There is a one acre pond on land where I am going to build a house. It was strictly a livestock pond and never stocked with fish. There is no longer livestock on the property and will only have the possibility of very small numbers of livestock in the future.

I decided to see if there was fish in the pond, so I put a bucket feeder on it with floating feed. After a week or so there were tons fish hitting the feed. I have had ponds in the past that were naturally stocked, so I expected to have a pond full of mudcats and goggle eyes. I got a pole, and to my surprise, all I caught were some type of bream and 3" to 4" shiners. I did catch a large channel cat, but I've been putting some in there out of the lake, so I know where it came from. There are tons of small bream, but I was surprised at how large some of them were. I caught one larger than my hand. These sunfish look like shellcracker that don't have a red ear. Do bluegill ever not have blue on them?

Anyway, the main thing I want to catch out of this pond is catfish. However, I figured since there is such a population of sunfish and shiners already that I could put some type of predator in there and get more good size sunfish. In addition, I'm afraid the shiners are going to eat a large portion of my feed for the bream and catfish. They literally swarm. There is no telling how many are in there. I was thinking about putting 20 or so HSB in the pond. I am open to LMB, but I really don't want them to get overpopulated with such a HUGE forage now and then have a ton of undersized bass when the pond comes into balance, or worse yet go the other way and have them eat too many of the sunfish.

Anyway, I'm not a total rookie at this, but I am by no means an expert. Any advice would be appreciated. I spoke to a local guy who sells fish, but was unimpressed at his expertise. He told me If I stocked enough channel catfish they would eat the shiners. I'm not sure I believe they could actually catch them.

Hey CD,

Welcome to PBF!

Can you post a few pictures of the fish? I am sure the guys here will need them to help identify.

Bill D.

Actually, just a minute ago my father in law sent me some pics of the fish he caught. They are blue gill for sure. They just don't seem to be as deep blue as most.

Not like BG around here

Wouldn't that be a longear?

I am no good at the fish ID game but it sure looks to me that the fish is at least part Longear (LES).

Is there a creek or stream that feeds into this pond, even one that is dry part of the time?

No stream or creek within 1/2 mile. No way for it to drain to it from them either as the pond is at a higher elevation.

All the longear I've seen have had distinct horizontal marks across the face. Perhaps this fish is crossed with one. I don't know. Honestly, I don't care that much what they are, I'm just glad to have them.

The question is more about how HSB will do to thin out the shiners and bream.

Nice fish! I don't even think George G's HSB could swallow a longear that size!

Okay, then I'm guessing the pond was bucket stocked with an assortment of lepomids at some point. My question about the streams was two-fold, to try and determine what sunfish might be present, as well as wondering if the shiners might actually be creek chubs.

I think HSB would prey on your fish, but if you intend to feed the catfish the HSB might prefer that to natural forage. The limited gape on the HSB will influence what sizes they will effectively be able to utilize, especially where the sunfish are concerned.

Crimsondave, what did you have in mind with the 'naturally stocked' reference? How did the ponds you have had in the past or this pond get the google eyes and mudcats?

Several on this forum have found fish in ponds that were 'supposed' to be empty and we all are still frantic to figure out how so many bodies of water all seem to come up full of fish when left unattended.

I have no idea. I've always heard the old wives tale about birds. All our cattle ponds in MS always ended up with bullheads in them. I promise you nobody put bullheads in the ponds. It's a mystery to me.

I would think somebody had to have put the bream in this one. I've never seen desirable fish just show up like that. The shiners???? Nobody who has ever lived here (and I mean since King George) would have intentionally put shiners in the pond. There are tons of ponds around, some stocked and aerated. I don't know what are in those. People here would know more about "migration" than I. Could the cattle have carried fertilized fish eggs? I've always wondered how these things happen.

They are for sure shiners. No doubt about it. Based on the fact HSB might prefer the feed, I'm just going to pick up 100 LMB this weekend and put them in it. That's the standard recipe for a reason, I suppose.

If you want the pond for CC, why not let them do the thinning instead of LMB.

