:usaflag: Fishing the "Tanks"

[Cupajo]

Fred stirred a few memories when he mentions the cat-fish hole in the earlier post!

Thanks Fred!!!

There are many curiosities to be found in Texas!

One such thing is what is called a "tank" which is nothing much more than a hole scooped out of the ground to catch rain water for livestock to drink and possibly light irrigation.

The hole often is in clay soil that will hold the water and not allow it to leach away into the surrounding soil strata.

When the "tank" is first dug there are no life forms in residence, however in very short order there will be frogs and fish and craw-fish and lily pads and other kinds of water plants along with willows trees and mesquite bushes.

There will be birds and other wildlife visiting the water as it may be the only water available for many miles in any direction.

The birds are often water fowl that bring fish and frog eggs to the tank attached to their feathers and legs.

In almost no time at all there are tad-poles and minnows galore.

One day some country-boy tries a grasshopper or fat worm baited hook and pulls out a nice fat perch, bass or cat-fish!

All this seems to happen quickly, but checking the calendar will usually reveal that maybe five or even eight years have passed since the first rains filled the new tank.

In subsequent years there will be periods of flooding and dry-spells when you couldn't buy a rain-drop, but somehow the tank lives on even when the bottom is cracked and seemingly life-less!

Let the rains come and life will follow!!!

CJ

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

in the area...bass, brem, and catfish. Just is case some of you city folks up north wonder what we are talking about, a stock tank is what you folks will call a pond...we call them stock tanks because their primary function is to provide drinking water for the livestock on the ranch. Today's rancher will often build larger stock tanks and stock them with fish. Some ranches have a sandy loam type of soil and will not retain water, so those stock tanks are usually packed with drilling mud to seal the soil so that the water will remain in the stock tank. We had several large stock tanks, three to five acres, twelve feet deep on our ranch, all stocked with fish. I would like to make mention that the sandy loam type soil is the type that has the nasty sand burrs...painful little sticker burrs. Cupajo, your story brought back some good memories, thanks! Kelley (Texas)