Fish pond

“ The same intoxication which makes the flood froth and dance and shout as it tumbles down the steeps from meadow to meadow seems to thrill in their veins and give them strength to cleave an arrow flight through the quivering rapids and gambol up the falls with an exultant agility that seems strange in this fish that is so sluggish and dull on the pond bottom in midsummer. ”

“ FISH-PONDS, are those reservoirs made for the breeding and rearing of fish. They are considered to be no small improvement of watery and boggy lands, many of which can be appropriated to no other purpose. In making a pond, its head should be at the lowest part of the ground, that the trench of the flood-gate, or sluice, having a good fall, may, when necessary, speedily discharge the water. ”

“ A single fish pond suffices us simple folk, but those amateurs must have a series of them linked together: for as Pausias and other painters of his school have boxes with as many compartments as they have different coloured wax, so must they fain have as many ponds as they have different varieties of fish. ”

“ For raising the fish to a size large enough for food, ponds can be of any convenient size. In order to keep the water in healthful condition the pond must be fed by a flowing brook with some provision to prevent the water being disturbed by freshets. This can usually be arranged by a sluice to carry off the surplus water during heavy rains. Black bass raised in shallow ponds will take the fly all summer, so that considerable may be made from fishing privileges. ”

“ The second kind of ponds are the nurseries; the young fish should be moved, in a fine calm day, into this pond, in the months of March or April: a thousand or twelve hundred of this fry may be well accommodated in a pond of an acre. When they are first put in, they should be well watched, and driven from the sides of the pond, lest they become the prey of rapacious birds. In two summers, they will grow as much as to weigh four, five, or even six pounds, and be fleshy and well tasted. ”

“ If the amateur intends to keep any of his yearlings longer than December, he will have to make a larger pond. This pond need not be a [Pg 71] long, narrow one like those in which the fry were kept. Though the fish of course still require a sufficient supply of well-aerated water, a larger pond without the same marked current through it will do perfectly well. They must be well fed, and if any grow markedly bigger than the rest these should be separated. ”

“ These pond fish grow very rapidly, and are taken by nets of all shapes and sizes. Sometimes a net forty feet square is suspended from bamboo shears and worked by ropes and pulleys, the net being lowered and after a short time, during which fish may be driven towards it, slowly raised, the fish remaining in the net, the edges of which leave the waters first. In ponds of large area forty or fifty men may be seen, each with a net twelve to fifteen feet square suspended from a bamboo pole, all fishing at the same time. ”

“ They do so, however, by devouring the spawn, and thus preventing the number of fishes from increasing. When a pond is once stocked very little care is necessary; the principal thing which needs to be attended to being to break the ice in severe frosts to supply the fish with air, if the pond should not be deep enough to render this unnecessary. When fish appear to want feeding, earthworms, steeped grain, and ground malt, should be thrown into the water. ”

“ The surface and the shallows are warmer in summer than the deeper portions, and in the case of springs in the bottom of lakes or ponds the trout will gather about them in warm weather. In the pond system the ponds are so small that the fish can be seen at all times and their growth noted, so that those which have outstripped their fellows may be taken out and placed with others of the same size. This is practiced once a year with the larger fish and about three times during summer with the "babies," or those not yet arrived at the dignity of yearlings. ”

“ An important matter to consider before turning the little fish out into the pond is, how the ponds are to be protected so that their many enemies may be kept away from the fry. Kingfishers, herons, and other creatures are very partial to young trout and will cause enormous destruction if not prevented. ”

“ The necessary qualities of a pond for breeding fish, are very different from those which are requisite to make it serve for their nourishment. A good breeding pond is more rare to be met with than a good feeding one. The best indications of the former, are plenty of rushes and grass about its sides, with gravelly shoals like those of horse-ponds. The quantity of the spawn of hsh is prodigious; and where it succeeds, one fish may sometimes produce millions. Hence two or three melters, and as many spawners, placed in such a pond, will, in a short time, stock a whole country. ”

“ The water as it leaves the sluice falls into a large reservoir whence it escapes through the meshes of a strong net; the water flows away, but the fish remain. Everyone knows that it takes several days to empty a pond, therefore those who wish to take a share in the fishing, and the onlookers, are not summoned to attend before the second, third, or fourth day, according to the volume of water which the pond has to disgorge before it is ready for the final act, and this takes place as soon as the fish appear at the sluice. ”

“ The instant the pole touches a fish, the latter grasps it savagely with its claws, and does not loose its hold until it is on terra firma. When large quantities are required, the pond is drained. These shell-fish are enormous creatures, the body with the claws being as long as a man’s arm. As the lobsters and cray-fish climb nimbly up the sides of the watery caravan, they look like a collection of purple-coloured monkeys or stunted baboons ”

“ When her eggs hatched, the larvæ were slender, soft, six-footed babies called Caddis Worms. They were white, and they showed as plainly in the water as a pond-lily does on the top of it. It is not safe to be white if one is to live in the water; certainly not unless one can swim fast and turn quickly. And there is a reason for this, as any one of the pond people will tell you. Even the fishes wear all their white on the under side of their bodies, so that if they swim near the top of the water, a hungry Fish Hawk is [Pg 47] not so likely to see them and pounce down on them. ”

“ Everything looks quite graceful in its proper place, and almost everything looks silly when it is anywhere else. Even swans, who are the most beautiful of all birds in the water, look as ungainly as can be when they walk along the ground. And if you put a fish, who swims beautifully in the pool, out on the dry land, he just flops and dies, and that is not a pretty sight at all.
The duck pond is very big and round. ”

