Electrofishing- Shocking Lakes and Ponds

Been out electrofishing lots of lakes and ponds the last week. While each body of water is unique from the next, even more unique is the owners who own them. I know a thing or two about raising fish in general, but what I really have been focussing on learning and what is the key to success is learning owners. Learning who they are, what they like, and what degree they are capable of managing is way more important than just knowing fish.

I give everyone a very customized management plan that is easy for them to not only understand, but very easy to implement based upon THEM. Here are just some pics and descriptions of places I have been in the last week:



Mark Rocke's pond above is 40 years old and has lots of duckweed and algae. Recently he had a pretty big fish kill, but not all fish were lost. He is going to experiment with a new product called clipper for this year, and start putting together a game plan for renovation that includes some muck removal and possibly raising up the overflow for extra depth.

Luke Rocke has an amazing swimming hole in his back yard. His mission is to maintain optimum water quality while growing some mega boone and crocket bluegills. His problem is too many pesky big green carps.....Most people would kill for that good bass in there pond and Luke could care less, he wants boone and crocket gills!



Mark and Luke grilled up some antelope brats and I helped em disappear. After eating we headed over to Lisa's place to design a dock for her with a rope swing similar to Luke's. That will be a challenging yet very exciting project!


Dr. Bob has a real nice place out in Knox County! Check out the cabin and soon you will be checking out some pig fish as he starts to implement his new fish management plan!

Steve Bertschi just bought a pond to build his future home near and he just wanted to find out whats in there and how to maintain the pond for good overall fishing that includes many fish frys in the future. We found some mega redears in there!

Ed Sauder has a smallmouth bass, yellow perch, hybrid striped bass pond that some really awesome lake management company stocked 2 years ago as an experiment. The fish are growing rapidly with pretty much all of em in the 10-14 inch range! Just some basic maintenance needed for the swimming beach. His other pond needs a little bit more help in order to grow some bigger bass. They max out at about one pound, but that is going to change very rapidly as he gets out all the catfish and thins out the herd of bass too.

Then Saturday I spent the day at Otter Creek taking more than 25 guys fishing from 5 am to 10 pm. More pictures of that day to come in a future post!!!!! Sunday I spent at church and then headed to the lake with the kids and family for some swimming, fishing, and burgers! Here are some pics, the walleye were on fire and we caught bunches of them! Also we caught a nice rain shower while out in the middle of the lake!

Today the guys built a big dock with a 10 foot second story to jump off of for Troy in Mapleton. I spent the day showing some properties to Peter and Cindy Maffei from South Dakota. Of course while showing properties its a must to sample some fish. Pretty nice for about 15 minutes of fishing in a couple of the lakes eh?

Also got some guys in the field planting bunches of food plots and warm season prairie grasses. Grabbed a pic of Brandon and Ryan working the ground as we drove by this afternoon:

Tuesday we are electrofishing at Lake Wildwood, Wednesday shocking a 35 acre lake in Rapatee and spraying a half a dozen ponds for algae and duckweed around Tremont. Thursday we are stocking two ponds in Bloomington and then shocking a pond in Ellsworth, and shocking a pond near Downs. Friday I am meeting a guy in Oak Run about building a big dock and the guys are installing an aeration system in Trivoli and then we are meeting up at Norris to build a mega jump dock for the new BLOB! We will work and play out at the lake all the way through Monday!!!

Fishing Pictures

We had 45 minutes to kill between appointments this afternoon so we popped in at the lake and took Mae and Noah fishing.

Chef Todd and Mae caught a monster smallmouth bass! I couldn't believe he actually let her have the pole to reel it in it was so big! hehe


More fishing pics from our little dock fishing trip below, but first we went electrofishing out in Elmwood, Illinois at a 1.5 acre pond and were pleasantly surprised to find some very quality pope and young bluegills!


While I was out Electrofishing and installing a Vertex Air One Plus aeration system with Allen and Chef Todd, Justin and Josh delivered some of the last yellow perch and smallmouth bass and pumkinseeds for the spring and treated a 6 acre pond for curly leaf pond weed in Princeville and a 1 acre pond for american pondweed and algae in Morton.

