This has been the absolute perfect summer for building lakes and ponds! We have a handful of lake construction projects rolling at various stages right now and here is one we are finishing up tomorrow. Its the absolute perfect smallmouth bass lake!!
Along with smallmouth bass, it is actually already stocked with pellet trained blue catfish, yellow perch, hybrid striped bass, and redear sunfish. Sounds like a pretty fun combination eh? You bet!!
Ok so the dam actually went in this spring and we have been pumping in water from another lake on the property so the fish have got a great head start on life (even in this drought), they are looking great with most of the smallies already a rock solid 7-9 inches.
Anyhow since there was going to be alot of shallow water for about a 2 acre zone on the upper half of the lake we decided to build some really cool islands and peninsulas. We do these islands and peninsulas to actually save lots of money. It costs alot to move dirt a long distance, but it actually doesnt cost much at all to simply move dirt just a few feet.
So we turned a 2 acre zone that was gonna have an average depth of 4 feet or less into a smallmouth bass wonderland with an average depth of 8 feet and more in less than a week. Here are some pics, let me know what you think:
This area we threw alot of dirt on the shoreline to use for making the future building site.
With this island we eliminated shallow water on the east side of the lake. Also you can see the channel we cut in down the middle while making the dam.
This peninsula we made because we wanted to eliminate some shallow water on the west edge of the lake.
Jared putting the finishing touches on a really cool island:
Justin finishing up spreading the dirt needed for the building site and road:
Some sunflowers we planted along the west edge of this new lake earlier this spring. It is very cool to see all the birds coming in and out of this mega bird feeder all day long. Most folks think food plots are just for hunting, but we get more people wanting them just to enjoy them and their benefit to all wildlife all year long!
Reminds me of a story at our 6 acre bird feeder plot. We had a missionary from Haiti out to our place last week who went out and counted like 24 species of birds one morning from our plot consisting of sunflowers, winter wheat, sorghum, sweet corn, beans, and probably some other stuff Justin and Jared planted this spring. Anyhow it looks very cool right now and even a bunch of geese were milling around the ripe winter wheat just last night.
I guess while I am at it, it has been a very eventful and fun last few days. On Friday I took Mae and Noah to work with me. Our mission was to take the team from
HorseMeister up to a critique large horse property we have listed for sale just north of Henry next to I-80. For those who don't know, HorseMeister is a pretty big horse operation located near Glasford that specializes in breeding Fresian horses. They sell and breed these prestigious horses all over the United States, along with several other types of horses too. Also they do vaulting camps, and several other horse things that I know absolutely nothing about.
Anyhow this property for sale has a state of the art horse operation and I needed to get some experts up there to learn the ropes and make sure the horse stuff is all set up correctly. Judy and Karin did a phenomenal job critiquing the entire property and now I feel confident we can help the seller market the property correctly and help the future buyers know exactly what they are getting and what it will take to operate.
Here is a video clip Judy made of there day up at the property, of course we had to bring some riders up with us to try out all the trails as well. They had a blast:
So back to Mae and Noah's adventure. They tagged along and just loved hanging out with the horses. Also I gave Noah my old digital camera and gave him a mission to take photos of all the horses which he was super proud to have that job! He took it very seriously:
So anyhow for a house update (Brook is watching the olympics, so I am just typing away listening to them) Who knows I might just keep writing all the way till 11 pm. I am not used to having this much free time lately. Every spare moment has been working on my house. I dont got any pics at the moment, but finally am stocking drywall tomorrow baby!
Oh yeah, some lady interviewed me a few times a couple weeks ago for an article she was doing about the drought and heat's affect on midwest fish, lakes and ponds. I was polite and answered all her questions and bam I start getting calls from people reading that article that hit the top story news headline on their smart phones, etc. Here is one of many links to the various major websites that picked up that article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48372976/ns/weather/t/drought-killing-fish-waterfowl-threatened-too/Then here is the kicker to that story- CBS National Evening News team calls me up on Sunday afternoon and wants to do an article about that story on Monday. Very cool to be called by a major news network, but we were unable to make that work out on such short notice. However once another round of fish kills rolls through the area they want to come and shoot some footage of the dead fish, interview the owner of such unlucky fish and have me explain what happened. So the next person to have a major fish kill, call me up.
According to Brook the American men are doing terrible in gymnastics, but a few minutes ago me and the kids were doing a victory dance just before bed as Americans went Gold and Silver in the 100 Meter backstroke.
Here is another article I am in about fish kills and hot water-
http://smallwatersfishing.com/2012/07/15/lake-management-plants-heat/Well we have jampacked quite a bit into this blog post, but I am sure I can dig up some more good stuff. Noah loves his Herman Brothers T Shirt, wears it proudly.
He also loves Justins new Blood Hound Copper. Copper is only like 14 weeks old or something and is getting huge. These two young pups are best friends:
Chef Todd sent me this pic from a kid who caught a monster bass at Otter Creek last week:
I find myself daydreaming of offshore fishing alot lately. We are gonna be pike fishing up at Lake Delavan in a couple weeks, then salmon fishing up on Lake Michigan a few weeks after that, and then fishing down on the beach in Gulf Shores a few weeks after that, but yet no daydreaming about those places or fish species.....the blue water way off the coast of the gulf of Mexico is what inhabits what little time I have to think about stuff other than what is right in front of me.
The next couple weeks are gonna be pretty exciting. We will be filming a top secret show for a few days next week with a major production company from the East Coast that I am not allowed to talk about but am on a roll so why not just a brief mention. Now I am out of time as the Japanese just paid off the judges to get them to reverse their original scoring to steal the silver medal back from the Great Britains. Is that what you call them- Great Britains? Englishmen? Oh well.
