|
|
Post by benmnwi on Jun 11, 2020 22:03:35 GMT -6
Last year in my Wisconsin land tour thread I mentioned a beaver moved in and built me a nice duck pond. It turns out it was a family of beavers and they turned a tiny seasonal wetland into a permanent 3/4 acre pond. They built the dam with mud they must have dug from the pond bottom and I'd guess it is now around 8' deep in the middle.
Last weekend we did some checks for life in the pond after sd's watering hole mud minnow find on his place. I found I have tons of tiny mud minnows as well. Every scoop with my kids butterfly net would bring up a dozen inch long minnows, a bunch of tadpoles and some wierd water bugs.
What species of fish could I throw in there that would have a chance of surviving? I've heard perch can take low oxygen levels, so there may be a few of them swimming there around now. I was thinking a catfish would be a good addition, but we didn't have any luck with catfish last weekend. Any suggestions for this northern Wisconsin beaver pond?
|
|
|
|
Post by benmnwi on Jun 11, 2020 22:04:43 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by Bob on Jun 11, 2020 22:29:17 GMT -6
First question is, do you have any neighbors that are going to demand that dam be broken?
|
|
|
|
Post by benmnwi on Jun 11, 2020 22:35:53 GMT -6
The Beavers would have to raise the water level another couple feet to impact the upstream neighbors, so I should be good. The current dam height is almost exactly the height recommended by the usfws pond guy before he was denied a permit by the dnr. But Beavers can build dams without permits, so I got lucky. The beaver dam is supplied by a couple of drainage ditches that are typically dry in late summer, so I know having catchable fish may be unlikely. I think it's worth a try though
|
|
|
|
Post by Sandbur on Jun 12, 2020 2:10:27 GMT -6
Beaver dams often are not permanent. They can wash out, or the beavers can eat themselves out of food.
I had just noticed you said a permanent pond.
Some trappers used to feel that removing two beavers per pond per year was the best way to maintain their presence, monitoring popple at the same time.
|
|
|
|
Post by batman on Jun 12, 2020 6:38:33 GMT -6
Bullheads lowest o2 'game fish'. Mud minnows can live where bullheads choke out. Low o2 fish include pike, crappie, perch, walleye, catfish and green sunfish. Bass and bluegill die faster Throw some fatheads in there. They spawn all summer.
Northern WI is a tough latitude. Winters a bitch.
You biggest issue will be the bottom of the pond is all organic matter. Winter bacteria activity eating those organics uses up the bank of o2.
|
|
|
|
Post by benmnwi on Jun 12, 2020 8:32:12 GMT -6
Beaver dams often are not permanent. They can wash out, or the beavers can eat themselves out of food. I had just noticed you said a permanent pond. Some trappers used to feel that removing two beavers per pond per year was the best way to maintain their presence, monitoring popple at the same time. Good point - it is likely that the dam will give out at some point. The dam they made is pretty impressive though and at least 6' wide and almost 6' tall in places and it is about 2/3 mud and 1/3 sticks. The beavers have went a little overboard with building multiple dams and clearing out patches of popple, so they have been removed. At least I think we got them all. If they increased the dam height much more it could back the water up quite a ways and hit the county road. At that point the county would remove the beavers and the dam and send me the bill, so I had to take out the beavers. We cut out an overflow outlet on the dry ground adjacent to the dam, so in a high water event the water should flow out of that area around the dam and not over it. But that will only handle so much rain and at some point that may fail. Last fall I also installed drain tile under the dam to control the water level and that seems to be working well. |
|
|
|
Post by benmnwi on Jun 12, 2020 8:43:03 GMT -6
Bullheads lowest o2 'game fish'. Mud minnows can live where bullheads choke out. Low o2 fish include pike, crappie, perch, walleye, catfish and green sunfish. Bass and bluegill die faster Throw some fatheads in there. They spawn all summer. Northern WI is a tough latitude. Winters a bitch. You biggest issue will be the bottom of the pond is all organic matter. Winter bacteria activity eating those organics uses up the bank of o2. You are right about the organic matter in the pond area and I never thought about that decomposing and using up oxygen in the winter. This area was a wetland with a never ending layer of muck before the beavers moved in. The beavers must have excavated a lot of the muck off the bottom when they built the dam that is mostly mud, but I'm sure there is a ton left. I threw some leftover fathead minnows in there last year, but I haven't seen any sign that they survived the winter. I might see if I can find a few more perch and some crappies to put in the pond. They will have an endless supply of food until winter comes and likely chokes them out. I guess if I can't get game fish to survive at least I'll have a source of free mud minnows for bait. Anyone ever use mud minnows for bait? They look like something that a big smallie or walleye would like. |
|
|
|
Post by batman on Jun 12, 2020 9:12:12 GMT -6
If the fatheads died even bullhead would not likely make it.
|
|
|
|
Post by benmnwi on Jun 12, 2020 9:33:20 GMT -6
I only threw in about 1/2 scoop of fatheads that were leftover last year after we were done fishing. They could very well be alive somewhere in the pond, but I was using a kids butterfly net for my sampling so about 99.999% of the pond was not checked.
It was crazy though that every scoop from that small butterfly net ended up with a bunch of what I believe were young mud minnows. They were probably 1" - 1 1/2" long, so they were hard to ID for sure at that size. Hopefully they grow by the next time I am up there so they can be identified clearly (and then used for bait)
My dad saw a Boone and Crockett snapping turtle on the pond and my kids caught a bucket full of frogs of different species, so the pond is certainly full of life.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bwoods11 on Jun 12, 2020 9:49:38 GMT -6
Try some perch, that would be cool if they survived
|
|
|
|
Post by benmnwi on Jun 12, 2020 10:53:47 GMT -6
Try some perch, that would be cool if they survived There are 4 perch in the pond now. I'm interested to see how much they can grow this summer with the unlimited minnow supply in the pond. |
|
