Pond Boss Magazine: From the Boss's Desk

There’s just something about a new year. Human nature gives many of us renewed, refreshed hope for goodness this time of year…and for the upcoming months.

Here it is, this new year, and we’re looking at it in the headlights. Since this is a rag about good stewardship of water and land, I’ll turn the tide’s current away from philosophy and stay in my lane. For 2026 pond management, the focus is directly aimed at “Happy” water. The longer I do this, the more important water management becomes.

I’m not sure if we’re seeing more water quality problems nationwide, or if we just didn’t have the ability to see it decades ago. Heck, if a fish kill happened, we just chalked it to misfortune, or over-feeding, or too much fertilizer…something. In this issue, pay special attention to two articles that are seemingly in conflict. They aren’t but when you read those two, one by Mississippi State Fisheries expert, Dr. Wes Neal and the other by Patrick Goodwin, with Natural Lake Biosciences, you’ll see the revelations about the deeper science of water quality management.

Staying with the water quality theme, Chris Cornwell describes turbidity. Dave Beasley tackles a case study that dials deep into, you guessed it, water quality and getting rid of pond muck biologically. I had a little fun reviving an article I wrote years ago, this time playing with AI to turn it into a poem…of which I’m not.

Our long-time friend, microbiologist Bill Cody, from Ohio has the first in a series about Largemouth bass talking points. Josh Sakmar has his second installment about what not to do when building a prime fishing lake.

Otto and Gray have stories about dilemmas and side effects when building lakes and ponds. Plus, we have all the regular stuff as well. Learn how to do an old-school bathymetry map, words about Smallmouth bass.

As we raise the hood on a new year to get ready for this next trip around the sun, I want to thank you personally for reading these pages. Your loyalty and eagerness to learn about ponds and lakes keeps us on our toes.

Happy New Year!

A series dedicated to Bob Lusk's general musings about land, water and life.