Keeping a pond healthy and happy is a labor of love. An imporperly designed pond (like your sounds like it is) can be a real maintenance nightmare. A pond should have excellent filtration, clear water and no sludge or debris at the bottom. Also, it should have no more than 1 koi per 250 gallons or 1 goldfish per 50 gallons. Your pond has approximatly 1200 gallons if it is recangular, much less if it's round or oval and also depending on how much of the pond is 2' deep and how much is 5' deep. but lets assume it has 1200 gallons. That means you have room for 24 goldfish or 5 koi, IF you have good filtration. but you have none at all, so your pond is a problem waiting to happen. It can't go on like that forever. Parasites and harmful bacteria are breeding in that sludge and could sicken or kill the fish. Hudrogen sulphide gas can also form in that sludge and kill the whole pond. So if you want to keep it....you need to get some filtration installed. Get a water test kit and check the water. Get the pond cleaned of all debris and sludge. this needs to be done now, before cold weather sets in because if the fish head into spring in a filthy pond, they are sitting ducks for massive parasite and bacterial infections. And find new homes for most of the fish....only keep a very light load for yourself. Like I said....koi keeping is a labor of love. Try it for a while. If you don't enjoy the upkeep, then fill it in, or make it shallower and stock it with plants and forget about fish....just make it a nice shallow water garden. that would be safer for the kids anyway.

Let me think... Green Treefrog Gray Treefrog Spring Peeper Blanchards Cricket Frog Western Chorus Frog Bullfrog Green frog Bronze Frog Northern Leopard Frog (heard) Southern Leopard Frog American Toad Dwarf American Toad Fowlers Toad Blue Spotted Salamander Tiger Salamander Spotted Salamander Smallmouth Salamander Marbled Salamander Mole Salamander Longtail Salamander Cave Salamander Eastern Zigzag Salamander Southern Redback Salamander Northern Slimy Salamander Western Slimy Salamander Common Snapping Turtle Midland Painted Turtle Southern Painted Turtle Common Map Turtle Red Eared Slider Blanding's Turtle Eastern Collered Lizard Northern Fence Lizard Southern Coal Skink Five Lined Skink Broad-headed Skink Ground Skink Western Worm Snake Midwest Worm Snake Southern Black Racer Northern Ringneck Snake Mississippi Ringneck Snake Prairie Ringneck Snake Black Ratsnake Western Fox Snake Eastern Hognose Snake Speckled Kingsnake Black Kingsnake Yellowbelly Watern Snake Midland Water Snake Northern Water Snake Broad Banded Water Snake Queen Snake Midland Brown Snake Northern Redbelly Snake Eastern Garter Snake Chicago Garter Snake Lined Snake Western Cottonmouth Timber Rattlesnake Scott

Awesome. I love those copperhead shots. That rough green is pretty little snake too. One of my friends who knows just a little about snakes told me he saw one in a tree about 5 feet above his head, even though we are slightly out of range of both the rough and smooth green (according to Petersons).

Dave-If you are talking about Gum Swamp, we went there, but it was mostly dried up and the few logs that I flipped produced nothing. I'm sure there were better areas in Cades Cove, but we spent so much time in traffic we didn't have time to check them out. Dan-The one I called a pigmy was very small (only about an 1.5in) and I thought Ocoees had a straight line down their backs not wavy like this one. I found a couple of pigmys that were obviously pigmys (typical yellow chevrons) but then I found some small ones like this that just had a wavy red or yellow line down the back. I knew the one below the Jordan's was some type of dusky, because of the line from its eye to jaw. I guess I just didn't know that imitators got that big. Thanks for the ID. Can anybody tell me what the first 5 dusky pics are? I imagine they are probably a mix of Ocoees, imitators, and Santeetlahs (because of the high elevation).