Pond Stewardship for Catching Fish
Here at the Shepherd Research Center, we have a lake with very high fish productivity. It’s called Fish Fry Lake, and it lives up to its name. Amazingly, when we moved here, this water was so nutrient-saturated that its dissolved oxygen levels were only about one third of what Cutthroat require to survive. Today Cutthroat are doing well, despite our being located thirty miles east of Billings, out on the plains, where water can get very warm in the summer.
Two Minutes per Fish
On our small research lake, Fish Fry Lake, which is 54 acre-feet of water, we harvest at least 6,000 fish annually, a mix of panfish and larger fish. We do this to cycle inflow phosphorus out of the water, to prevent HABs (harmful algae blooms). The fish are accumulators of phosphorus so we take them out of the system. It’s much more pleasant to catch panfish fish than it is to harvest aquatic vegetation, by the way!
We trade nutrients for fish, feeding the fish instead of algae.
We target one- and two-year old bluegill, sunfish, and largemouth bass. These guys readily hit flies, and flies dressed up with a bit of GULP too. Again, goal is to harvest and remove phosphorus.
Success looks like fifteen kids catching 879 fish in four hours, or ten kids catching 634 fish in the same time, on different days, but similar settings. We catch all of these fish from shore or from walkable BioHaven floating islands, so we don’t need boats. In other words, the logistics are relatively simple.
We take the “keepers”, the one- and two-year old fish, and run the entire fish — including scales and guts — through a Kitchen-Aid grinder, turning it into fish hamburger. Yes, we have to cut the fish into grinder-size pieces, so there is an “operation” involved. Then we blend the fish burger with our wild game…which includes venison and elk trim, goose, duck, pheasant, and any other freezer burned game meat.
I tell you what, the result is a paleo food for our three canines that is “off the chart” from their perspective! They love it! This includes a seven-week-old yellow lab! Which makes me think, what the hell do they add to the kibble that currently functions as mainstay food for our beloved pets? I don’t care if it’s “made in China” or what, regular kibbles are a mystery. Anymore, it’s hard to convince our canines that kibbles are “food”!
Swapping Computer Screens for Fishing Poles
Another thing that’s amazing to me is that so many young people are no longer in touch with fishing. So many kids have never been fishing, and even fewer have caught fish. Still fewer know how to clean fish. Still fewer know how to fillet fish. But rest assured, lots of kids have experienced “all of the above” here at Fish Fry Lake. Maybe a little fish slime on their computer keyboards isn’t a bad thing!
What about you? Do you take your kids fishing? Have you tried living on a paleo diet?
