Garden Ponds

[Elton]

Just been outside in the garden, wondering...

 

How many of you here have garden ponds? Do you 'study' what the fish do and does it have any influence on your angling?

 

Tight lines,

 

Elton

[RobStubbs]

Elton,

I have a garden pond in which I put goldfish, Koi, ghost koi and mirrors. Now apart from the goldfish and the odd koi the rest may as well not be there . I can see the fish when they come to the top for a feed but they are a little cagey. I have also opted for a more natural pond i.e. half full of canadian pond weed. Probably not great for seeing everything in the pond but much better for them as it has frogs, toads and newts as well as baby carp. It also keeps next doors cat at bay as well any passing herons.

 

I also have carp in the aquariam which tend to go in the pond when they get too big.

 

Back to your question, 'does it influence my angling ?', no but it does remind me what a carp actually looks like

 

Rob.

[Chris Plumb]

I've got golden tench in my pond which I hardly ever see In my in-door tank I've currently got rudd and a couple of ghosties all have outgrown the tank and will shortly be transferred to the pond (will I need a Section 30?? )

 

The ghosties are great at keeping the gravel clean they seem to spend every waking hour sucking it up and blowing it out. I sometimes will try out some paste on my fish but that's about it for 'learning from them'.

 

Chris

[Elton]

Chris,

 

I've got an absolutely wonderful Golden Tench. It's in the 2-3lb bracket and has a golden body with a brown top, almost as if somebody has poured molten chocolate over it. I chose it especially as a gift to myself for my birthday last year

 

Rob,

 

I get a lot of frogs, but they have this habit of swimming next to the pump. The record, so far, is three mangled frogs in one go

 

I had a rat in there the other week

 

Tight lines,

 

Elton

[Leon Roskilly]

Apparently the number of toddler drownings have gone up considerably in the last few years. Something to do with the growing popularity of 'water features' as popularised in some TV gardening programmes.

 

Don't forget to provide an escape ladder for hedgehogs etc.

 

Netting keeps the fish safe from cats (excellent clawed anglers!) and the fish and frogs safe from herons.

 

My wife won't let me have a pond

 

Shame really, I used to spend hours on laying on my belly as a kid, watching the insect life in dad's pond, and as I'm now about to enter my 2nd childhood......

 

That's when I wasn't fishing for the goldfish.

 

I discovered that a jam-jar, or milkbottle made an excellent 'water-scope' for seeing creatures deep in the water in 'close up'.

 

Watching fish slowly become aware of the presence of a strugging worm within the silkweed, had some influence on my angling.

 

The fish would slowly turn toward the source of the vibrations, then inch forward trying to work out where they were coming from. You could almost see the point when it saw the unfortunate creature. It would swim forward purposefully, and snatch the worm from amongst the weed.

 

On the other hand, bread would go a long time before it was eventually discovered.

 

Then there was the stalking. Trying to sneak up on the fish without sending them diving for the weed cover, keeping low off the 'horizon', moving slowly - surprising how difficult it is not to spook them.

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 08 May 2002, 04:12 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Kappa]

If anyone is interested by the way.....

 

Herons are teritorial so if you get a plastic one (tacky I know) no more will land and try to eat your fish. Since I've had mine I've never lost any fish to herons whereas before I got it when they discoverwed the pond they ate or mamed everything.

[Elton]

Richard Capper:

If anyone is interested by the way.....

 

Herons are teritorial so if you get a plastic one (tacky I know) no more will land and try to eat your fish. Since I've had mine I've never lost any fish to herons whereas before I got it when they discoverwed the pond they ate or mamed everything.

I counted over 50 on a field at work recently

[Kappa]

50????????

 

I dunno then....... The plastic one does work though! :confused: :confused:

[chesters1]

my old boss had a pond built we had trouble with herons ,so we bought a plastic one no probs for about a month then we noticed the plastic one kept getting knocked over ,i stayed by the pond all one night (theres boss loyalty for you) and spotted at predawn the real heron kicking SH*t out of the plastic one until it fell over when it was totally ignored and the real heron started fishing, we tried trip wires ,an electric fence but mr heron quite easily landed on the underwater ledge round the pond ,the only thing that seemed to work was a plastic cat with very large eyes that i moved everyday.perhaps a fox shaped one would work better?

[Elton]

Richard Capper:

50????????

 

I dunno then....... The plastic one does work though! :confused: :confused:

Perhaps they're only territorial when eating, or something. :confused: I've heard the theory about the decoy before.

 

All the best,

 

Elton