Tomorrow the boys will be headed to Port Byron to install a custom Vertex Air 6 aeration system and apply some of our own blend of muck and nutrient reducing bacteria.

So anyhow, here are the rest of the photos from our fishing trip this afternoon. It was nice to spend some time outside with Mae and Noah! After fishing for about 30 minutes we all loaded up and headed out to a clients place at 6 pm to meet with some landscapers about adding some trees around a 3 acre pond in Fulton County.....Anyhow its great to see these kids chomping at the bit to catch fish all by their own selves!

This snake was almost 6 feet long and was huge! Anyone know what kind it is?

Nebraska Docks, Iowa Electrofishing

Its 4:09 pm on Sunday afternoon and I just woke up from a 4 hour nap. Apparently these days I catch up on sleep during the middle of the day at any opportunity possible.

Monday morning May 9th I was at the office at 2:45 am getting ready for the upcoming week. We pulled out of town at 5 am headed for Lincoln, Nebraska with a full truck load of tools, clothes, gear, and bodies. Justin, Josh, Allen, Caleb, and I packed into the extended cab Chevy and headed out on an adventure west on I-80.

We arrived at our first location at 1:30 in the afternoon and built this dock from scratch in less than 5 hours!

It was a 12x16 floating dock with a 6x16 gangway with flip up boat cleats, a nice swim ladder, composite decking, and mounted to 6x6 posts anchored 3 feet into the ground. Our crew is becoming dock building machines, oh yeah also of note is that it was 96 stinkin hot degrees on Monday!!! Thats sure a wake up call workin in the HEAT!

Good thing we were working on a pond. The water was a chilly 62 degrees, but man did it feel nice to cool down every hour. This pond was about an acre and was stocked full of smallmouth bass, hybrid striped bass, jumbo yellow perch, golden shiners, and condello strain bluegills!

Then we headed to a place called Lazlos for dinner. Real nice place to eat, but we were too tired to go change so they got a table full of worn out, dirty, smelly foreigners. Amazingly they placed us on a section were no one else was eating........good times. Then after putting down a bunch of chicken fried chicken, prime rib, salmon salad, and some other stuff we found a hotel with double queen beds for the week.

Next morning we were up at 5:45 am and hit the continental breakfast and headed out to our next job which was about 10 miles South of Lincoln. For both these projects we had all the hardware and floats shipped in and all the Lumber delivered locally. This project was much, much bigger than the first dock. This was a 20x42 with built in fish cages, a 5' jump dock, and a boat slip. Also we built two sets of stairs going down to the dock and had to get real creative with the footings since all the shoreline is made up of limestone and various other forms of rock.

Here are some random pics of this dock. The first one I am going over the built in cage design with Bruce:

Here we are building the cages out of double galvanized plastic coated wire. This material is rated for 30 years in saltwater.

I didn't have an opportunity to take many pics, but will add some more as they are sent to me from various people. The finished product with the staircases, fish cages, jump platform and boat slip is very very cool!!!

Tuesday and Wednesday we worked from 6 am to 9 pm and it was still 90 degrees HOT! At least it was hot until Wednesday afternoon when a huge cold front came rolling through along with bunches of rain. That cooled things off nicely, but sure made for a muddy mess the rest of the week. Thursday we were pretty tired so we slept in till 7 am and got a late start, but made up for it by working into the dark finishing up the project.

We finished about 10 pm just as the next round of storms came rolling through. Installing the underwater green monster light was the last task of the project. Us 5 guys put in 225 hrs of work in just those three days on this dock project. It turned out awesome and the new owner is super excited!

Friday morning we had to leave the hotel by 5 am to get to Cedar Rapids on time. We made it out the door on time even with putting all of our bags and stuff into garbage sacks due to the rain. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we brought the electrofishing boat along for this road trip too. Cedar Rapids is right along I-80 and a couple guys there wanted their lakes shocked.

We rolled into Cedar Rapids about 10 am and got started in the rain (of course). Super awesome looking 5 acre lake custom built 4 years ago and stocked from a local hatchery. The fish were really really bad though, very surprising for such a newly stocked pond. The only bright spots in the whole lake were some 10 inch perch and almost 11 inch crappies. Everything else was very small and skinny, very uncharacteristic from such a newly stocked pond.

