Fish Catch in Eldersburg

The pond in my neighborhood is a nice place to fish. Located behind my house, my son has enjoyed fishing there all summer. It's stocked full of Blue Gill, large and small-mouth bass, crappie, perch, and at least a catfish or two. We received word recently that the pond (technically a storm-water management system) no longer meets the state (or federal?) environmental protection standards. Therefore, it must be redone. We met with the county last year and they said the fine for not getting the pond into compliance exceeds the cost of retrofitting it.

On Friday, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources showed up with some local Carroll County people to do the fish catch. The process is really interesting. They have a flat-bottomed boat with 2 polls on the stern which they extend and lower into the water, then turn on the electric zapper, after which the stunned fish float to the top of the water and are scooped out with nets.

Only 2 hours late, the MDNR people got to work and quickly started pulling out the bass. I didn't realize that there was that many bass in the pond. I figured they'd fetch hundreds, if not thousands, of blue gills from the water. Perhaps the blue gill are resistant to the electricity.


Here are the people launching the boat. It was kind of humorous because the pond is really only the size of a few back yards. And then there was this boat in it.


There were a couple of prized catches. One was a giant snapping turtle that must have measured over 18 inches across the top of the shell. The guy on the boat threw it back. He said he didn't want that thing in his boat with him. The other was this giant carp. When the pond was created years ago, they put in 4 carp to help keep it clean. This is probably the only remaining one. The county official estimated that he was about 30 pounds and about 15 years old.


Here are the probes that are dunked into the water. They looked like rebar.


Here's one of the zapped bass in a bucket being transfered to a bin in one of the many pick-up trucks that they brought. Some fish were taken to Arnold's pond near Route 97 and others were dumped into Liberty Reservoir.


The geese are curious as to what is going on. When the pond drains I wonder what they will do. Will they still hang around being annoying, or will they go somewhere else and be annoying there?


And here's some more of the excitement.