'll see with this second and third

generation bass if you look at their

tails it almost looks like someone took

a paintbrush and painted their tails

black and initially the smaller bass

Johnny's tail was the only one that

really stood out but here over the past

couple weeks you can start seeing it in

the bigger bass's Tail as well and one

of you guys commented and said that's a

trait of a northern bass so I find it

interesting that the newer generations

of Tiger Bass are starting to show those

Northern traits but they never miss an

opportunity for an easy meal as they're

chasing the shiners oh and here's an up

close look at one of the bluegills we

added this one has some really nice

color patterns and I believe the ones

that have the vertical stripes on them

or males all right got everything washed

down pumped out and cleaned up we're

turn turning the water back on pumping

fresh well water in at 100 Gall per

minute be cutting the waterfall on here

in just a minute but it's getting dark

so we may be doing that under the

Moonlight and now that we got some Clean

and Clear Water you can see how much

easier it is to see the fish even out

here at night because we got a lot of

underwater lights

installed there's Johnny and June back

on the

hunt and one of the Trout making his way

up to the

waterfall and the second thing I really

enjoy after the pond cleanouts is turn

the waterfalls back on as you all know

waterfalls are peaceful as it is but

it's really cool watching them start out

from a trickle turning into a stream of

water and then creating that roaring

sound here in a few minutes but there's

a good shot of it starting to come over

the top waterfall where the cedar log

meets the Aqua Blue Rock and there we go

got all three waterfalls back going with

some nice clean

water and now that we have the pond and

farm set up I want to start having some

events out here and there's no better

event to have than Sarah's sixth

birthday party so she invited a bunch of

her friends out for jump houses hay

rides and to do a little fishing and

I've always been an avid believer of

getting kids involved in fishing while

they're young because that's what

happened to me and as you all know it's

been a huge part of my life but if you

want to have some stress in your life

try taking about 15 or 20 kids fishing

at the same

time so so while most people would

measure success in the amount of fish

caught I was just happy to say that at

the end of this trip none of the kids

got hooked or fell in the pond but they

all were able to catch a fish so even

though it was stressful for me hopefully

it's good memories for them all right

it's that time of year we're going to

take our SEI disc measured the water

Clarity and if it's anything over about

20 in that means it's probably time to

fertilize you can see we got a little

bit of a green Bloom out there but we've

also got some algae starting to come up

there in the shallow areas so let's see

what kind of visibility we have and it's

a very simple process you just push that

down until you can no longer see it so

right about that area right in there 23

in so it's time to fertilize so we just

had one of the feeders go off and it's

mostly the rainbow trout and blue gills

up here feeding and the rainbows go

Airborne but if you look really close

you'll see a lot of healthy Blu gills

and as I mentioned they're one of the

Staples in the diet of a large mouth so

it's good to see them grow and eating

those high protein pellets but these

fish are so fast you have to slow it

down to get a good look at

them there's a mixture of trout and

bluegills

today love watching those top water

shots nice spring day birds are chirping

time for a bass feeding we just got

1,000 golden shiners in got some Big

Boys in there so we're going to hook our

Garmin livescope up right there on on

the edge of the dock and see if we can

get a few of them to come up for a

feeding so we're doing another one of

our nightly feeding sessions and one of

the reasons we set up an antenna right

here is because it's an easy way for me

to get a close look at the fish and scan

and identify which fish it is because a

couple videos back we finally had one of

our pet bass Bonnie come up to a nightly

feeding and by having this antenna here

and scanning her tag is just another way

to confirm it was her without having to

catch her or put stress on her but the

other piece of technology we're using

alongside of it is a Liv scope and I'm

probably the first person to install a

Liv scope on a dock but one of my

favorite things to do is study a bass

and especially their reaction to

feedings as you'll see here some other

fish start coming in as they hear the

surface activity so even though it's

night time and I can't see this allows

me to watch those other fish get drawn

in by the sounds of feeding and that's

something I've mentioned in the past I

wanted to have one audio sound like a

song or a dinner bell or something that

I would play right before every feeding

so the fish would associate that sound

with the meal and this Liv scope is

helping me watch these fish react to

different sounds and learn that

information even quicker but back to the

antennas there's so much useful

information we can get for instance if

you see a pair of spawning bass in a

shallow pocket you could put an antenna

right near their nesting site and be

able to identify which male and female

were spawning together we also want to

put antennas down in the deeper parts of

the pond so we can track those fish that

may not ever come up around the dock

area so a lot of cool projects coming up

with that that I'm really excited about

so if you guys hadn't heard yet Nate

makes is building a squirrel house for

the fox squirrel we call Foxy so I

wanted to set up some feeding stations

around the farm today to monitor the