That will change shortly though, this pond is gonna be the talk of Cedar Rapids about 2 years from now!! We are custom designing a cutting edge feeding program with a complete lake bottom aeration system and upgrading the genetics of the panfish big time! Next time you see this lake on the blog it will be with some 11 inch bluegills and 14 inch perch in the pictures!!!

Next pond was an older 3 acre pond sitting right in the path of some future development. Anyhow we came up with a management plan to have alot of fun with this pond for the time being! Gonna be an easy one to turn into a monster bass fishery with some bonus Tiger Muskies!

While the rain kept coming down we decided to head over to the Pizza Ranch lunch buffet before hitting the last 2 ponds. That was really good food and we all ate light and in moderation since we have to start being healthier and certain people will eventually be reading this.....We hung around the buffet a few extra minutes and eventually the rain stopped

So anyhow, the next pond was super interesting. It was stocked 4 years ago with redear bluegill, hybrid bluegill, catfish, and crappie. When I heard that I knew immediately what we would find, but I didnt expect it to be that bad.....


The whole pond was infested with 3-5 inch crappies and 2-4 inch redears with a hanful of 6 inch hybrid bluegills. Not good at all if you want to grow panfish to eat! You need predators or your panfish will get mega stunted!

One good thing about this pond is that the forage base is primed for the predators. I gave the owner several options and it looks like the predator of choice for his situation is going to be Hybrid Striped Bass! Those fish along with a light feeding program will turn that pond right around.

Last pond of the day was a 1/2 acre pond that used to be dynamite fishing. No one has caught any fish for the last couple years and we definitely found out why......There wasnt any catchable fish in the pond! Apparently a few years ago there was a big fish kill and now the pond is full of bullheads, fathead minnows, and white sucker fish.

Game plan for this pond is to get it aerated in the deep water for the summer and along the edge for the winter. This will prevent future fish kills and will provide the whitetail deer in the area a great place to drink during the harsh winter. The fish we are going to stock are feed trained largemouth bass! Gonna be lots of fun for the boys to come down to the dock and toss out big nuggets for the bass to demolish! That will create an instant fishery and alot of fun for the boys not just fishing, but interacting with the pond and fish firsthand.

5:30 pm and we are headed for home! About 9 pm and I walk in the door (in the rain of course) to some anxiously awaiting children!!! Boy was it good to see them! At one point during the week Mae told Brook she had forgotten what I even looked like....Its good to know your missed, but being gone for that long is definitely not something we will be doing very often.

Saturday I had the priviledge of loading back into the van and heading back to Iowa for Brook's grandparents 60 year anniversery party in Bloomfield. Turns out Josh was riding bull's just 5 miles down the road at Davis County Fairgrounds so me and a couple guys snuck away for a bit and watched about 15 riders get thrown onto the ground and some even got stomped on. Crazy stupid stuff.

Back in the van with a load of cranky kids and of course rain and home by midnight. That brings me up to today. Church till noon, then nap till 4 and its now 10 pm and the kids are in bed and I am watching the Bulls game that I taped earlier. We went to N.O.W music festival with all the kids tonight in Farmington. It was a collection of local Christian artists playing various types of music with free concessions.

Next week is gonna be pretty exciting too. Lots of local clients are chomping at the bit for us to get their projects started and I have a gazillion emails and voicemails to catch up on. If your reading this and I still havent returned your message, please be patient. Cell service was horrible in Nebraska, and I was too tired at night to return emails. Usually I keep up pretty good even when traveling, but my voice mail box is actually filled up completely so I cant get anymore of those for the time being.

Camera battery is charged back up and so am I! Especially looking forward to Saturday!! I am hosting a big Hooked on Fishing fundraiser at Otter Creek and also Hook and Hunt TV is coming to film a fishing show too. Chef Todd is cooking a feast and we have over 10 boats signed up. I still could accommodate a few more boats if anyone is interested in coming you have to supply all your own gear, bait, and boat.

Food is provided but you can bring some wild game for Chef to cook up if you want. Cost is $500 donation to fishing park per boat. You will be allowed to take home crappies and certain other management fish. Just send me an email or shoot me a call if you want more information.

