Draining the Pond - Final Day

We are finally close to the bottom of the pond.  As the water lowers,  the deepest part of the pond is becoming visible.    It where the intake for the pump is located.  It became clear why it stopped pumping.  There is a big pile of mud in the bottom.   The deepest part is just below a perch on the top where the owners children would dive in.   At that point, its about 12 feet deep.    The deepest part is about 4 feet deep and full of mud.   Stinky, smelly, thick, gross mud.

Draining the catfish pond - day 4

We has a fishery expert come and catch the catfish.  We were expecting a lot more catfish and they only caught 7.   We fired up the pump and started lowering it some more.   There are quite a few goldfish that we see swimming around and hope to catch them when the water is lower.   We are starting to see multiple depth levels on the pond.     The dock is completely out of water now.

What to do with the channel catfish in the pond!

There are channel catfish and goldfish in the pond.   The failure of the pond pump and the possibility that the fish may die due to lack of circulation.    We originally were going to keep the goldfish and put them in a tank while we drained the pond and them put them back in.    There was also the mystery of how many catfish were actually in the pond.   The owner of the land and pond decided to give the catfish away.  I am happy to hear that because I would like to have a pond with plants, small fish, frogs, lillies, lotuses.   That isn't possible with catfish as they eat everything.

Heres a picture of the channel catfish.

She found a company that runs a couple catch and release fishing ponds so they arrived to catch the catfish in the pond
Here are pictures of them dragging a net through the pond.

They drug the net through the pond 4 times and only caught 7 catfish.   The was very puzzling because we believed there were more catfish in the pond.

They left and we figured we would find more as we continued to drain the pond.

Draining the catfish pond - Day 3

We continued to pump water from the pond into the orchard.   It got to the point where the ground wouldn't take anymore water.    The issue then became finding other parts of the farm to floor, where it wouldn't end up in someone's back yard, as the farm is completely surrounded by houses and all their back yards are up against the farm property line.
We are now able to see the different levels of the bottom appear along with some of the pipes that comprise the plumbing.

Draining the Catfish Pond - Day 2

The lowering of the pond continues.  We are planning on running the pump from dusk to dawn.   Its a small pump - and we are flooding the trees and also flooding the vegetable rows in the corral.  
Here are pictures of the pond as its being lowered.   The landowner also came by to watch the pump after I left to go to work.

Draining the Catfish Pond - Day 1

There is a pond on the farm that is stocked with channel catfish.   We use the water from the pond to irrigate the trees.   This is a great way to irrigate the fruit trees along with providing nutrients from the fish waste.   Unfortunately, the pump used to circulate and aerate the water stopped working.  It appears the intake at the bottom of the pond is plugged up.    The pond is about 12 feet deep at the deepest part where the intake is located.   The water has also been very muddy and dirty looking lately.   We decided the only way to fix it was to empty the pond, clean it out and start all over with clean water.  
We rented a 2 inch pump and started pumping the water into the tree furrows and other parts of the farm.

Here are images of the pond after pumping for 1 day.

Red Racer, Red Racer, where are you racing off to?

I came across a decent size red racer snake today that was high tailing it to a stand of four o clocks.     Red Racers are a non venomous snake native to the southwest and california.    The adults will feed on small mice, birds, snakes, lizards, and other small animals.   A adult will reach about 36 inches.      This one has a small rodent in its mouth, as it was racing for cover.  It got stuck in the fence, but quickly wiggled free and disappeared into the brush.    Here is a picture of the snake right after it wiggled itself from the fence.  

This snake is also sometimes called the coach whip snake because the tail looks like a braided whip.   Here is a picture of a Red Racer and you can clearly see its tail.