“ When the alders and willows have grown sufficiently and are well covered with leaves, they will probably give enough shelter to the fish to make the boards at the upper end of the pond unnecessary.
As time goes on, and the little fish grow, they should be thinned out, the smaller and weaker being removed into another pond. Despite the best endeavours of the fish culturist, a certain number of these small fish are sure to keep to the lower end of the pond, and it is these which should be removed first. ”

“ It lives on vegetable food, insects, larvae, and worms, and will not attack other fishes or their spawn. It is easy to raise, and, provided certain general rules are followed, success will attend its culture.
The localities best adapted to a carp pond are those in which there is sufficient water at hand for the summer as well as the winter. A mud or loam soil is best adapted for such a pond. A rocky, gravelly ground is not suited for carp; the water should be the same depth all the year, as variation has an injurious effect on the fish. ”

“ The extent of a pond must depend upon circumstances, but it should never be less than five or six acres, and as much more as is convenient; in shape it should be rather long, as regards the front of the mansion, than broad, and its outline should either be varied, or broken by planting trees and shrubs in small groups on its banks. Where ponds are intended solely for fish, without regard to their appearance in the landscape, their banks should be quite straight, and their shape square or oblong. ”

“ These are all very firm fish, and weigh more than their size promises. The shiners, pouts, and perch also, and indeed all the fishes which inhabit this pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, and firmer-fleshed than those in the river and most other ponds, as the water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished from them. ”

“ The root, however, should not be left too long in the first pond or river, lest the heat of the sun animate the spawn, and disengage it from the root.
Ponds should be drained every three or four years, and the fish sorted. In those which are kept for breeding fish, the smaller kind should be taken out, for storing other ponds; but a good stock of females, at least eight or nine years old, ought to remain, as they never breed before that age. ”

“ The winter pond costs the most to build. It should be three feet or more deep, lined with boards or cement, and located so that water will be moving through it, in and out slowly all winter, to prevent freezing. It should be covered during storms. Growers plan to get rid of their stock except breeders before winter sets in. One can dispense entirely with a winter tank if he can establish a house aquarium successfully for wintering the fish from which he expects to obtain spawn the following spring. ”

“ If you project many stews, or other ponds to be sunk right down about the same time, you will have great advantage by the clay you take out of them, which will be much more than is necessary for the bed, and that may fortify the bed, by being pressed down by the tumbrels on each side of it; and so the bank will be very much confirmed, and it will also save breaking of ground within the pond, which is a great advantage in the feed of the fish. ”

“ It is surprising that, considering the benefit which may accrue from making ponds and keeping of fish, it is not more generally put in practice. For, besides furnishing the table and raising money, the land would be vastly improved and be worth forty shillings an acre; four acres converted into a pond will return every year a thousand fed carp from the least size to fourteen or fifteen inches long, besides pike, perch, tench, and other fish. ”

“ The breeding ponds are best if about sixty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and from two to three feet deep. In such a pond from one thousand to four thousand trout of half a pound may be kept if the flow is sufficient. If the supply of water is scant in summer, make the pond narrower or shallower, in order to give a quicker change to the fish.
Each breeding pond must have a spawning race at its head, and these are narrow and shallow, making an ideal place for a trout to deposit its precious burden. ”

“ If the pond be supplied with a white fat water upon great rains, you may put into it at first three hundred carps per acre, in case there be three or four acres, else not so many. And it will be expedient to put in forty or fifty tenches for a trial, because this sort of water is most proper for carp; but being laid dry, sometimes may prove well for tenches also, which, when thriven, are a very good fish ”

“ Usually the fish first to arrive in the spring are males. These precede the females, or come along with them in the early season, while the fish to arrive last are nearly all females. The [Pg 353] few that are taken alive to the pond deposit their eggs within a few days, and, after a little stay, descend the Run, leap the dam, and again pass out into the ocean. The eggs are placed along the shallow edges of the pond, among the reeds and sedges. At first they float around in a thin, viscid slime, or jelly, which finally acts as a glue to fasten them to the grass. ”

“ There are two kinds of fish ponds, of fresh water and salt water. The former are commonly maintained by farmers and without much expense, for the Lymphae, the homely goddesses of the Fountains, supply the water for them, while the latter, the sea ponds, are the play things of our nobles and are furnished with both water and fishes, as it were by Neptune himself: serving more the purposes of pleasure than of utility, their accomplishment being rather to empty than to fill the exchequers of their lords. ”

“ The fish-saving service consists of parties of men who wade out into these inland ponds, take up the fish in nets, and restore them to the main body of the river. The fish rescued are about finger length, and from twenty to forty large tubs of them have been taken in a single day from a pond not more than half an acre in area. Billions of black bass, perch, sunfish, and other edible species are in this way added to the nation’s food resources. ”

“ For storing a pond, carp is to be preferred, on account of its delicacy, quick growth, and prolific nature, as it breeds five or six times a year. This fish delights in ponds that have marl or clay bottoms, with plenty of weeds and grass, on which it chiefly subsists during the hot months. ”

“ When a pond is made for this purpose, and filled with water, the owner goes to market, and buys as many young store-fish as his pond can conveniently hold; this he can easily do, as almost all their fish are brought to market alive. Placed in the stew, they are regularly fed morning and evening, or as often as the feeder finds it necessary; their food is chiefly boiled rice, to which is added, the blood of any animals they may kill, wash from their stewing-pots and dishes, &c., indeed any animal offal or vegetable matter which the fish will eat. ”