The white dipnets with very fine mesh are inferior to the green ones with more open mesh, as they get more gummed up with sediment. Get dipnets as long as possible for better retrieving. The large heavy white dipnet on the end of a fat pole doubles as a paddle and as a dipnet. Weather Weather is important, as you need good visibility on the bottom of the pond. Sunny is best, but that may be a hard one to achieve.
Rain is awful, as it makes it hard to see below the surface.
Number of ponds Do only one pond per day. And do both sides of a pond on the same day. Try to expend equal effort on the two sides, so that the capture rates are equivalent. The night before you nuke a pond, throw in a dozen traps on both sides. This may catch a sizeable fraction of all the fish in the ponds, which helps a lot.