Rants from the Hollow

Before they become truly amorous, fish need a certain amount of breathing room, so to speak, which varies by species. Common wisdom has it that Micropterus salmoides, otherwise known as the largemouth bass, needs more legroom than is offered by a 1/2 acre pond. I’d suspected that perhaps ours were becoming a bit less circumspect. For several years, I’d noticed some pretty small bass swimming around, which meant that the fingerlings we stocked were either not growing, or the bass were stocking themselves.

It was Elizabeth who figured it out. Before we’d even pitched our tent on the dam this summer, she’d identified a big fish and claimed first right of catch. It was the biggest largemouth I’ve ever seen in our pond, and I’ll bet it goes 2 pounds. Its got some meat on it, which is more than unusual for anything coming out of our little body of water.

Every time we saw old man bass, he seemed to be surrounded by a cloud of minnows. The funny thing was, he didn’t seem to be eating any of them. The first, and mistaken assumption, was that he was saving them for later. I dragged multiple lures right across his nose, but he evinced no interest in them at all.

He just cruised around in tight circles, always within a foot or two of the cloud of minnies. Most of them time, his territory was right around the large pipe that serves as the overflow, but sometimes he’d be 5 feet on one side, and maybe up to 15 feet on the other. His habits were predictable and he was easy to find.

It was Elizabeth who finally figured out that this was a parent, protecting its young. We did a little research and found out that the male is responsible for childcare.

Whenever the school of bass fry was disturbed, the fishlets would leap out of the water, making a series of popping sounds, like a handful of tiny pebbles landing in the water. Fun. We’d seen that effect for several years now, but never knew what kind of little minnow it was, and we thought maybe some new kind of aquatic critter had hitched a ride on a duck’s foot.

Certainly the pan fish have always bred in the pond. Within a few years of stocking it, there were fish nests all over the shallow parts. I don’t what the things are–blue gills and others. I think we had once stocked something called red eared sunfish, too, which Fenders now calls shellcracker. Maybe hybrid blue gills, too. All I know is that we’ve got more than enough of those. I don’t see any reason that our bass shouldn’t be well fed. The rule is, if you catch a pan fish, you do not throw it back.

All activity in Heiser Hollow revolves around our half acre pond. Its a constant source of aesthetic pleasure and entertainment, hosting countless fish and frogs, and playing guesthouse to an ever-changing variety of visitors (turtles, herons, otters, ducks). You can fish in it, you can swim in it, you can float in an inner tube drinking beer, or you can just stand and look at it. However you choose to enjoy it, the pond remains by far the most interesting part of the Hollow. My parents park their motor home next to it, we pitch our tent on the dam, and if we build something permanent, it will be within site and sound of the pond. There are at least two different varieties of frog–bass and tenor.

We built the pond in 1976. After extensive consultation with the state ag agent, and a series of disappointing test holes, it was decided that the only practical place to put a pond would be several hundred yards up the Hollow, towards the small and intermittent water fall. Although it would have resulted in a much larger pond, the lower meadow where we’d been parking a travel trailer just wouldn’t hold water. As it turned out, the smaller site would be an inspired one. Its only looking back at the pictures from 30 years ago that I can truly appreciate the significance of the engineering effort to build our little body of water. The dam stands 40 feet above the original ground level. It was once a big sterile pit of mud, and now it is thousands of gallons of life It took a number of months to fill with water, and it wasn’t ready to be stocked with fish the first year. That first summer, before stocking it, the pond magically became a haven for tiny tadpoles. Once we’d stocked the pond, these became become bluegill fodder.

Nasty clumps of algae were a problem during the first few years, requiring regular treatment with copper sulfate. Cattails grew up around the edges, which were scenic, but not necessarily healthy for a small pond like ours. However, after a few years, the water became increasingly cloudy, eventually reaching a balance that keeps most of the weeds down, so the pond requires very little maintenance. Willows have been a chronic problem along the face of the dam, but we haven’t seen any for several years.

The pond does leak, and dad had somebody bring in some clay once to try to fix it. It didn’t make any difference, and I’ve decided that the leak is a blessing in disguise. Although it can look pretty sad by the end of a dry summer, a large puddle surrounded by a brown layer of dried mud, the pond is deep enough that the fish are not inconvenienced at all. My pet theory is that the fluctuating water level cuts down on weed growth and the bluegill population. Most years, the dry parts of the pond include numerous depressions that had been created by the panfish for nests.

Unlike most ponds, ours is not surrounded by grass–its in the middle of the woods, which gives it a totally different sort of feel. Although the center of the pond is in the bright sun during most of the day, the sides are shaded by trees which come right down to the water. The elm trees, which are always opportunistic where light is involved, seem OK with getting their feet wet.

A few years ago, the overflow pipe finally rusted through, and dad hired someone to repair it. As long as we were performing surgery on the pond, we decided that we might as well enlargen it a bit. Some Amish guy spent 3 days with a large backhoe, scooping 30 years worth of sediment out of the back of the pond, and continuing a couple feet deeper. One side of the rear of the pond has a very steep hill, but our heavy equipment artist was able to stretch the back and eastern edges out farther, carefully arranging some sandstone boulders around the edges. He also dug a 20 foot long sediment pit behind the pond to catch most of the sand.

Unfortunately, the guy who dug up the dam to patch the pipe wasn’t quite so skilled, and he didn’t do a very good job of compacting the clay when he replaced it. Not only do we have a depression on top of the dam, but the base of the dam has sprung a small but obvious leak. It has been dribbling in this new, visible spot for two years now, and the pond is fuller then ever. I assume that it should be repaired, but how do you know the next guy won’t make it worse? You could drain the pond, spend thousands on lining it with clay, rubber, or some newfangled spray stuff–all of which kills the fish and sets you back 5-10 years–and you still might have a leaky pond. I guess lots of healthy natural things leak. All in all, its a beautiful little pond, leaks and all.