squirrel activity and see the best place

to install the new squirrel house got

the eagle flying by but let's take a

look at our three squirrel feeding

stations starting off first with a nut

bar they can pull up a seat right here

here the nuts will go in that area next

up we got the original squirrel picnic

table equipped with this nice umbrella

to make sure their nuts and corn don't

get wet and then more of your

traditional style feeder but we got some

premium squirrel nuts as well as some

corn so now we're going to set some up

around the farm and see where the best

squirrel location is so I was getting

this first squirrel house set up looked

up and look what's hanging out right up

above my

head little bitty snake you guys know

I'm not a snake expert

let me know if I'm wrong in the comments

below but here in just a second I think

you'll get a better understanding of why

a rat snake is up in the tree so I don't

know if we're going to see any squirrels

here but we're almost guaranteed to see

a woodpecker that guy has been working

on this entire

tree look at

that so I was looking around for areas

with a lot of squirrel nest we got one

there one

there and one more over there so we're

going to find a spot right in here to

put one all right we got the nut bar

installed on one of the oldest and

biggest oak trees out here on the

farm should be a perfect place for a

squirrel house but I've got some camera

set up let's see what comes out so the

first thing I learned about the feeding

stations is they didn't factor in the

weight of heavier animals when specking

out the

screws and night one the nut bar goes

down to the

raccoon but back to the rat snake being

in the top of a tree that may be where

his food source is hiding out I remember

when we used to do the peanut picnic

table the little mice would jump up on

there all the time and it's no different

when you put it up in a tree anyone with

a good nose is going to find

it and speaking of good nose George

Jones must have one because he always

finds a way in front of the camera I'd

already factored in seeing the raccoons

on camera because most of them sleep up

in a tree but I never thought I'd see

old George Jones climbing up the tree

for a nut but all of this is important

because we're designing the size of the

entrance to the Squirrel House based on

predators and other things like possums

and raccoons that we want to keep out of

the house so from what I've seen so far

it's going to be a small entrance where

only a squirrel or a mouse could get in

it that's not something you see every

day a possum eaten under an

umbrella all right out here on alcatra

island going to catch a few fish see how

big they've grown if you're new to this

we'll scan every fish we catch see if

they've been tagged with a pit tag and

if not we'll install a new one with a

pit tag injector now that it's

springtime we're going to try the old

lizard got him right off the tree laying

up on the island oh he spit it out that

was pretty awesome right there I've

never fished that tree before but uh I

was looking at it I was like man there's

got to be a fish sitting there on it

that was a good

one there he

is good

one oh look at that starting to see some

bumps on the tail

that could be those parasites I was

worried about with those snails so have

to look into

that all right this fish has been caught

695 68 and this fish weighs 2.18 lb get

a quick picture of that so we can do a

little research on it and let her

go there's another one oh yeah

put fight they're hitting right here at

the island see them green specks on its

head green all down the back no red dots

on this one all right another one that's

been caught 69

736 and this one weighs

1.85 just did a flip over the Christmas

tree when we built the pond there was a

road bed right here so there was a big

circle pile of wood right there and a

road bed on each side of it and these

bass are just sitting right there on

that little hump and there's a pile of

them in

there I mean these guys are letting it

get right here before hitting it I've

never seen anything like that another

tagged fish so far they've all been

tagged 57 0878 this one weighs

165 I've never seen anything like this

in my life these fish are just sitting

right here I can't even see

them moment that thing comes up out of

the water

570311 so this is something interesting

this is the first Florida strain bass

we've caught and one that was named

Everglade and you can see it dropped in

weight but I remember when we put them

in they were full of eggs hopefully this

fish has spawned and and introducing

those genetics to the pond so I don't

even know why I cast out I need to just

throw right

[Laughter]

there I want to swap spots but this is

almost too much fun man that is

wild oh this feels better

one

only hit got one to hit further out

there yeah I think this one's a little

better that's one we're after right

there feeder's going off all right

57502 and this one

weighs

2.38 nice one all right finally got a

hold up a nice

female enjoyed that one and this fish is

named Odin and we haven't caught Odin

since last July and it's almost doubled

its weight since

then can't believe it I don't know why I

say I can't believe it I can believe it

that's where all the fish are right here

57 1208 and this fish weighs 187 191 and

this fish is named Dixie so now we have

a Dixie eagle and a Dixie

Bass

[Laughter]

that's a good conclusion to today's

fishing trip man they are eating it good

today in case you're wondering little

white ChatterBait they bit the tail off

the little paddle tail swimbait that

goes behind it but chatterbaits in the

spring tough to beat so we're doing our

spring cleanout today where we remove

all that debris on the bottom of the

pond that got blown in over this past

fall and winter but before I dirtied up

the water a bunch of you have been