mosquito fish
 

So... Mom's pond out front dried up last fall after 90+ years of swimmin' and fishin'

Between Debby and the other recent rain we've had, she has a pond again (sorta... at least there is water in it and not just a dried mud hole).

Unfortunately, the mosquito eggs survived the dry-out fine, and of course, mosquitoes have been layin' eggs a plenty too... But none of the fish survived (duh!). So she has a MASSIVE mosquito problem.

Any suggestions? I'm about to call a bait shop and ask about ordering 1000 fat head minnows. Is this the best bet? I've also got a call out to the IFAS folks at UF, but accordign to the secretary the guy that would know is out of town at a conference this week.

Pass the Off and help a guy out!

our county vector control gives mosquito fish away for free..have you tried to call them? i see the water trucks driving around all the time.

Leave it to me to overlook the obvious... lady on the phone said she'd arrange for someone to come by and put a few hundred gambusia in the pond

Now we just need 8 more feet of water depth, some old christmas trees, and some bass again :)

no! because i would be much to jealous. farm pond bassin is the best way to fish. i love it.

Pond record is 14lbs 13oz, caught in '79. I've gotten at least one over 8lbs every year until last year... almost all catch and release. Pond is about 3 acres when at "normal" water levels. Something went screwey with the oxygen levels in '96, hundreds of dead bass from 2lbs to 10lbs floating belly up...

And, it is smack in the middle of town. We can hear the crowds when the Gators score.

My brother is buddies with a guy that had a family farm pond. The grandmother that lived there would not allow anyone to fish. When she finally died several folks went fishing. Every fish in the pond was a whopper. The big fish ate all the little fish.

i think i was 8 years old..i was reading an OUTDOOR LIFE magazine. there was an article on how to develop a bass farm pond. i read that thing maybe a hundred times. i remember the graphics on how a pond developed..with the big bass running the show at the end. i was fascinated and dreamed of having my own pond one day. now i live outside san francisco..something went horribly wrong with my childhood dream. hahah.

near my home in el paso texas..there was a run off reservoir. we noticed year after year, this one reservoir never ran dry. so we did the only logical thing. i had just gotten my driver's license. we cast netted a bunch of baby bass and bluegill..(very illegal, i think) and stocked this pond. we caught crawfish from the local canals. we let the thing ride for several years. my brothers first cast, a top water..produced a BEAUTIFUL 3lb black bass..i almost cried. our friend that lived near the pond opened his big mouth..and it got fished out. the utility company that ran the thing, locked the gate for good. it was as close as i ever got. damn.

In the old day, used motor oil was used....

The fish added to the new pond will make short work of the mosquito larva.

To keep the pond, get a backhoe in and make it deeper. Then add bass. :)

Backhoe isn't an option. But, we've lost an average of 12" of water depth per year for the past 8 years... Its gotten REALLY low a few times over the years, but we end up with a near miss from a hurricane or tropical storm and it makes it back.