Spring Management Marathon

Been working the boys 12-15 hour days for the last 2 weeks. Here is just bits and pieces. Its 4:02 pm Saturday afternoon and I just woke up from a nap. Yep, its been a busy 2 weeks and I was running on fumes.....

Last friday morning I stocked over 1,000,000 golden shiners out at Otter Creek Preserve. Mike and I stepped into the woods at our last dump and found 30 nice morels! Then I headed over past Bloomington to Saybrook, IL and electrofished an awesome 8 acre rock quarry in the evening. Here are some pics:

Then I headed to Canton and dropped off some fish to Calvary Baptist Church for their Outdoor Expo on Saturday. Here is there website link: http://www.midwestoutdoorexpo.com/ They set up our portable fishing pond and the kids had a blast, I heard the event was great, so look for that one next year! Got finished at 9 pm and went to sleep at our place in Norris. Saturday I was up at 5 am and loaded up a truckload of catfish for the Outdoor Expo and dropped them off on my way to a consultation past Canton. Spent 4 hours talking about fish and deer and then headed back to Norris to get a bunch of grass seeded. We worked ground till dark.

Then Sunday we all headed out to Otter Creek to spend the day mushroom hunting and crappie fishing. WOW, what a day! We actually all skipped church (mom, dad, justin, katy, and my clan) which doesnt happen too much, but was a much needed day to spend outside at one of the most amazing places on the planet. Walking miles up and down hills wasnt exactly relaxing, but surprisingly very rejuvenating! Just what the doctor ordered after a crazy busy last month.

We found 191 morels and dad caught 70 crappies while we were out in the woods. Dinner Sunday evening was just simply amazing!

Monday morning early, I went out to a big project we are coordinating in Fulton County. It is the ultimate outdoorsmans lodge! I will have more pictures, blueprints, and descriptions of this lodge we are building coming up as time permits, but here are just a couple pics:




Then we loaded up a mobile cabin home for a client and hauled it up to the fox chain of lakes. Not an easy thing hauling a cabin through Chicago!

When we finally made it up to the chain we set the trailer level, hooked up the utilities, and then went out to eat with Joe at a local bar and devoured 'extreme' burgers at 10 pm. We just slept in the trailer and started working on building the deck and screen room at 5 am. We worked till about 4 pm and headed home cause we had to deliver fish wednesday morning.

So wednesday we were again up before the sun and delivered jumbo yellow perch and golden shiners to 17 different lakes from Goodfield, Congreville, Morton, East Peoria, to the other side of the river near Canton, Elmwood, Middlegrove, Yates City, and Victoria. Very full day.

Back on the road up to the Chain of lakes at 4 am Thursday morning and we worked on the deck until about 8 pm we headed in town to celebrate Cinco de Mayo at an authentic mexican joint. Boy do I feel sorry for the plumbing system at the RV park the next day, everyone that went down to the restroom came back with some sort of burning on the other end story.........

Friday morning we slept in till 6 and actually took some pics of our progress:

We took our dimensions for our screened opening and the trailer skirting and will be back up in a couple weeks to finish er off. Then we had some very pleasant chicago traffic on our way home which at one point we drove 4 miles in one hour. By the time we finally made it to the scene of the accident we had no sympathy for the people who collided into each other.

Saturday morning I picked up Noah at 6 am from Norris. He was camping out at the lake with his grandma. We loaded up a whole bunch of jumbo yellow perch and took them up to Victoria, Il to a fishing club. Then we dropped off a couple hundred lbs of fish food to another fishing club in the area and also dropped off a fish feeder to a different guy in that area. Here are some pics of Noah helping me today.

Then we headed into Peoria to load up again and headed out to El Paso, IL to drop off another load of fish food and some lake supplies to a client. Thats when I made it home about 2 pm and both Noah and I crashed together for a couple hours....Now Brook and I are headed to a MercyMe concert at the Civic Center.

Monday we will be heading to Lincoln, Nebraska with a full crew of 5 guys to build two big docks, then heading down I-80 we will be stopping in at Cedar Rapids, Iowa on our way back to electrofish 5 ponds on Thursday and Friday. Saturday we will stop in Bloomfield, IA and finally will be home late Saturday night. When we get back to work locally on May 16th we have a list a mile long to get accomplished.

Gonna be an exciting next few months.....