DIY Bass Lake....

[elkaholic9292]

If you want to get crazy, get a bunch of those plastic nursery potting containers, and tie em together randomly in a big ball using zip ties and sink it. If you want to take it to the extreme, shove however many of those toy rubber balls into the containers it takes to float it off the bottom for a suspending brush pile.

[Ride_Klein]

I'm sunburned and beat. Somebody heard you can double your yield if you hand plant duck plots. This unconfirmed rumor lead to hand planting row upon row upon never ending row. Half way through we got smart and somebody suggested we spread and drag the other half like always to see which did better head to head. We'd still be out there planting if not for that stroke of genius.

When we finished everybody headed to the lake for a cool down swim. Got a few pics of the lake, but they're too big to post straight from the phone. It is 3 or 4" from being as full as it can be. Chocked full of bait fish and frogs right now. Bass Fry went in a couple weeks ago.

The bluegill are responding pretty well to hand feeding right now, but a plan was finalized for the fish feeder placement so they get fed more consistently.

I got to swim most of the lake and test the depths. Was very cool to feel the drop offs, humps, stumps, and ledges. One mistake we made was stacking the fish condos. They should work great because they're all ready getting covered in moss and algae, but we should have stacked them with 4 on the base instead of three because they're a little tipsy. Thanks again Dale for a great deal on the flue tiles.

What fish are going in it?

They stocked 2800 blue gill 1-3", 700 red ear 1-3" 150 red ear 3-5". Not sure how many minnows went in, but there are millions. The original plan was some shad, but that plan changed and 150 Tilapia were added. This weekend there were fish spawning on the gravel beds all ready. Really cool thing was seeing groups of 5-10 bull frog tadpoles swimming together. I've never seen it before. They look like aliens.

If you want to get crazy, get a bunch of those plastic nursery potting containers, and tie em together randomly in a big ball using zip ties and sink it. If you want to take it to the extreme, shove however many of those toy rubber balls into the containers it takes to float it off the bottom for a suspending brush pile.

There are a couple of deep spots where this would be perfect. Thanks for the great idea.

Can't wait to see those, this is looking great!

Post #161 says it's full....

Man I can't believe I'm just seeing this thread. Sweet lake! Can't wait to see the pics of it full.

No pics yet, but hopefully tomorrow if the office hasn't burned down this weekend.

Didn't see that last update but thats Awesome! Nice that google updated now, you can keep that picture and hopefully in two years you can get a picture of it filled all the way. Frame those bad boys in the fish hut.

Y'all gonna dove hunt around that tank?

Not too many dove out in this part of Texas for some reason, but if they show up we'll take a stab at 'em. The Shallows is going to be a wood duck monster for the next couple years.

When that bad boy fills up, that is going to be a lake of legendary proportion. Thanks for the updates.

I cant wait to start seeing fish

Aweeesssooommmee!!!!!

Thanks. Appreciate y'all following along

[sr1209]

Sure to be good times had out there. Awesome.

[Dieselman]

Sorry... I ovr looked #161. Pics gonna be sweet when they finally get posted

[southtexaslayer]

Awesome work! I'm super jealous and have dreamed of a pond like this!

i think it would be kinda cool to google earth back in time and get a few before and after pics as y'all moved along and worked on it!

[jkelbe]

Lots of rain these past 2 months. I hope it filled up. Looking forward to new pics.

[Ride_Klein]

Sure to be good times had out there. Awesome.

Thanks.

Sorry... I ovr looked #161. Pics gonna be sweet when they finally get posted

Coming your way.

Awesome work! I'm super jealous and have dreamed of a pond like this!

i think it would be kinda cool to google earth back in time and get a few before and after pics as y'all moved along and worked on it!

Does Google have a time machine as well? How do you get earlier images from them?

Lots of rain these past 2 months. I hope it filled up. Looking forward to new pics.

The well has done most of the work filling her up, but the rain sure didn't hurt.

[Ride_Klein]

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Pictures of the forage fish. It is hard to see the bluegill and red ear under them in these reduced size, but they were lurking under the minnows. The third pic down shows them best. The ability for a first generation lake to make forage fish is amazing.

[Ride_Klein]

Lake has about 4" to go, but it is darn near full.

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Panoramic taken from the fish feeder dock on the south bank.

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Panoramic taken from the dock.

[Patton]

Looks full and green!

As far as 'going back in time' on Google.. Download Google Earth and in the bottom is toolbar that should show a date, in your case it will be 2014. If you click on it or somewhere around it, it should allow you to 'slide' the date back as far back as Google has dated. Best I can remember without looking at it, I don;t have Google Earth on this computer

And that is an absolute ton of bait fish. Does it look like that everywhere or are those just certain schools you came upon

[jkelbe]

Soooo exciting. I would probably be fishing to just to calm my excitement and to see where the snags for my lure are .

[Ride_Klein]

Looks full and green!

As far as 'going back in time' on Google.. Download Google Earth and in the bottom is toolbar that should show a date, in your case it will be 2014. If you click on it or somewhere around it, it should allow you to 'slide' the date back as far back as Google has dated. Best I can remember without looking at it, I don;t have Google Earth on this computer

And that is an absolute ton of bait fish. Does it look like that everywhere or are those just certain schools you came upon

Learn something new everyday. Thanks General and southtexaslayer.

The bait fish are pretty much everywhere. All along the shores, and around the structure in the deeper parts of the lake. Was cool to see

[Ride_Klein]

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From the North shore looking back at the boat house.

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Same spot on the North shore looking towards the shallows

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The shallow area from as far as I could walk up the north shore in my flip flops. Forgot my phone when we toured it via boat, but you can get a fishing boat around the large tree in the back left by following the channel they cut with the dozer.

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Same spot looking South onto the lake.

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Standing at the culverts looking back North towards the boat house. The water on the other side of the culverts was one of the spots I took the minnow pictures.

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Standing on the long sloping point looking towards the culverts. They're located at the end of the arm just beyond the grassy point you see in this picture.

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Same spot on the sloping point looking towards the boat house. The trees in the middle of this picture are in 7-8' of water. The channel runs through the middle of them and it is 10-11' at this point.

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Same spot on the sloping point looking towards the North shore line. To the right are the shallows.

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Same spot looking into the shallow part on the far East side of the lake.

Appreciate y'all following on as it was built. Now we wait.

[FattLip]

Looks great

[Ride_Klein]

Feeding time.