I know that most will say to have BG, you need LMB to keep their numbers in control. Then others will say don't add CC because they will compete for the forage to have nice LMB, especially as the CC get bigger.

So, why not experiment for a few years and see if the CC can thin the BG? Once you put in the LMB, there's no going back. It's not a bad thing to have too much forage, whether its for the LMB or CC.

If you ever get pictures of the shiners and more pictures of the sunfish/bluegill, some really sharp folks here can help us solve the mystery.

Who on here was it that shut off the feeders for a spell and made their HSB work for a living??

I would do just that. I've even put a couple 8 to 10 lb blues in that survived that will for sure hit some of the sunfish. I'm not too concerned about the bass for the sunfish. My concern is the swarming shiners! I don't believe the cats will be able to do enough to put much of dent in them.

So the real question is you want something that will go after the shiners, and not the BG.

I am not a HSB guy, but lets say you put some in. They have to eat something, right? My guess is they will go after the shiners before BG because of body shape. However you can't feed any pellets because they prefer those instead. But do you need to? Don't need to feed the CC if they have BG. Question then is, will you get good enough growth on the CC to make you happy? Another concern, I think, is when the CC get really big they will go after the larger BG, and you have to be carefull you don't lose all the forage base they provide. Perhaps those bigger CC will then go after the shiners instead of BG?

If you go the LMB route, they probably will eat the shiners before the BG too. However, you can now feed the CC, and the BG will feed too. Guess it depends on whether or not you want to feed.

But from what I understand with the Blues, they will eat everything once the are big enough, so who knows what they will do to your whole balance!!! They were caught once to stock into your pond, might be pretty tough to catch them again.

I had RBT, and turning off the feeder definitely focused their attention to the BG ( and I would think shiners?). But you need to keep it off for a good while( plus/minus two weeks or more) to get them to start. Have you considered RBT?

I would have to assume a lot of forage fish get eaten by CC at night rather than day time. So speed of the catfish compared to shiners may not be an issue.

I walk around the pond at night and see BG resting sleeping on the bottom. An expert would have to say for sure, but I have always assumed the catfish catch a lot of prey while the prey is sleeping. Don't know where shiners hang out at night.

+1 I also believe CC do most of their feeding at night when their prey is less active. However, I have caught many CC in my life when fishing for bass during the day on crank baits, trolling or even on tube jigs when fishing for crappie so I think they can put on a burst of speed when they want too.

One thing I do have experience with is catfish ponds. Of the 3 different ponds stocked and re-stocked over the years one thing I have found is that channel catfish and blue catfish alone don't control bream population well. I think they eat more stuff off the bottom and dead fish than actual live fish. As far as the blue cats go, We've always had some in our catfish ponds. They just don't seem to do any more than channels as far as eating other fish. That's just my experience. One of my cousins would inevitably put some bream in the catfish ponds and within a few years there were thousands of tiny bream. I think some people assume since they are as big or bigger than flatheads that they feed like them. I just have not seen that. We always catch them on either liver or cut bait. I have seen channels hit a bass lure, but I've never seen a blue hit one. The only drawback to them I have found is if you catch them when it's hot, they often die where channels don't seem to be hurt by heat as much and they don't seem to get nearly as big in a pond for some reason as they do in rivers and lakes. Don't get me wrong, common sense dictates that they will eat more of the fish just based on size, I just don't think it will make a difference.

Anyway, what what my situation really boils down to is that I don't want to be paying for pellet feed just to see shiners eat half of it. That's pretty much what is happening now. In the past, I would just nuke the pond and start new, but it would be such a waste with such a nice population of sunfish.

That sunfish caught by your in-law does look to have longear sunfish genetics. Your observations about blues and channels in your ponds is interesting. More research needs to be done on feeding habits of catfish in ponds with ample numbers of various types of forage fish. Thanks for sharing your past experiences.

No, thank you. Cats are about all I know about. If this pond holds up, it will be the first one I've had that has good bream in it. I'm glad I posted here because I had no idea HSB would eat feed over fish! If I put in LMB and, in a few years, I decide I don't want them in there, how hard is it to catch most of them out?

Only have limited fishing experience to date, but ditto your comments.